Ruaha National Park is one of the few famous wilderness areas in Tanzania where one can have a rare experience of game viewing spiced up by the fascinating landscape. It is Tanzania’s largest national park, a vast wilderness in the south-west of the country visited by only a handful of travellers each year.

Ruaha has a high diversity of plants and animals including elephants, buffalos, antelopes and some of rare and endangered species like African wild dog. The park serves as water shade both for wildlife and human being. This makes it to be economically significant as it supports agricultural activities down stream and contributes to hydro- electric power (HEP) for the country at Mtera and Kidatu dams.

At the park’s heart is the Great Ruaha River

The Great Ruaha River as other rivers like Mwagusi, Jongomero and Mzombe save as the life line of the park. During dry season, these rivers become mostly the main source of water for wildlife. There are few natural springs saving the same purpose.In the pick of dry season, elephants obtain water from dry sand rivers using their front feet and trunks. The remaining water falls along the Great Ruaha River are also important habitat for hippopotamus, fish and crocodiles.

Converging with the Great Ruaha are hundreds of sand rivers, natural game corridors when dry and sparklingly clear streams when wet. Waterbuck, impala and the world’s most southerly Grant’s gazelle risk their lives for a sip of water – the shores of the Ruaha are a permanent hunting ground for lion, leopard, cheetah, jackal and hyena. Ruaha’s elephants are recovering strongly from ivory poaching in the 1980’s and remain the largest population in East Africa. Ruaha represents a transition zone where eastern and southern species of flora and fauna overlap.

The park being rich of plants and animals such as Greater Kudu (Tragelaphus strepsiceros) which can not be found in any other national park, she boasts of her almost untouched and unexplored ecosystem, making visitors’ safari experience very unique.

Traveling to Ruaha National Park will give you a truly rare experience- a very close safari experience.