Arusha National Park

Arusha National Park sits beneath Mount Meru, less than an hour from town. There are no lions here, and that's exactly why you're allowed to walk. Walking is the reason to come.

It's the most overlooked park in northern Tanzania. Most visitors drive right past the gate on their way west without knowing it's there, because it isn't on the circuit and it doesn't promise the Big Five. What it gives you instead is three different landscapes in a single morning: thick mountain forest full of colobus monkeys, a collapsed crater grazed by buffalo, and a string of alkaline lakes dotted with flamingos, all beneath a mountain of 4,566 metres.

The practical case is even stronger. It's close enough to Kilimanjaro International Airport to fill an arrival or departure day you'd otherwise spend in a hotel. It's gentle enough for children, and for the first day of a trip when nobody has settled in yet. And it's high enough, and walkable enough, to be genuinely useful preparation if you're about to climb.

Arusha National Park is thirty to forty minutes from town, and almost nobody goes. Honestly, that's the whole case for it.

It's small, it has no lions and it has no migration, so it never makes the standard circuit. What it does have is three quite different landscapes stacked on top of each other. Oh, and you can walk in it.

It's the smart answer in three situations. A first or last day, when you've got hours instead of days and would otherwise be sitting in a hotel near the airport. An acclimatisation walk before Kilimanjaro, at altitude, on real ground. And a family with young children, because the drives are short, the giraffes are close and nobody is strapped into a vehicle for four hours.

There's a fourth, less obvious one, too. If the rest of your trip is seven days of sitting down, a morning on foot here changes the whole feel of it. You stop being a spectator behind glass and become part of the landscape, something the animals are aware of. Most people find that's what they talk about afterwards, well ahead of whatever they photographed from a roof hatch in the Serengeti.

The giraffes here are unusually relaxed and unusually plentiful, and the black-and-white colobus monkeys up in the forest canopy are a species you won't see in the northern parks at all.

One last practical note. Arusha National Park is the only park on the northern circuit where a guide can take you out of the vehicle as a matter of routine, not as a special arrangement. And that permission exists for one simple reason: there are no lions here. It's worth understanding the trade. You give up the animal most people come to Africa to see, and in return you get to stand on the ground with buffalo and giraffe and hear what the forest sounds like with the engine off. On a two-week itinerary, that's an easy trade to make for one morning, and it's why we keep suggesting it.

Giraffe. Masai giraffes in good numbers, and relaxed enough that you can approach on foot. That's a very different experience from photographing one through a roof hatch.

Black-and-white colobus. The reason a lot of people come. They live in the forest canopy along the Ngurdoto crater rim, and they're spectacular, with long white capes of fur, leaping from tree to tree. You won't find them in the main northern parks.

Buffalo, bushbuck, waterbuck and warthog on the crater floor, which you look down into instead of driving into. Vehicles aren't allowed on the Ngurdoto floor, and that's why the animals there are so settled.

Flamingo and waterfowl on the Momella Lakes, which are alkaline and change colour with their algae.

Elephant live here, but they're shy and you won't see them often.

No lions. Let's say it plainly: there are no lions in Arusha National Park. And that's exactly why walking is allowed here when it isn't allowed elsewhere.

There are three distinct areas in a park of about 550 square kilometres, and you can see all three in a single day.

Ngurdoto Crater is a collapsed caldera that formed perhaps fifteen million years ago. Its floor is a swampy grassland grazed by buffalo and warthog. Vehicles stay up on the rim and look down into it, and that's why the animals on the floor are so settled. Nothing has driven through it in decades.

The Momella Lakes are a string of shallow alkaline lakes fed by underground streams. Each one is a slightly different colour, because each holds a different mix of algae, and the flamingos move between them depending on what's blooming where.

Mount Meru makes up the western half of the park, and at 4,566 metres it's the second-highest mountain in Tanzania. Its summit crater is broken open on one side, leaving a horseshoe ridge with an ash cone standing inside it. It's one of the more dramatic mountain shapes in East Africa, and a serious three- or four-day climb if you're up for it.

On a clear morning you can see Kilimanjaro to the east, floating above the cloud. It takes people by surprise, because almost nobody arrives here expecting to see it!

None at all. Arusha National Park sits well outside the Serengeti ecosystem and doesn't see any part of the migration.

Why mention it? Because “migration” pops up on so many Tanzanian park pages that leaving it out starts to look like we forgot. We didn't. This park is all about forest, water, walking and Mount Meru, and it does those things better than the famous parks do.

Walking safaris with an armed ranger, and that's the single best reason to come. With no lions around, the risks are different, and you can get properly close to giraffe, buffalo and zebra on foot.

Canoeing on the Momella Lakes. This is one of very few places in northern Tanzania where you can get out on the water, paddling past waterbuck on the shore and flamingos in the shallows.

A game drive round the Ngurdoto rim and the lakes, which takes half a day at a gentle pace.

Climbing Mount Meru. A three- or four-day trek to 4,566 metres, staying in mountain huts, with an armed ranger for the lower forest sections. It's a superb climb in its own right, and the best possible acclimatisation for Kilimanjaro. And far fewer people do it.

Tululusia waterfall is a short forest walk away, and it makes a great goal for a family morning.

By road from Arusha, it's thirty to forty minutes. From Kilimanjaro International Airport it's around forty-five minutes. So it's the obvious thing to do on an arrival or departure day, when you'd otherwise just be sitting in a hotel.

Park fees are per person, per twenty-four hours, and they're some of the lowest on the circuit. Walking and canoeing have their own activity fees, plus a ranger fee.

As a day trip, it works really well, and yes, we run it as one.