Tanzania

Northeastern Tanzania’s highlights are its coastline, its mountains and its cultures. These, combined with the area’s long history, easy access and lack of crowds, make it an appealing focal point for a Tanzanian sojourn.

For most visitors Zanzibar Town means Stone Town, the historic quarter where you can wander for hours through a maze of narrow streets, easily losing yourself in centuries of history.

Zanzibar Island is a jewel in the ocean, surrounded by beaches that rate among the finest in the world. Here you can swim, snorkel or just lounge the hours away, while shoals of luminous fish graze over nearby coral gardens and pods of dolphins frolic offshore.

Tanzania’s second-largest city, and the lake region’s economic heart, Mwanza is set on Lake Victoria’s shore, surrounded by hills strewn with enormous boulders. It is notable for its strong Indian influences, as well as for being a major industrial centre and a busy port. Yet despite its rapidly rising skyline, Mwanza manages to retain a casual feel. In addition to being a stop on the way to Rubondo Island National Park, Mwanza is a great starting or finishing point for safaris through Ngorongoro and the Serengeti, ideally as a loop by adding in Lake Natron.

Step off the boat or plane onto the Zanzibar Archipelago and you’re transported through time and place. This is one of the world's great cultural crossroads, where Africa meets Arabia meets the Indian Ocean.

Time seems to have stood still in Tanzania's sparsely populated southeast. It lacks the development and bustle of the north, and tourist numbers are a relative trickle. Yet, for safari enthusiasts and divers, and for adventurous travellers seeking to learn about traditional local life, the southeast makes an ideal destination.

Lejon, elefanter, fåglar och fauna. Genom barnets ögon blir savannens vilda djur och natur ännu mäktigare och även de små fynden blir storslagna. Vagabonds Roger Borgelid tog med sig sin dotter på safari i Tanzania.

Lake Manyara National Park is one of Tanzania’s smaller and most underrated parks. While it may lack the size and variety of other northern-circuit destinations (there's pretty much one main north–south route through the park), its vegetation is diverse, ranging from savannah to marsh to evergreen forest (11 ecosystems in all) and it supports one of the highest biomass densities of large mammals in the world. The chance to see elephant families moving through the forest or Lake Manyara's famous population of tree-climbing lions (although sighting them is becoming increasingly rare) are alone reason enough to come.

Det finns fler sätt att upptäcka Afrikas vilda djurliv som inte innefattar en varm och fullsatt jeep. Vi har listat tio udda sätt att åka på safari som gör resan ännu mer äventyrlig.

Central Tanzania lies well off most tourist itineraries, and that's just the way we like it. Exceptional and enigmatic, the Unesco World Heritage–listed Kondoa Rock-Art Sites, scattered across remote hills along the Rift Valley Escarpment, are the region's premier attraction. Not far away, Mt Hanang soars to 3417m and is a worthy climb, both for its own sake and for the chance to summit all by yourself. Both attractions also serve as gateways to the world of the colourful Barabaig and other tribes whose traditional lifestyles remain little touched by the modern world.