Nyerere, Ruaha and Kitulo: The World Travel Awards finally recognizes Tanzania’s southern circuit parks
Tanzania’s biggest National Park, Nyerere, the country’s second biggest National Park, Ruaha have both made the first ever appearance at the World Travel Awards.
Ruaha made its global presence felt in winning the trophy for Africa’s leading cultural National Park.
Nyerere, on the other hand, bagged the trophy for Africa’s most scenic National Park.
On the other hand, Kitulo National Park, renowned for its varieties of flowery plants has finally made its presence felt across the globe by winning Africa’s leading honeymoon destination accolade at the 2025 the World Travel Awards.
The victories attained by Kitulo, Nyerere and Ruaha, indicate that the southern tourism circuit is opening up, because the three National Parks are located in the Southern Highlands regions of Morogoro, Iringa, Mbeya and Songwe.
For many years, the Tanzania Tourism industry was concentrated in the Northern Circuit where most tourists and awards would find their way to Kilimanjaro, Ngorongoro and the Serengeti, but this time around, the World Travel Awards have flown south.
Tanzania hosted the 32nd World Travel Awards Gala for Africa and Indian Ocean regions.
The event was held in Dar-es-salaam city, being the first time that the country got to stage the prestigious industry feat.
Nyerere which is essentially bigger than Lesotho is the largest National Park in East Africa.
It is also one of the newest National Parks having been formed in 2019 after being annexed from the vast Selous Game Reserve.
Nyerere features practically everything than any well-conserved park can offer.
Other than culture, Ruaha is surrounded by communities with rich history, while the park’s vast and mostly untrodden landscape offers plenty of undiscovered jungle secrets.
Two years ago, Ruaha discovered its own grand canyon which resembles an ancient city set deep in the jungle, in an area known as Magida, located some 70 kilometers from the National Park’s Headquarters, the astounding place is made up of high rising boulders that look like ancient buildings towering several storeys high.
As for Kitulo, the National Park raises the bar of nature-based safari by turning the visitors’ focus into flora other than the usual fauna offered through wildlife game drives.
Whenever the seasons permit, Kitulo can get very colourful, as petals dotting the southern National Park start to bloom.
Other than the assorted flowers various wildlife species can also be spotted in the floral park.
The landscape also doesn’t disappoint, waterfalls, some hills and valleys all add romance to the already romantic National Park which looks like was specially created for honeymooners.