A Tanzania Safari Adventure with Peace of Mind

Smart travelers know taking a few simple precautions can make a trip infinitely smoother and brings welcome peace of mind. Photocopying passport pages and tucking them into your luggage, leaving contact info with friends and relatives, and double-checking what kind of outlets are in the hotels are little things that ensure you get to enjoy your adventure no matter what happens.

Another great way to guarantee that your journey is worry-free: choosing the right destination.

A Tanzanian safari adventure comes with built-in peace of mind. That’s because the country has such a longstanding reputation of political stability that it’s earned the nickname “Africa’s Switzerland.”

The country’s reputation is so strong, in fact, that even other African countries look to it as a safe, neutral space. Rwanda held its years-long criminal tribunal hearings in Arusha, Tanzania, because it was considered far-and-away the most stable place in East Africa.

Unlike many of its neighbors, in fact, Tanzania has never faced any political instability in the over 50 years since independence. The reason, somewhat counterintuitively, is the abundance of different groups that call the country home.

With over 120 distinct ethnic groups, the largest of which (the Sukuma) makes up less than 20% of the population, Tanzania has always worked to be inclusive of different identities. Its people come from completely different backgrounds, oftentimes not even speaking the same first language. No one group can hope to control the country politically, so they all learned, decades ago, to work together.

It’s a strategy that has paid off richly. The country now boasts more than one million tourists annually. At Thomson, we send staff members every year—in over three decades in Tanzania, we’ve never had cause for concern!

The most recent Tanzanian election was just last year, in 2015. Of course you may not have heard about it; things went so smoothly, as always, that there wasn’t much to report.