Tanzania, Africa travel resource.

Tanzania,Africa.

Tanzania is still gloriously wild. Roads run through it, of course, and it's spotted with campgrounds and lodges. But mostly the wildlife have it to themselves: huge herds of elephants and wildebeests, flocks of flamingos, silent families of giraffes, noisy packs of wild dogs. Lions have no trouble finding lunch; zebras skitter about, worried they'll be lunch; vultures wait to clean up.
The wild remains wild because it is protected. Almost 25% of Tanzania is designated as national parks and game reserves -- from the Serengeti in the north, which sweeps uninterrupted from neighboring Kenya's Masai Mara National Reserve, to Selous in the south, with its long distances and large variety of animals. No area is more protected, by geography as well as by permit, than the Ngorongoro Crater, whose steep walls create a separate ecosystem with its own representative collection of animals. Combined, the crater, Serengeti and the Masai Mara represent one of the world's most important ecosystems, and it is estimated that some 3 million large animals inhabit this region. Many of them move around the plains of East Africa on the annual wildebeest migration, the largest movement of animals on Earth. Because these spaces are protected -- and because they are so wild -- the best way to see them is by guided tour, locally known as safari, which in Swahili means journey. (And at Ngorongoro, you can't go on your own.) Even the most adventurous traveler will benefit from the guides' expertise: They know where the animals are, and they can take care of entry to the parks quickly and efficiently.