Dar reigns in 2018 Africa’s best national parks ranking

By MARC NKWAME in Arusha 

THREE Safari Parks in Tanzania have been named Africa’s ‘Best National Parks in 2018,’ from the latest analysis conducted by authoritative global travel institutions and compiled by ‘Safari Bookings.’

Serengeti National Park, Selous Game Reserve and Ngorongoro Conservation Area have been named the continent’s best Safari destinations.

The entity conducted an indepth analysis of 2,530 reviews to determine the best African Safari Parks and with an outstanding overall rating of 4.9 out of 5, Serengeti, Tanzania’s second largest national park and the country’s oldest came out as ‘Number one.’

Serengeti also topped the Best Safari Parks list in 2015, when Safari Bookings last carried out the same analysis.

Rounding out the top three parks in the 2018 listing, were Mala Mala Game Reserve in South Africa and Mana Pools National Park in Zimbabwe, which jumped a spot higher in 2018 from the fourth position in 2015).In total, 139 parks in the 8 major safari countries were in consideration for a place in the top 50.

The analysis was based on 2,530 park reviews collected through the SafariBookings.com website. Some 1,670 reviews were contributed by safari tourists from 72 countries around the world.

The remaining 860 reviews were written by renowned industry experts, most of whom are guidebook authors working for Lonely Planet, Rough Guides,

Frommer’s, Bradt and Footprint. In addition to the Serengeti National Park, Tanzania had two other destinations that ranked high in the top-ten listing.

They are the Selous Game Reserve and Ngorongoro Conservation Area at number nine and ten, respectively. Classic forms of wilderness safari, the immediate presence of the big five species—including Lion, Elephant, Cheetah and Buffalo, the rare sighting of Black Rhinos, the spellbinding, wildebeest migration and spectacular sceneries and volcanic craters are among the qualities found in the top ranking Tanzania’s destinations.

Other top entries in the latest listing include Okavango Delta of Botswana; South Luangwa National Park in Zambia; Moremi Game Reserve from Botswana and Sabi Sand Game Reserve of South Africa.

On the eighth position is Kenya’s Masai Mara National Reserve, which is essentially a northern segment of Serengeti National Park that extends to the Kenyan side of the border and also receives part of the wildebeest migration from the south.