This route eases you into Tanzania with a gentle first stop close to Arusha, then builds up to two of the country’s biggest names, the Serengeti and the Ngorongoro Crater. It’s a good fit if you’d rather ramp up gradually than jump straight into a long transfer on day one.
We meet you at Kilimanjaro Airport and transfer you to your lodge near Arusha, around 45 minutes to an hour away. The rest of the day is free to rest after your flight. Dinner and overnight at your lodge.
After breakfast, you drive around 45 minutes to Arusha National Park, one of Tanzania’s smallest parks but one of its most varied, with Mount Meru, the Momella Lakes and the Ngurdoto Crater all inside its boundaries. It’s also one of the few parks in the north where you can go on a guided walking safari with an armed ranger, getting closer to giraffe, buffalo and zebra than a vehicle allows. The park has no real lion population, but its black-and-white colobus monkeys, giraffe and the flamingos on the Momella Lakes make it worth the stop. You have a picnic lunch inside the park and spend the full day here. Dinner and overnight at your lodge.
After breakfast, you drive to Lake Manyara National Park, around two to two and a half hours away. After a picnic lunch, you head out for an afternoon game drive. Lake Manyara’s groundwater forest, open grassland and soda lake pack a lot of habitat into a small park, and it’s known for its birdlife and for tree-climbing lions, which are seen here more often than almost anywhere else in Africa, though never guaranteed. Dinner and overnight at your lodge.
After breakfast, you set off for the Serengeti, a drive of around six to seven hours that passes through the Ngorongoro highlands and includes a stop at Olduvai Gorge, where some of the earliest known human fossils were discovered. You have a picnic lunch on the way and arrive in time for an afternoon game drive. Dinner and overnight at your camp.
After breakfast, you spend the full day exploring the park, returning to camp for a hot lunch before heading out again for an afternoon game drive. The Serengeti’s plains hold large numbers of lion, elephant, giraffe, buffalo and the wildebeest and zebra herds that move through the ecosystem year round. Dinner and overnight at your camp.
After breakfast, you begin the drive back toward Ngorongoro, around three to three and a half hours, with game viewing along the way. En route, you stop at a Maasai village for a cultural visit, learning about the traditions of the communities who live within the conservation area, before having a picnic lunch. Dinner and overnight at your camp on the Ngorongoro highlands.
After an early breakfast, you descend onto the crater floor for a full day of game viewing, with a picnic lunch inside the crater. This is one of the best places in Africa to spot the black rhino, alongside lion, elephant, buffalo, hippo and dense numbers of plains game. You climb back out in the late afternoon. Dinner and overnight at your camp.
After breakfast, you drive back to Arusha or Kilimanjaro Airport, around three and a half to four hours, in time to fly home or connect onward to Zanzibar.
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