READ ALSO: Half of a Yellow Sun Chapter Summaries: Chapter 13 & 14
Table of Contents
How Does Mikumi Park Compare to Other National Parks in Tanzania?
Mikumi National Park is the 4th largest national park in Tanzania and is an easy four-hour drive from Dar es Salaam (if you know how to navigate the heavy traffic leaving and entering town).
It shares an ecosystem with Selous Game Reserve, Tanzania’s largest game reserve (also one of the largest in the world) and animals travel freely between the two protected areas.
This is how, one September, when looking for a place to take my boyfriend (who had never been on safari) for his birthday, the obvious choice was to take him on a surprise visit to Mikumi National Park. (Mikumi National Park is one of the two closest national parks to Dar es Salaam. Saadani National Park is technically closer but more sparsely populated in terms of wildlife.)
Around the same time, one of my closest childhood friends and her recently-married husband were in Tanzania—it was her first time—so killing two birds with one stone, we decided to make a travel double date of it.
READ ALSO: Africa Spirits Limited & 3 Great East African Finds on Booking.com
My friend’s husband highly recommended a partially Swiss-owned hotel, Tan-Swiss Lodge (Booking.com Rating: 8.4/10 – Very Good), where he had stayed on a previous visit to Tanzania.
He told us we would be able to book our safari through them.
Following his recommendation, we made our accommodation and safari bookings online, paying for it upfront (which had me a little apprehensive at first) with a bank transfer.
On the appointed date, we left Dar es Salaam using a back route in order to avoid traffic.