For a Crowd-Free African Safari, Head for Tanzania's Southern Circuit

An African safari doesn't have to mean a traffic jam. On this episode of Unpacked, host Aislyn Greene travels to Tanzania's southern circuit—visiting two parks most first-time safari-ers never consider—and discovers what happens when you trade the famous Great Migration crossing for a dry riverbed with not another human being in sight.

To get there, she consulted Elizabeth Gordon, co-founder of Extraordinary Journeys, who helped reframe what an African safari could be. What followed was eight days in Ruaha National Park and Nyerere National Park: a walking safari with a guide who reads the wind with a pouch of ash, a river full of hippos and crocodiles that Aislyn took to calling "danger soup," and a fly camp on a lake where a ranger stayed up all night speaking hippo so she didn't have to.

Come back next week for a bonus episode about what happens when a lion leaves the park—and meets a herd of cattle.

THIS WEEK'S GUESTS

Elizabeth Gordon is the co-founder of Extraordinary Journeys, a bespoke travel company designing African safari itineraries—and trips throughout South America and Asia—for travelers who want more than the standard route. Born in Kenya to a mother who joined the Peace Corps, earned her pilot's license, and built a house on a game park outside Nairobi, Elizabeth grew up between Kenya and France, studied in Beijing, and managed safari camps in Namibia before launching the company with her mother.

Pay Mbaryo is a walking guide and naturalist with Nomad Tanzania in Ruaha National Park. A farmer's son who grew up in the Gorongosa district, he has spent 15 years in the bush and navigates unmarked wilderness using what he calls a natural GPS. In a decade of guiding, he has never once had to use his rifle.

Gerald is a guide with Nomad Tanzania in Nyerere National Park, in his fourth year on the Rufiji River. He can identify a hippo's path out of the water by sight and smell—and he was the one who handed Aislyn a hippo skull to explain exactly why you don't want to be in that path.

IN THIS EPISODE

Why Tanzania's Southern Circuit—specifically Ruaha National Park and Nyerere National Park—offers a better African safari experience for first-time visitors than the Great Migration crossing: fewer people, better guides, and wildlife that doesn't know you're there

What a walking safari in Ruaha actually feels like: reading the wind with a pouch of ash, approaching a mother elephant and her calf without being detected, learning to make a toothbr