Introduction
Arusha is the starting point of the northern safari circuit and the town almost every visitor to Tanzania passes through without seeing. The region behind it holds the Ngorongoro Crater, the archaeological ground at Olduvai Gorge, and Mount Meru — a serious mountain overshadowed entirely by the more famous one next door.
Overview
Nearly every northern-circuit safari is arranged, provisioned and begun in Arusha, which gives the town a particular character: it is full of outfitters, guides, curio markets and people either about to leave for the parks or just back from them. Most visitors see it for one night at each end. That is a reasonable use of it, but the region deserves more attention than the corridor treatment implies, because the crater is here. Ngorongoro is a collapsed volcanic caldera roughly twenty kilometres across with its own permanent population of wildlife on the floor, and it delivers the densest concentrated game viewing in the country — it is also the single most vehicle-heavy place on the circuit, and both of those things are true at once. Beyond it, the same conservation area holds Olduvai Gorge, where the fossil record of early humans was substantially rewritten, and the shifting sands and Maasai settlements of the highland plains. Closer to town, Arusha National Park wraps around Mount Meru, a 4,566-metre volcano that is a serious climb in its own right and the best acclimatisation available before Kilimanjaro. The region works either as a gateway to be moved through efficiently or as three or four days in its own right, and the second reading is the one most itineraries miss.
Discover Arusha
The crater is a caldera — the collapsed remains of a volcano that was once, on the usual estimate, as tall as Kilimanjaro — roughly twenty kilometres across, with walls several hundred metres high and a floor of grassland, soda lake, swamp and acacia woodland. What makes it extraordinary is that the wildlife largely stays: unlike the open Serengeti, the crater holds a resident population year-round, including one of the densest lion concentrations anywhere and a small number of the black rhino that are difficult to see elsewhere in the country. A morning on the floor reliably produces more species in a few hours than a full day elsewhere. That density is also why it is busy. Vehicles descend on a controlled but substantial scale, the good sightings gather traffic quickly, and anyone expecting solitude has come to the wrong place — the southern parks guide covers where to find that instead. Go early, accept the company, and take the crater for what it is: a contained, spectacular, slightly zoo-like hour of Africa that nowhere else can match for sheer density. It is also worth understanding that the crater is not part of the migration, which passes across the plains beyond it — the two are separate propositions and the migration guide explains where the herds actually are month by month.
Ways to Experience This Destination
A twenty-kilometre caldera with resident wildlife year-round, the densest game viewing in the country and the vehicles that come with it.
Olduvai Gorge, where layered deposits reshaped the understanding of human origins, with excavation still under way.
A 4,566-metre volcano with a crater-rim route, steeper and quieter than Kilimanjaro and the best acclimatisation before it.
Arusha National Park's guided walks, colobus monkeys, the Momella lakes and flamingo within an hour of town.
Highland coffee farms, a central market, a contemporary African art collection, and the place every safari is provisioned.
Frequently asked questions
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