Arusha
The town under Mount Meru from which every northern safari starts — and where what you arrange on the first evening decides what the rest will cost
- When to go
- October 20° · 7 rainy days
- Per day
- €€price 2 of 5
- How many days
- 1days
- For you
- 6 questions →
- Nearest airport
- 6 km Arusha · 44 km Kilimanjaro
- Right now
Arusha is a town you do not stay in but leave from: a safari on the northern circuit, a climb of Meru or Kilimanjaro, a flight to Zanzibar. One day is enough to settle what was not settled in advance — vehicle, guide, cash in dollars — and to sleep at 1,400 metres after a twelve-hour flight before setting off for the park at five in the morning.
The town is the centre of East Africa's safari industry and it shows: an agency on every corner, an open-roofed 4x4 on every street. This is where, if not done in advance, the whole northern circuit is arranged — Tarangire, Manyara, Ngorongoro, Serengeti — and the price depends on whether you go with a group assembled in the hostels or privately. Anyone booking ahead from Europe pays more but knows what they are getting; anyone arranging on the spot waits a day or two for a group to fill and saves a third. Both work, with one rule: an operator with a TATO licence and a vehicle seen before paying.
Kilimanjaro airport is fifty minutes east and receives the connecting flights from Europe; Arusha's town airport is for small planes to the Serengeti and Zanzibar. The town itself is a market, a central square with a clock tower claiming to be halfway between Cairo and Cape Town, and restaurants with nyama choma and Kilimanjaro beer. The natural history museum in the German fort and the Cultural Heritage centre, an art shop with a museum, are what you see in a day; the rest is shopping and sleep.
Arusha National Park is half an hour away and works as a warm-up: the Ngurdoto crater, the Momella lakes with flamingos, giraffes and colobus, and the one northern park where you walk with a ranger. Mount Meru in the park, 4,566 metres, is a four-day climb done as acclimatisation for Kilimanjaro or instead of it — technically harder, cheaper and empty. Anyone with a spare day before the safari spends it here.
What to see in Arusha
Arusha National Park
Half an hour from town: the Ngurdoto crater, the Momella lakes, giraffes, buffalo and colobus, and a walking safari with a ranger that is possible nowhere else in the north. Half a day or a full one; empty and cheap compared with the big parks.
Mount Meru
Tanzania's second summit, 4,566 metres, in Arusha park, with a ranger armed because of buffalo. Four days with huts, technically harder than Kilimanjaro and with a tenth of the people. Acclimatisation before Kili or a goal in itself.
Cultural Heritage
A shop and museum of African art in a drum-shaped building on the airport road, with Tingatinga paintings, Makonde carvings and tanzanite. Touristy, prices fixed, and the best place to shop before the flight.
The central market
A market of fruit, spices and kangas, where you buy what the safari needs — dried fruit, nuts, small shillings. In the morning, with a guide from the hotel if it is your first day in Africa.
The clock tower
The clock tower on the central square, with a plaque saying this is the midpoint of Cairo–Cape Town. A photograph and nothing more, but the square is the centre from which everything else is walked.
Coffee on the slopes of Meru
Coffee plantations north of town, with tours from bean to cup and lunch in a village. Half a day; the coffee is better than the hotel's and is bought on the plantation, not at the airport.
Two things you probably did not know
Arusha lies almost exactly halfway between Cairo and Cape Town. The town is the starting point for the Serengeti, Ngorongoro and Kilimanjaro, so nearly every safari in northern Tanzania passes through it.
The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda sat in Arusha from 1994 to 2015. That made the town the seat of several regional institutions, and it is called the diplomatic capital of East Africa.
Ready for Arusha?
Within reach from here
Places sorted by straight-line distance from Arusha — day trips or weekends.
Tanzania
→The Serengeti, Kilimanjaro and Zanzibar in one country — and three different bills: the safari by the day, the mountain by the night, the island by an insurance paid at the door
Kenya
→A safari charged by the day, not by the trip — a reserve whose gate fee doubles in July, while a whole trip costs only half as much more
Mauritius
→An island where you do not choose a hotel but a coast — west for sunsets and calm sea, north for nightlife, east for wind, south for kitesurfing
South Africa
→A country of long distances and reversed seasons, driven on the left throughout
All 277 places we write about sit on one page — narrow them down by continent, country, price or what you are travelling for.
Within reach from here: Kilimanjaro, Amboseli and Ngorongoro
See how much of that actually suits you — or pin Arusha if you have been.
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