Southern Secrets Safari 5 Days

Morning pickup from your Dar es Salaam hotel or airport at 8:00 AM for the four-hour drive south to Nyerere National Park via Kibiti, where a lunch break refreshes before the final run to the park. You arrive in the early afternoon. Time to check in, orientate and then head straight to the river for the evening boat safari on the Rufiji. The Rufiji at sunset is one of Africa's defining wildlife experiences: hippo pods surfacing alongside the boat, crocodiles on every sandbank, fish eagles calling from the riverine trees and the vast miombo woodland turning gold in the evening light.

A full Nyerere day dedicated to the park's most remarkable wildlife. Beginning with wild dog tracking in the early morning, when the packs are most active. Your guide uses radio network intelligence and decades of local experience to locate the packs in their vast territories. The full day circuit covers the lake systems, the open grassland, the riverine forest edges and the miombo woodland zones. Each habitat delivering different species and different wildlife behaviour. Picnic lunch in the park. A second boat segment or sundowner drive along the Rufiji closes the day.

The day starts before dawn. The armed ranger walking safari through the Selous Forest as the bush comes to life around you. Tracking, listening, reading the landscape at foot pace. Return to camp for a full breakfast, then the drive to Mikumi National Park. A 6-hour journey with a packed lunch en route through the remote southern Tanzania countryside. Arrive in Mikumi for the afternoon game drive. The Mkata plain delivering the open-plains contrast immediately after the intimate forest world of Nyerere.

A full day in Mikumi's open plains. The classic southern Tanzania game drive with the freedom of a private vehicle and a full day to work every circuit. The hippo pool, the Mwanambogo Dam, the flood plain grassland, the woodland edges. Each area rewards patient driving. The morning is for predators: lion prides resting in the shade, the occasional cheetah on the open ground. The afternoon is for the herds: zebra, wildebeest and buffalo in their thousands across the flat grassland. A picnic lunch at a scenic spot in the park.

Early breakfast and a final en route game drive through Mikumi as you depart. Early morning wildlife activity at its peak as the park wakes up. Then the drive back to Dar es Salaam with packed lunch, arriving at your hotel, the ferry terminal or Julius Nyerere Airport in the afternoon, five days after the journey began.