Horse Riding in Tanzania: Where You Can Ride, and Where You Cannot

The Rule That Shapes Everything

Horse riding in Tanzania does not happen inside the national parks. That is the first and most useful thing to know, because a great many visitors arrive assuming they can ride in the Serengeti.

National park regulations require visitors to remain in their vehicles except at designated places, and to keep to roads and tracks. There is no mechanism within those rules for a horse, and no riding product inside the parks. What exists instead sits in three other kinds of place, each with its own character:

• The Ngorongoro Conservation Area, which is a multiple-land-use conservation area rather than a national park, and which permits horse safaris under its own rules.
• Private land — ranches, farms and conservancies outside park boundaries, where the landholder sets the terms.
• The coast, where riding is a beach activity rather than a wildlife one.

Those are genuinely different products and the rest of this guide takes them in turn.

Riding in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area

This is the one with real wildlife and the one the authority itself documents. The NCAA describes horse safaris in the conservation area as led by a qualified and well-trained guide and accompanied by a game ranger, whose job is the safety of the group.

The authority names the country these rides cover: around Nasera Rock, Lemuta and Olkarien Gorge, on the Ngorongoro plains near the Gol Mountains.

That list is worth pausing on, because it explains why riding here is not simply a game drive on horseback. This is the north-eastern, open side of the conservation area — short-grass plains, isolated rock outcrops and a gorge that is a significant raptor breeding site. It is a long way from the crater, it has almost no vehicle traffic, and much of it is country you would otherwise only cross on foot. Riding covers ground at a useful speed for terrain like that, which is the whole argument for doing it.

Being on a horse also changes how animals respond. Plains game that would move off from a vehicle will frequently tolerate a horse at closer range, because the silhouette reads as another large grazing animal rather than as a machine. That effect is the reason experienced riders seek these trips out.

The game ranger is not a formality. Riding among big game is done under escort because the mitigation for an encounter with something dangerous is to move, and that requires both a competent rider and an armed escort with authority over the group.

Riding on Private Land

Outside the parks and the conservation area, riding is arranged by whoever owns the ground. Ranches, farms and conservancies in the hinterland behind Arusha and Moshi, and on the plains west of Kilimanjaro, offer riding across open country with the mountains on the skyline and varying amounts of plains game about.

These arrangements vary too much to generalise beyond that, and this guide will not pretend to a precise account of who runs what. What is worth knowing is the shape of the questions to ask, because the answers differ enormously between properties:

• What game is genuinely on the land, as opposed to nearby?
• Is there an armed escort, and is it required?
• How are horses matched to riders, and is there an assessment before you go out?
• Are rides by the hour, the day, or as multi-day trips with a moving camp?
• What is the weight limit, and what tack is used — English or Western?

Multi-day riding safaris with a supported camp exist in Tanzania and are the most rewarding version of the activity, but they are a committed rider's holiday rather than an add-on to a wildlife trip.

Beach Riding on the Coast

Riding on Unguja and elsewhere on the coast is a different activity with a different appeal: an hour or two along the sand and through the shallows, usually at walk and trot, sometimes with the option to swim the horses.

It suits people who want to ride rather than people who want to see wildlife, and it is far more accessible to beginners than anything inland. Tide governs everything — beach rides run to the tide table rather than to a convenient hour, and on the east coast of Unguja the tidal range is large enough that a morning ride may be scheduled at what seems an odd time.

Two things worth checking before booking anywhere on the coast: whether hard hats are provided, and what condition the horses are in. Standards on beach riding vary widely across the region, and a visitor's willingness to walk away from a poorly kept yard is the only real pressure on that.

What Standard of Rider You Need to Be

This is where honest guidance matters more than encouragement.

Riding among big game requires genuine competence. The standard usually asked for is the ability to walk, trot, canter and gallop in control, to stay on a horse that shies, and to ride for several hours without becoming a passenger. That is not a formality and it is not negotiable, because the safety procedure in a serious encounter is to ride away from it in company. A rider who cannot do that at speed is a risk to the whole group.

Operations that take beginners exist, but they take them somewhere else — on enclosed land, on the beach, or on short rides through farmland without dangerous game. That is the right answer rather than a lesser one, and anywhere willing to put a novice on a horse among buffalo should be treated with suspicion rather than gratitude.

Expect to be asked about your experience in writing, and expect it to be checked in the yard before you go out. Overstating your riding is the single worst decision available here.

Practicalities

• Weight limits are real and firmly enforced, because the horses work at altitude in heat. They are usually stated at booking and are not flexible.
• Bring your own hat if you can. Provided helmets vary in fit and condition.
• Long trousers and boots with a heel. Half chaps help. Trainers are not footwear for a stirrup.
• Sun is the main hazard on an open plain — a hat under a helmet does not work, so use high-factor sunscreen, long sleeves and a buff.
• Altitude matters. Much of the riding country in the north sits high, and a long ride there is harder work than the same ride at sea level.
• Check the insurance. Many travel policies exclude horse riding, or exclude it above a certain pace. Read the exclusions rather than the summary.
• Neutral colours for anything among wildlife, as with walking.

When to Ride

The dry months, roughly June to October, are the best riding season across the northern plains: firm ground, short grass, long visibility and concentrated game. January and February are also good and generally hotter.

The long rains from roughly March to May are the worst of it. Ground becomes unsafe for anything above a walk in places, grass grows tall enough to hide both footing and animals, and riding programmes contract or stop. On the coast, riding runs year round and is governed by tide rather than season. Inland, the months that work depend on which rainfall regime the country you are riding in belongs to: the northern plains and the southern parks are on different calendars.

Rides are almost always early morning or late afternoon, for the horses' sake as much as yours.

Questions Travellers Ask