• Depart from Arusha to Lake Manyara National Park. Although small in size, this park is one of the most diverse reserves in the country. Lake Manyara covers two-thirds of the park. At the backdrop is the wall of the Great Rift Valley, before which lies the groundwater forest, areas of open grassland near the lake foreshore, and the Soda Lake.

• Enjoy a picnic lunch in this area, which consists of open grassy areas, hot springs, dense woodlands, and steep mountainsides. Lake Manyara National Park is a birding paradise that has more than 350 species of bird. The park is also famed for its unique and elusive tree-climbing lions.

• Drive in the late afternoon to the campsite

Dinner and overnight at Nsiya Campsite: Full board.

• Head towards the Serengeti National Park.

• Grab an opportunity to visit Olduvai Gorge en-route. It is within this steep-sided ravine that Louis and Mary Leakey made some of the world’s most important archaeological discoveries in the 1950s. Here is a small museum we are able to see evidence of our ancestors that have been dated back 2.5 million years.

• Drive after lunch into the Serengeti itself.

• Spend the rest of the afternoon game viewing in the vast plains that are broken only by stands of acacia trees and the occasional kopje. In December, January and February, you will normally meet the migration with large herds of wildebeest, zebra, and gazelle. There are always plenty of resident animals, such as giraffe, buffalo, and elephant, and many large predators such as lion, cheetah, and leopard.

• Return to the special tented camp for the night.

Dinner and overnight at Serengeti Campsite: Full board.

• Enjoy another full day in this wonderful park, rising early to make the most of your time. The guides will choose the best spotting locations for the time of year; you can spend time at the Hippo pool watching these majestic animals laze about in the cool water happily living alongside the crocodiles, watch a big pride of lions, be in the middle of the migration, sometimes surrounded by wildebeest, sometimes by zebras, which travel with the wildebeest.

• Journey from the wide-open plains to the kopjes: these volcanic rocky outcrops provide protection and shelter for a wide variety of animals and from the top; you can look out across the vast grasslands of the Serengeti. This diverse and interesting landscape will provide with the ultimate in game viewing. You will hopefully see all of the plain games; elephants, giraffe, zebra, wildebeest, lions and if you are lucky the elusive leopard and cheetah, as well as huge amounts of the interesting birdlife, from the elegant secretary birds to the flightless ostrich.

• Return to the special tented camp for the night.

Dinner and overnight at Serengeti Ngiri Campsite: Full board.

• Start the day with an early morning game drive before heading to Ngorongoro Conservation Area. Ngorongoro is a special place in that it is a Conservation Area, not a National Park; this means that the whole area is managed for both the animals and the local Masai people who graze their cattle alongside the indigenous wildlife.

• Get a chance to glimpse something of the Masai way of life during the drive-in Ngorongoro.

• Descend into the crater. The crater walls provide a natural sanctuary for the animals, which means there is plenty to see: lions, elephants, buffalo, rhino, and leopard (if you are lucky). The only animal you won’t see here is a giraffe, whose long legs are unable to cope with the steeps sides of the crater.

• Travel back in the late afternoon to Arusha.

Dinner and overnight at Masailand Safari Lodge or similar: Half board.

• Drive directly after breakfast or lunch to Kilimanjaro International Airport for your international flight back home.