Best Arusha City Tour in Tanzania: Top Sightseeing Attractions & Local Guide

Arusha is the starting city for safaris in Tanzania. Here’s a guide for a city tour during your itinerary gaps!

📍 **Cultural Heritage Center**
🗺️ Located on the western edge of Arusha
🎫 **Free entry**
✔️ **Africa Art Gallery (P1-3)**
Features an incredible collection of paintings and crafts by local artists—unmatched by anything you’ll see elsewhere on your trip. Most pieces are priced for sale, but 😅 they’re mostly in the tens of thousands of dollars.

✔️ **Jane Goodall Memorial (P4-5)**
From the book *We in Africa*, I learned about her work studying and protecting chimpanzees. This British wildlife researcher arrived at Gombe Stream National Park at 26 and worked there for nearly 50 years.
✔️ **Mask Gallery (P6-8)**
The mask exhibits are seriously cool!

✔️ **Souvenir Shop (P9-12)**
You’ll find everything here—fridge magnets, soapstone carvings, masks, small crafts, carpets, and even safari wear 🌚. But prices are heavily marked up, so it’s better to shop at the Maasai Market (more on that in the next post).

📍 **Natural History Museum (P13)**
🗺️ Near the city center clock tower
🎫 **$6**
🏛️ A small but charming museum—quiet, uncrowded, and absolutely worth exploring.
The white building dates back to the German colonial era and still has the prison doors used to detain the Maasai people. (It reminded me of *The Diary of Anne Frank* 😢… May there be peace in the world.

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𓀀 **One exhibit** focuses on human origins, with the most notable display being a real skull at the entrance 💀 (P14). (Many other items are replicas.)
🦁 **Another exhibit** features numerous animal specimens (P15), and there’s a taxidermy workshop in the courtyard (P16) where you can touch the finished pieces.

🐢 In the courtyard lives a 150-year-old Australian tortoise (P17) that loves neck rubs (just like petting a cat or dog). There are also many local leopard tortoises (later spotted in the wild in northern Serengeti) and their freshly laid eggs 🥚.
🌱 The **outdoor botanical area (P18)** is fascinating too, showcasing plants like coffee and cinnamon in their natural forms (you’ll encounter these often during safaris).

🛺 **Transport Tips**
**App:** Bolt (can register with a +86 number; online payments get discounts, but you can also pay offline at the standard rate).
**Options:** Cars, tuk-tuks, motorcycles.