This route covers Tanzania’s northern circuit at a comfortable pace, with private guiding throughout and a stay in luxury tented camps and lodges. You travel in a 4×4 safari vehicle with a pop-up roof for game viewing, moving between Lake Manyara, the Ngorongoro Crater, the Serengeti and Tarangire, all within a loop that starts and ends in Arusha.
Pickup is at 08:00 from your Arusha lodge. The drive to Lake Manyara takes around two to two and a half hours, covering roughly 120km. Though small, Lake Manyara is one of Tanzania’s most varied parks, with a groundwater forest, open grassland along the lake shore, and the wall of the Great Rift Valley as a backdrop. You have a picnic lunch inside the park, then continue with an afternoon game drive, watching for the park’s more than 350 recorded bird species and its elusive tree-climbing lions. Dinner and overnight at your lodge.
An early game drive at 06:30 covers more of Manyara before breakfast. Around 09:00 you leave for the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, a drive of about two hours. Unlike a national park, Ngorongoro is managed for both wildlife and the Maasai communities who graze cattle here, and you’ll likely pass herds and herders on the way in. After a stop at the entrance gate, you drive along the crater rim before descending onto the crater floor in the early afternoon. The crater’s walls create a natural enclosure that holds dense numbers of lion, elephant, buffalo, rhino and, with luck, leopard. Giraffe are rarely seen here, since the steep crater walls are too much for their long legs. You climb back out in the late afternoon. Dinner and overnight at your lodge on the crater rim.
After breakfast at 07:30, you drive around 30km to Olduvai Gorge, known as the Cradle of Mankind for the early hominid fossils uncovered here, some dating back nearly two million years. From there it’s a further two to two and a half hours to Central Serengeti, arriving in time for lunch. Serengeti means endless plains in the Maasai language, and its scale is hard to grasp until you’re standing in it. An afternoon game drive follows. Dinner and overnight at your camp.
Morning and afternoon game drives cover different parts of the park, home to some of the most varied wildlife on the continent, from wildebeest, zebra and gazelle herds to elephant, giraffe, buffalo, lion, leopard, cheetah and hyena. Depending on the time of year, this is also where the wildebeest migration moves through, heading toward Kenya’s Maasai Mara before circling back later in the year. An optional hot air balloon ride over the plains at sunrise can be arranged at an added cost. Meals and overnight at your camp.
After breakfast at 07:30, you begin the drive to Tarangire, around five to six hours, passing back through the Ngorongoro highlands. Along the way, your guide can arrange a stop at a Maasai boma, where you can see how Maasai families live within the conservation area. You arrive at your lodge in the early evening, with time for a short game drive if daylight allows. Dinner and overnight at your lodge.
Morning and afternoon game drives explore Tarangire, one of Tanzania’s less-visited parks but a strong one for elephant herds and dramatic baobab trees. Meals and overnight at your lodge.
A game drive from 06:00 to 08:30 catches the park at its most active, before you return to the lodge for breakfast and checkout. Depending on your onward flight time, there may be time for further game viewing on the way out. The drive back to Arusha takes around two hours, and we drop you at your hotel, Arusha Airport or Kilimanjaro International Airport (JRO) as needed.
Safari rates change with the season, number of travellers and available accommodation.
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