Mikumi National Park

Mikumi National Park is fourth largest national park Tanzania, accessible primarily from Dar es Salaam. This park offers almost guaranteed wildlife sightings, which makes it ideal safari destination for travelers without much time for safari.

Located between the Uluguru Mountains and the Lumango range, Mikumi is a home to a wide variety of wildlife that can be easy spotted during game viewing. Most visitors come to Mikumi looking to spot the ‘Big Five’ (cheetah, lion, elephant, buffalo, and rhino), and they seldom leave the park disappointed. Hippo pools provide close access to these mud-loving giants, and bird-watching along the waterways is one of a kind. Mikumi borders the Selous Game Reserve and Udzungwa Mountains National Park, and the three form spectacular safari circuit.

Vast open horizons and rich wildlife of the Mkata Floodplain, extremely popular centre piece of Mikumi, draws frequent attention, similar to the much more famous Serengeti Plains.

Dappled by a excellent circuit of game-viewing roads, Mkata Floodplain is probably the most reliable place in whole Tanzania where you can spot mighty eland, the world’s largest antelope. There are also not much less impressive greater kudu and sable antelope gazing the foothills covered in miombo.

There are more than 400 bird species recorded within the park, with such common residents as the lilac-breasted roller, yellow-throated long claw and bateleur eagle joined by a host of European migrants during the rainy season. Hippos are the prime attraction of the pair of pools nested 5km North of the main entrance gate, surrounded by ever-changing flocks of water-birds.