Mikumi National Park
Mikumi, to the north of the Selous, is only 283 km away from Dar-Es-Salaam. The Park was established to protect the environment and resident animals and is also an important educational centre for students of ecology and conservation. The Mikumi flood plain is the main feature of the Park along with the bordering mountain ranges. Animals commonly found here include lions, elands, hartebeests, buffalos, wildebeests, giraffes, zebras, hippos and elephants. The Mikumi elephant are mainly grazers and does not cause tree damage. Lions roam the Mikumi plains and will take refuge in the branches of trees. Wild dogs can be seen in packs here. Mikumi vegetation includes woodlands, swamps and grasslands with two water holes, Mkata and Chamgore. Apart from the saddle-bill storks, hammer kops and malachite kingfishers, you will also find monitor lizards and a deadly pythons inhabiting the pools.

Ngorongoro Conservation Area
The Ngorongoro Conservation Area is a huge area containing active volcanoes, mountains, archeological sites, rolling plains, forests, lakes, dunes and of course, Ngorongoro Crater and Olduvai Gorge. The views at the rim of Ngorongoro Crater are sensational. On the crater floor, grassland blends into swamps, lakes, rivers, woodland and mountains - all a heaven for wildlife, including the densest predator population in Africa . The crater is home to up to 25,000 large mammals, mainly grazers - gazelles, buffalos, elands, hartebeests and warthogs. You will not find giraffes, as there is not much to eat at tree level, or Topi, because the competition with wildebeest is not too fierce, nor will you find impalas. The crater elephants are strangely, mainly bulls. There are a small number of black rhinos here too. The birdlife is largely seasonal and is also affected by the ratio of soda to fresh water in Lake Magadi on the crater floor. In the northern, remote part of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, you will find Olmoti and Empakai Craters, Lake Natron and Oldoinyo Lengai, Mountain of God , as named by the Maasai. Lake Natron is the only known breeding ground for East Africa 's flamingoes.

The ruins of a terraced stone city and complex irrigation system lie on the eastern side of Empakai - the Engaruka Ruins. Their origins are a mystery as there is no tradition of stone building in this part of Africa .

Olduvai Gorge
Olduvai, more accurately called Oldupai after the wild sisal in the area, is the site of some of the most important fossil hominid finds of all time - "Nutcracker Man" or Australopithecus boisei who lived 1.75 million years ago - by Leaky. There is a small informative museum located at the visitor center. The gorge is a treasure trove of archeological sites filled with fossils, settlement remains and stone artifacts. Lecture tours are offered.

Ruaha National Park
The Kisigio and Rungwa River Game Reserves and Ruaha National Park total a protected area of 25,600 sq. kilometers. Ruaha is Tanzania 's second largest national park and one of the wildest. Crocodiles, hippos and clawless otters soak and play in the water and on the banks of the great Ruaha River . Reedbucks, waterbucks and buffalos drink, ever watchful for lions, leopards, jackals, spotted hyenas and hunting dogs. The grassland borders of the River are home to greater and lesser kudus, a large elephant population, elands, impalas, Grant's gazelles, dik-diks, zebras, warthogs, mongooses, wild cats, porcupines and the shy civets. There are plenty of Eurasian migrant birds on their outward and return journeys as well as resident kingfishers, plovers, hornbills, green wood hoopoes, bee-eaters, sunbirds and egrets. The best months to go are between July and November when the animals are concentrated around shrinking water holes.

The Selous Game Reserve
Tanzania is home to one of the single largest remaining elephant populations in the world. Most of these elephants are found in the remote and wildly beautiful Selous Game Reserve, a World Heritage Site. The name was derived from hunter-explorer Frederick Courtenay Selous, a keen naturalist and conservationist as well as a hunter. He was killed in the First World War in the Beho Beho region of the Reserve. Larger than Switzerland in size, the Reserve is the largest in Africa and is second only to the Serengeti in its concentration of wildlife. The Reserve has a varied terrain of rolling savannah woodlands, grassland plains and rocky outcrops. Buffalos, crocodiles, hippos and wild dogs can also be seen here. The Reserve can be reached from Dar-es-Salam by road, air charter, and rail (Tazara) and the best time to go is in the cool season between the end of June and the end of October. Walking safaris can be taken from the camps in the Reserve, in the company of an armed guard.

Serengeti National Park
The Serengeti is one of the world's last great wildlife refuges. This vast area of land supports the greatest remaining concentration of plain game in Africa , on a scale unparalleled anywhere else in the world. The name comes from the Maasai 'Siringet', meaning endless plains. Equal in size to Northern Ireland , the Park contains an estimated three million large animals, most of which take part in a seasonal migration that is one of nature's wonders. The annual migration of more than 1.5 million wildebeests as well as hundreds of thousands of zebras and gazelles is triggered by the rains. The wet season starts in November and lasts until about May. Generally the herds congregate and move out at the end of May. Their movement is a continual search for grass and water - the moving mass of animals requiring over 4,000 tons of grass each day. The exodus coincides with the breeding season, which causes fights among the males. As the dry season sets in the herds drift out of the West, one group to the North, the other north-east heading for the permanent waters of the northern rivers and the Mara. The immigration instinct is so strong that animals die in the rivers as they dive from the banks into the raging waters, to be dispatched by crocodiles. The survivors concentrate in Kenya 's Maasai Mara National reserve until the grazing there is exhausted, when they turn south along the eastern and final stage of the migration route. Before the main exodus, the herds are a spectacular sight, massed in huge numbers with the weak and crippled at the tail end of the procession, followed by the patient, vigilant predators. The vegetation in the Serengeti ranges from the short and long grass plains in the south, to the acacia savannah in the centre and the wooded grassland concentrated around tributaries of the Grummet and Mara rivers. The western corridor is a region of wooded highland and extensive plains reaching to the edge of Lake Victoria . The Seronera Valley in the Serengeti is famous for the abundance lion and leopard that can usually be seen quite easily. The adult male lions of the Serengeti have characteristic black manes.

Tarangire National Park
The permanent water supply of the Park means that during the summer, the animal population here rivals that of the Serengeti with wildebeests, zebras, elands, elephants, hartebeests, buffalos, gerenuks, fringe eared Oryx and flocks of birds of many different species. Prime game viewing months are between September and December