Mikumi National Park | Tanzania National Parks
Mikumi National Park
I booked my safari holiday through Serengeti trips. They were the most helpful company I have ever dealt with and I work within the travel industry. I had the most amazing time. The holiday went as clockwork with no hitches anywhere.
Daear William, Just to let you know we had a great adventure at Mikumi National Park. All went well. Saw chimps every day and lots of them on first and last day.
When to Visit Mikumi National Park
Mikumi national park can be visited all year round given the fact there no activity that is affected by season. However the availability to visit the park all year round doesn’t deny that fact that there is indeed the best time to visit the park. The best time visit Mikumi national park is June to October, this because is usually dry season. during the dry season, the vegetation is not thick but rather thinner giving clear visibility for the wildlife, also in the dry season the water sources are few therefore its very predictable to see wild game that confined to water points as they immerse themselves in a bid to cool off after a long day or simple drinking water.
Also during the end of the dry season, it gets a little interesting as the huge of numbers/ herds of wild game is frequently in the park as they make their way to the few water holes in the park to have a blast in terms of a drink as well as cooling off, the most notable point is the hippo pools. The dry season usually ends in the month October and November.
Getting to Mikumi National Park
Safaris to Mikumi usually start from Dar es Salaam, and your point of entry for the country is Julius Nyerere International Airport (DAR). In most cases, your tour operator will pick you up from the airport and handle all further ground operations or domestic flights.
Mikumi is a four-hour drive away from Dar es Salaam and can easily be visited as a weekend get-away. However, most people visit Mikumi en route to Nyerere or Ruaha, the more popular parks in southern Tanzania. The only scheduled flights to Mikumi are with Safari Air Link which offers a daily connection to Ruaha, Selous, Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar.
If driving from Ruaha, the distance is about 320km/200mi, and the drive takes roughly five hours.
Activities in Mikumi National Paark
Activities at Mikumi national park. Mikumi has over time progressed to be a wildlife safari destination filled with amazing activities. And to its proximity to Tanzania largest city (Dar-es-salaam), it has increased traffic of travelers who clearly are interested on weekend gateways, short safaris usually suitable for those with limited time.
Some of the common activates at the park include.
Game drives.
For typical African wilderness safari, it’s not considered a safari if one doesn’t conduct a game drive as safari activities. The game drives at Mikumi national park offer the travelers an opportunity to explore and see the wildlife in their natural habitat/ setting, some of the prominent features to seek after in the game drive include the artificial hippo pools filled huge school of hippos swimming. The hippos pool as from time to time collect several herds of wildlife to mention giraffes, elephants, elands, zebras, hippos and many more. With the game drive, you will also encounter pride of lions and if you are lucky you could meet them on a hunt making kills.
Birding at the park.
On surveys conducted, especially the most recent one, the number of bird species at Mikumi national park is projected to approximately 500 bird species. The species ranging from migratory birds, savanna birds, water birds and many more. Some of the local Zanzibar red bishop, yellow throated long claw, lilac breasted roller, bateleurs eagle and open billed stork among the rest.
Camping
Mikumi national park has got two camping sites/grounds, offering public camping and private camping respectively. Both camping sites offer the same experience of camping irrespective of the difference in managements. The camping sites remain open all year round but the best time to camp is the dry season between the months of June and November. The private campsite is in vuma hills also known as campsite 5 while the public campsite is at Nkata plains also known as campsite 1,3.
Picnics & Nature Walks
Mikumi national park boasts of spectacular views, terrains and site deeming it an acentric wilderness arena for having the best of picnics, some of the thing to do in the picnics include has meals, games and many more. Nature is another way of getting acquainted with your environment, as it enables you see what your surrounding is composed mainly is in terms of features, wildlife and other environment details.
Where to Stay in Mikumi National Park?
Mikumi national park lodges are categorized in to three categories those are Luxury lodges, Mid-range lodges and Budget lodges. Its true that few lodges are located inside the park but most of them are found around the park.The main aim of categorization of the park lodges was to improve service delivery and upgrade the lodge standards to the world’s level. The rating is done in inform of stars from one star lodge to the 5 star lodges.
The one start lodges are the basic lodges mostly referred as Tented camps which are budget. The 2 to 3 stars are the mid-range lodges, these are inform of lodges and safari tents which are permanent. The difference between the budget lodges and mid-range lodges is mostly based on the size of the rooms, amenities found in the lodge, service delivery at the lodge, most of the midrange tents or lodges have self-contained rooms with both hot showers and cold showers.
Flashing good clean toilets that are private at the room and mostly located inside the park. The last category is the 4 to 5 star lodges that are known as high end or luxury lodges. This provide supper relaxing option for the guests. They are set on international level and mostly owned by international big companies across the world.
With us our guests enjoy the international level accommodation at the best prices, we have contract agreements with special rates that we give our guests. The company bargains on behalf of the guests. We also have continues firm trips to these lodges so as to assure constant service delivery to our guests. Why we are unique when it comes to selection of Mikumi national park lodges, we give all our guests who seem to be budget to stay in mid-range lodges. This has made us unique and providing excellent safari experience to the guests. The lifetime Mikumi national park safaris are not only affected by nature but starts from the type or kind of service delivery a guest gets from the lodge. This prepares their mind set on the next step of the trip hence achieving the best.
The location of the lodge directly affects the safari experience for example if you book a lodge which is more than one hour drive to the park gives the guest to get little time to explore the park hence ending up using more time on transit. With us we use some creterias when selecting Mikumi national park lodges for our guests.
The mostly used criteria is to find the location of the lodge. We make a visit to the lodge before we contract them to handle our guests, we normally prefer lodges inside the park or at worst if outside must be less than 30 minutes’ drive to the park. It must be located in place with easy accessibility to the park at any time of the day. It must also give our guests more time to explore Mikumi national park with no hurry to drive out due to the distance of the lodge. The other used method is checking on the service delivery, this is directly related to the professionalism of the lodge staff. However much the lodge might be inside or too close to the park but if your service delivery is poor then we will not consider that. Other factors to consider include the Amenities at the lodge
We mostly recommend our guests to stay in 3 star lodges and above due to the classic services offered. There is great value for your money when staying in Mid-range accommodations than in budget lodges. If you need supper relaxing accommodations then the luxury is the best option for you. However much the Mikumi national park lodges are scattered across but we always select the best for our guests that is we have served longer as the best local tour operators in Tanzania. The advantage the luxury lodges have is their super location at the heart of wildlife corridor at the park. Their rooms are fully furnished like No-frills Camp which has great location and among the only lodges that are found inside the park.
The fact remains that Mikumi national park lodges are not supper luxury as in international levels simple because the park is still behind on the accommodation facilities. The lodges are on solar system not electricity for example Stanley’s Kopje Camp which has 12 tents and located just four kilometers away from the main road of Tanzam Highway. Mikumi national park lodges are built using local materials so as to give guests the true wilderness experience. For you to get the accommodation inside the park you need to book very early in advance. Booking can be done through local reputable tour operator who at most provide all inclusive Mikumi national park safari packages. You can also contact the lodge directly and they give you the availability of their rooms. The cancellation policy deffers from lodge to lodge and also on how you booked the lodge if using tour operator they have their own contract agreement which highlights their terms and condition of cancelling the booking. But mostly there is a charge basing on how many days left for your booked dates. Percentages are charged depending on the period left for your check in.
When choosing the Mikumi national park lodges, you consider accessibility. The park has poor road network making some lodges only to be accessed during dry season andn ion wet season no hence making their operation to be seasonal for example Stanley’s Kopje camp it only works during dry season in in the rainy season the camp is closed due to hardness to acess. During the rainy season most guests are advised to book lodges around Mikumi town and just walk to the park. Some of the luxury lodges found at the park include Mikumi wildlife Camp, Vuma Hills Camp and many more.
BEST MIKUMI SAFARI TOURS
Mikumi National Park borders Selous Game Reserve on the south, the two areas forming a unique ecosystem.Two other natural areas bordering the national park are the Udzungwa Mountains and Uluguru Mountains.
Malundwe Mountain is within the park, the highest of a belt of hills that run east and west through the park, connecting the Uluguru Mountains to the northeast with the Uvidunda and Udzungwa mountains to the west. Malundwe Mountain consists of three peaks along a ridge running north and south. Malundwe’s south peak is the highest point in the park, reaching 1290 meters elevation.
The Mikumi National Park near Morogoro, Tanzania, was established in 1964. It covers an area of 3,230 km² is the fourth largest in the country. The park is crossed by Tanzania’s A-7 highway.