Tarangire National Park

Tarangire is a landscape lover’s Eden, an animal fancier’s Nirvana, and a balm for lovers of quietude in the midst of great natural exuberance.

Tarangire National Park’s wonderfully varied landscapes — rocky outcrops, rolling hills, golden savannah generously strewn with acacias and the park’s trademark baobabs — are home to just about all of the African Safari headliner beasts, including a large and robust elephant population, a coterie of tree-snoozing lions, and rare stars such as the fringe-eared oryx and the long-necked gerenuk, a particularly winsome and creatively constructed antelope. (Also of note: Tarangire’s 550 bird species and its outlandishly towering termite mounds, which may not sound terribly impressive, but are just about guaranteed to elevate the humble termite to the top of any traveler’s pantheon of amazing wildlife.)

We are forever enchanted by the “soft velvet” nights that Elspeth Huxley remembered at Tarangire, and its sky “[Like] a warm conservancy whose great dome was encrusted with all the diamonds in the world, and all the scents in the world were there too, changing like currents in the sea.”

Obama Safari