Road conditions from Mbeya to Arusha

Hi guys,

I am looking for the best road from Mbeya (or even better Iringa) to Arusha for our next trip in July 2016. The road from Iringa to Arusha always used to be a mess. But maybe (hopefully :-)) conditions have improved. We do have our own car. Anybody who has driven the road recently? Thank you!

Hi
We had pretty much no luck finding information on the state of the road. A contact in Arusha let us know that the road from Dodoma to Arusha was tarred last year.
So we decided to give it a bash.
We came from Zambia so I'll just give a description of the roads from the border for whoever happens to come across this post.
We crossed from the Nakonde/Tunduma border crossing from Zambia.
The road from the border to Mbeya was tarred, but there are fairly deep ruts made by the trucks. Good ground clearance is recommended if you don't want your car scraping on the bottom occasionally.
From Mbeya to Mafinga the road is in a reasonable condition. Occasional small ruts caused by trucks and a fair amount of shallow potholes (just the top layer of tar missing). Altogether not a bad stretch.
From Mafinga to Iringa the road is perfect. Areas with double lanes to pass trucks and no potholes, well painted and signposted.
Heading north from iringa to Dodoma was also fantastic tarred road. The first bit past Iringa is mostly villages very close to each other. All the speed bumps and speed changes will mean it's difficult to average more than 50km/h. It can get a bit frustrating because as soon as you pass through one village you can see the next 50km/h sign before you can even start accelerating.
Then you'll go through the mountain pass. The views are spectacular and the road is still in excellent condition. It is a long pass and very windy. There was almost no traffic on this road, but the incoming buses sometimes cut corners and got too close for comfort. But the road is more than wide enough.
Once you're down the pass and over the dam wall it's fairly quick and painless to Dodoma. Not to many villages and good road.
Now, going north from Dodoma to Kondoa is where is starts to get interesting. A little bit past the airport the road becomes bumpy gravel. Lots of potholes and quite slow.
The whole way from Dodoma to 18km before Babati is rough gravel road interspersed with pieces of the completed tar road. The tarred stretches are usually less than 3km at a time. The road is very bumpy and exhausting. It took 5 hours from Dodoma until the tar road before Babati.
It looks like we averaged about 50km/h for this part, but it felt much slower.
You definitely need good ground clearance for the road and 4x4 is recommended. Most of the road was dry, but if you happen to be here when it rains it would be far more difficult.
This road isn't great, but it isn't quite as bad as the descriptions I came across online from 2011/2012. It is definitely passable and not too difficult. Just slow.
From the bottom of the mountain pass before Babati (18km south), there is good tar road all the way to Arusha.
Altogether the trip from Mafinga to Arusha took just over 13 hours, but because of the bad road it feels more like 20.
Good luck

Hello Andrew Ferreirinha,

thanks a lot for that detailed description! Amazing how road conditions continue to umprove. When i Was in Tanzania for the first time in 2004, the only real tarred roads were the roads from Dar to Arusha and from Dar to the Zambian border. Since then road conditions have improved year by year! Thankdully! Good to know about the current state of the road! THanks a lot! This helps very much!!!

Hi Andrew,
Great post. Thanks for that. I'm planning on going from Dar, into Zambia, partly along the same route that you mentioned. Sounds like the road from Dar to the Zambian border at Nakonde/Tunduma is pretty OK. In Zambia we're going pretty much due west through Kasama and ultimately to Kawambwa (Luapula province) -- where I worked years ago. Wondering of you can shed any light onto the road conditions in Zambia and if you'd recommend a 4x4 or just a 2x4 with high clearance. Thanks so much! -APF777

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