Maps and navigation
Nyerere National Park map
Where the two gates are, which airstrip serves which sector, and what to load on your phone before the tarmac ends at Kibiti.
Download the official park map
Nyerere is enormous, roughly the size of Denmark, and almost everything written about it still uses the old Selous Game Reserve boundaries and place names. That matters when you are reading a map: the reserve was split in 2019, the northern section became the national park, and the hunting blocks to the south did not. A map that predates that split will show you roads and camps that are no longer part of the park you paid to enter.
Why there are no coordinates here
Every other park on this network carries a table of gate and airstrip coordinates. Nyerere does not, and that is deliberate. We could not find gate positions in any official TANAPA document, and the figures circulating on third-party sites disagree with each other by several kilometres. In a park this size, with no mobile coverage across most of it and a single graded road in from the east, sending you to a waypoint we cannot stand behind is worse than sending you with none. If you have GPS positions taken at the gates themselves, send them and we will publish them with your name on.
The two ways in, and why it matters which
- Mtemere Gate sits in the east and is the one almost everyone uses. From Dar es Salaam it is roughly 230 to 240 kilometres through Kibiti and Mloka, five to seven hours, tarmac as far as Kibiti and graded dirt after that. That dirt deteriorates badly after the March to May rains.
- Matambwe Gate sits in the north and is reached the long way round, about 350 kilometres via Morogoro, Mikumi, the Uluguru mountains and Kisaki. Reckon on a full day. It is the scenic route rather than the quick one.
- The lake circuit that most visitors come for, Manze, Nzerakera and Tagalala, lies in the east, closer to Mtemere. Arriving at Matambwe and expecting to be on the lakes that afternoon is a common and expensive mistake.
Airstrips, by sector
- Mtemere is the main strip in the east; its runway was recently extended to about 1.8 kilometres and it handles the bulk of arrivals.
- Matambwe serves the north and centre.
- Siwandu sits on the lake circuit and is the one most eastern camps transfer from.
- Beho Beho is private, Kiba and Sumbazi serve individual camps, and Kisaki lies at the northern end.
- Flights from Dar es Salaam take 45 to 60 minutes and run 300 to 500 dollars return. Coastal Aviation has historically flown up to three times a day.
- If you fly in but sleep outside the park, TANAPA charges a 10 dollar airstrip fee on top of the entry fee.
What to load before you leave the tarmac
- Download an offline map of the whole eastern sector before Kibiti. There is no usable signal past Mloka.
- Tracks4Africa is the most reliable for the tracks themselves; OsmAnd or Organic Maps work for the approach roads and are free.
- The park is cashless at the gate: entry is paid through the government GePG system or by card, not with notes. That is worth sorting before you are standing at the barrier without signal.
- Gate hours are not published by TANAPA. Tanzanian parks generally run 06:00 to 18:00 with no driving after dark outside a paid night drive. Unconfirmed for Nyerere.