7-Day Tanzania Wildlife Safari through Serengeti and Ngorongoro

• Arrive anytime at Kilimanjaro International Airport (JRO). We will arrange a private transfer from Kilimanjaro International Airport to a lodge or hotel in Arusha.
• You will stay at a beautifully designed lodge or hotel, a perfect place to prepare for your trip.
• We will gather at the lodge or hotel for a pre-safari briefing.

• Early in the morning, we will drive to Tarangire National Park for excellent game viewing. Tarangire offers some outstanding sights. Generally, in the dry season, the park comes alive as wildlife and birdlife congregate along the Tarangire River, which is a permanent source of water.
• We will spend the night in our lodge, beautifully set inside the park with stunning views and a unique atmosphere.

Dinner and overnight at the lodge.

• Today, we will start our game drive early in the morning, catching up with the amazing groups of elephants and the rich wildlife within the park. After an early breakfast, we will enjoy a half-day game drive in Tarangire with a picnic lunch.
• In the late afternoon, we will drive to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. Ngorongoro is a special place because it is a Conservation Area, not a National Park. This means the whole area is managed for both the animals and the local Masai people, who graze their cattle alongside the indigenous wildlife. During the drive into Ngorongoro, we will have a chance to glimpse something of the Masai way of life.
• When we arrive, we will stop at the entrance gate, where there is an opportunity to learn more about this fascinating volcanic landscape. We will then drive around the rim of the crater itself, and from here we can look down and see herds of wildebeest or buffalos.
• Finally, we descend into the crater. The crater walls provide a natural sanctuary for the animals, which means there is plenty to see: lions, elephants, buffalo, rhinos, and leopards, if you are lucky.

Dinner and overnight at the lodge.

• We will be heading towards Serengeti National Park. On the way, there is an opportunity to visit Olduvai Gorge. 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.
• There is a small museum here, where we will see evidence of our ancestors dating back 2.5 million years.
• After lunch, we drive into the Serengeti itself, and the rest of the afternoon is spent game viewing across the vast plains, broken only by stands of acacia trees and the occasional kopjes. In December, January, and February, we will normally encounter the migration, with large herds of wildebeest, zebra, and gazelle.
• There are always plenty of resident animals as well, such as giraffes, buffalo, and elephants, along with many large predators including lions, cheetahs, and leopards.
• After our first day, we will go for a short game drive in Serengeti before returning to the camp to rest.

Dinner and overnight at the camp in Serengeti.

• We have another full day in this wonderful park, rising early to make the most of our time. Our guides will choose the best spotting locations for the time of year. We may spend time at the Hippo Pool, watching these majestic animals laze in the cool water alongside crocodiles, observe a big pride of lions, or find ourselves in the middle of the Great Migration, sometimes surrounded by wildebeest and sometimes by zebras, which travel with them.
• We will drive 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 we can look out across the vast grasslands of the Serengeti. This diverse and interesting landscape provides the ultimate game-viewing experience, and we will hopefully see many of the plains animals: elephants, giraffes, zebras, wildebeest, lions, and the elusive leopard and cheetah, as well as huge amounts of interesting birdlife, from elegant secretary birds to the flightless ostrich.
• We will return to our camp for the night in Serengeti.

Dinner and overnight at the camp in Serengeti.

• After a half-day game drive in Serengeti National Park, we will drive to Karatu for dinner and an overnight stay at a hotel or camp.

• Today, we will drive to Lake Manyara National Park.
• Late afternoon, we will drive back to Arusha and transfer to Kilimanjaro International Airport. This is one of Tanzania's smaller parks, but it still offers a rewarding and diverse safari experience. The lakeshore at Manyara teems with birdlife, and while you are looking for the birds, you might spot one of the elusive tree-climbing lions. There are also a surprising number of other large mammals, and the striking cliffs on the Rift escarpment form a dramatic backdrop.
• After lunch, we will drive from the park to Kilimanjaro International Airport (JRO).

End of safari.