Ruaha National Park

Ruaha takes its name from the Great Ruaha River, the seasonal lifeline that carves the park’s eastern boundary and, in recent decades, has periodically run dry in its lower reaches during the driest months as upstream irrigation draws down the Usangu wetlands that feed it — a stark reminder of how tightly this ecosystem’s wildlife is bound to water. Expanded in 2008 to absorb the former Usangu Game Reserve, Ruaha is now Tanzania’s second-largest national park, sitting at the convergence of East African and southern African habitats: it is one of the only places where both greater and lesser kudu share the same baobab-studded escarpments. Lion prides here are large and confident, wild dog packs still range across the plateau in real numbers, and ancient baobabs — some centuries old — punctuate a landscape that, thanks to its remoteness, receives a fraction of the visitors of the northern circuit.