subject: The Remote Luxury Of The Selous And Ruaha National Parks [print this page] If you have already been to the Serengeti and the Ngorongoro Crater and you have understandably fallen in love with Tanzania then you might like to visit the Selous and Ruaha National Parks. These parks are situated in southern Tanzania and they offer the luxury of vast unexplored areas in which to game drive in complete privacy.
The Selous and Ruaha offer visitors mighty rivers, lakes and forests and expanses of plains in the national parks that are home to millions of plains game and numerous predators.
Unbeknown to many but the Selous National Park is the largest National Park in Africa. With it being over four times the size of Serengeti in total as land mass it accounts for 5% of Tanzania. With far less visitors per square kilometre, the Selous really offers a safari off the beaten track where you are unlikely to bump into other vehicles.
The Selous National Park has a very diverse landscape from hot volcanic springs, vast lakes, to winding tributaries from the Great Rhaha and Rufiji rivers. The Selous is one of the more protected areas of Tanzania and as such is untouched and just as nature intended. The reserve was named after Frederick Courteney Selous, a British explorer in East Africa who was killed in World War 1 in the Beho region of the reserve.
The Selous is well known for it's dense number of elephant which accounts for approximately 70% of Tanzania's total population of them. Other animals strong in number are hippo - with more than 40,000 enjoying the parks river systems. There are rhino in the park although they are not present in large numbers but there are areas where Wild dog flourish as do lion.
Often the Selous National Park is twinned with the Ruaha National Park as a safari combination. The Ruaha National Park is one of Tanzania's least accessible parks, although this may initially be seen as a negative on the positive side this does mean that the outcome is a totally untouched park without much influence from numerous lodges, camps or tourists and therefore the Ruaha remains one of the most exciting game reserves untouched as of yet by safari tourism.
The Ruaha has a very varied and fascinating topography with groups of wild fig trees, many strong impressive baobab trees and gorges full of orange sandstone. The landscape alone provides the solitary visitor with a visual treat which is then complimented further by the fabulous rich game viewing opportunities which are very often a private affair.
The rivers of the Ruaha are home to large numbers of hippos and crocodiles with the land animals featuring the reedbuck, waterbuck and buffalo, which are kept on their toes by predators such as - the lion, leopard, jackal, spotted hyena, and the distinctive African hunting dog.
Southern Tanzania offers a chance to explore a remote habitat both by game drive across the plains and walking safari with your armed guide, there is also the opportunity to explore by river boat along the Rufigi river.
