16-Day Tanzania Safari and Zanzibar Beach Holiday with Balloon Ride

• Arrive at Kilimanjaro International Airport (JRO), where your African safari begins in Arusha, the safari capital of Tanzania.
• You will meet a Matukio Adventures representative and transfer to your hotel in Arusha town for an overnight stay.

Meals: Bed and Breakfast
Accommodation: Mount Meru Hotel

• After an early breakfast, you will be picked up from the hotel at 7:00 am with a picnic lunch and drive to Tarangire National Park (198 km - 4 hours) for a game drive. Common animals found in this park include elephants, cheetahs, wildebeests, elands, zebras, lions, leopards, giraffes, tree-climbing pythons, and many species of birds. The park is also heavily dominated by huge baobab trees, some of the longest-living trees in the wilderness.
• Later in the evening, drive to Manyara to your hotel for dinner and an overnight stay.

Accommodation: Lake Manyara Serena Lodge

Meals: Dinner

• After breakfast, you will be picked up from the hotel for game viewing in Lake Manyara National Park. This impressive park is one of Tanzania's most dramatically located wildlife areas, consisting of a massive but shallow soda lake covering two-thirds of the park at the foot of the Great Rift Valley's western escarpment. The park's varied habitat attracts a wide variety of animals, including one of Africa's largest concentrations of elephants, Manyara's famous tree-climbing lions, and large flocks of flamingos drawn by the algae in the lake.

Accommodation: Lake Manyara Serena Lodge

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner

• After breakfast, you will head to Lake Natron. Just past Mto wa Mbu, you leave the asphalt road and continue along the East African Rift Valley on adventurous slopes.
• The drive passes Maasai villages and the holy mountain of the Maasai, Ol Doinyo Lengai. As soon as the Maasai village of Ngare Sero comes into sight, the lake is not far away.
• Lake Natron is home to a remarkable variety of birds, in particular about 2.5 million dwarf flamingos, and serves as a regular breeding ground for them. The water is strongly saline and supports unicellular algae and bacteria, which are responsible for the lake's striking red-brown to purple-violet colouring. The area around Lake Natron is one of the most beautiful and unspoilt regions in Africa.
• There, you have the option to hike to the lake and/or visit the nearby waterfalls, a true oasis. You will stay overnight at a campsite at Lake Natron.

Accommodation: Lake Natron Safari Lodge

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner

• After breakfast, travel to central Serengeti Seronera via Lobo in the north of Serengeti Park, crossing the Rift Valley escarpment with game drives and a picnic lunch en route.
• Lobo is where the trails of the Serengeti wildebeest migration pass, as the herds return to the Serengeti from Kenya's Maasai Mara.
• The Serengeti is famed for its incredible wildlife, stunning views, and the annual migration of over 1.5 million wildebeest and hundreds of thousands of zebras. In this frenzied bout of territorial conquest and mating, witness survival of the fittest as these animals plunge through crocodile-infested waters. The wildebeest give birth to more than 8,000 calves daily before the 1,000 km (600 mile) pilgrimage begins again. Dinner and overnight stay in central Serengeti National Park.

Accommodation: Shuhudia Adventure Camp (Tented Camp experience) in the Serengeti

Meals: Breakfast, Picnic Lunch & Dinner

• At 5:00 am, Serengeti Balloon Safaris will collect you from your tented camp and transfer you to the launching site near Masai Kopjes. Here, you will meet your pilot, receive a briefing, and watch the inflation of your balloon. At dawn, you take off as the sun rises and float in whichever direction the morning winds carry you.
• Your pilot can precisely control the altitude of the balloon, sometimes flying at treetop height and sometimes lower, offering a unique perspective and excellent photographic opportunities of the wildlife below.
• After breakfast, you will be taken to the Visitors Centre to meet your driver-guide and continue with your full-day game drive in the wilderness, following the Great Migration trails. Your experienced driver-guide will provide interesting facts about this highly renowned event, which makes Tanzania a top safari destination in Africa.
• Serengeti, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is home to around 200,000 zebras and 300,000 Thomson's gazelles, which join the wildebeest's trek for fresh grazing. Listen to the exotic sounds of over six million hooves pounding the open plains. This is just like you imagined Africa to be!

Accommodation: Shuhudia Adventure Camp (Tented Camp experience) in the Serengeti

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner

• After breakfast, head towards the Ngorongoro Conservation Area with a game drive en route. On the way, stop at Olduvai Gorge, a site boasting history dating back to the dawn of time. It was here that the anthropologists Drs. Louis and Mary Leakey discovered the skulls of the famous "Nutcracker Man" and "Handy Man," both very significant links in the chain of human evolution.
• Optional: You also have the possibility of visiting a Maasai village.

Accommodation: Ngorongoro Rhino Lodge

Meals: Breakfast, Picnic Lunch & Dinner

• Early in the morning after breakfast, drive to Ngorongoro Crater and descend 600 metres into this magnificent crater for a game drive.
• The Ngorongoro Crater is one of the most densely populated African wildlife areas in the world and is home to an estimated 30,000 animals, including some of Tanzania's last remaining black rhinos. Supported by a year-round water supply and fodder, the crater sustains a wide variety of animals, including herds of wildebeest, zebra, buffalo, eland, warthog, hippo, and giant African elephants.
• Another major draw of this picturesque national park is its dense population of predators, including lions, hyenas, jackals, cheetahs, and the ever-elusive leopard, which sometimes requires a trained eye to spot.
• Enjoy a picnic lunch in the crater, then drive to Kilimanjaro International Airport for your flight to Zanzibar. Upon arrival, you will be transferred to the heart of Stone Town, where you will spend the night.

Accommodation: Tembo Hotel at Stone Town in Zanzibar

Meals: Bed and Breakfast

• Stone Town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the most atmospheric and vibrant of all the remaining traditional Swahili settlements. Architecturally, it is a fusion of African and Arab influences, not unlike the medinas of Morocco, with narrow streets, twists, and turns. Culturally, modern Stone Town is a lively melting pot that welcomes visitors and offers fine dining and curious attractions without compromising its old-world charm.

Accommodation: Tembo Hotel at Stone Town in Zanzibar

Meals: Bed and Breakfast

• In the morning after breakfast, you will be picked up from your Stone Town hotel and transferred to the beach hotel, where you will spend the next five days at leisure, relaxing on one of Zanzibar's beautiful white-sand beaches and soaking up the sunshine.

Accommodation: Villa Juliana Hotel

Meals: Bed and Breakfast

• After breakfast or lunch, the driver will pick you up from the hotel and transfer you to the international airport for your flight back home. The tour ends at Zanzibar International Airport.

Meals: Breakfast/Lunch