A fantastic 11-nights safari that will give you the possibility not only to visit 5 of the most gorgeous places for a safari in Tanzania but also give you an extraordinary insight to different Tanzanian cultures like the Maasai and Hadzabe tribes. You will visit Arusha-, Tarangire- and Serengeti National Parks and spend a day in the marvelous Ngorongoro Crater. And if you chose to, also the Lake Manyara NP. This is a safari that gives you the best of the best.
Day 1, Welcome to unforgettable Tanzania!
Touch down. Jambo and welcome to unforgettable Tanzania! After clearing immigration and picking up your luggage, you will be warmly greeted by someone from our staff who will take you where the road ends – an approximately 1-1,5 hour drive. You have now reached the Original Masai Lodge, on top of a small hill with extra ordinary views over Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Meru. This is your home for the next couple of days.
Accommodation: Original Maasai Lodge
Meal plan: Half board
Day 2 , Live like a Maasai
Today you will have a one in a lifetime experience – you will spend your day as a Masaai. Starting of the day early by dressing up in Maasai cloth before walking across the savanna to a close by boma. Here you will milk the goats, cook over open fire, learn how to take care of the boma in general and much more that is essential in the everyday Maasai life.
Accommodation: Original Maasai Lodge
Meal plan: Full board
Day 3, Enjoy Arusha NP
Another early morning when it is time to leave the Original Maasai Lodge behind and continue your adventure. Your first stop for today is Arusha National Park. Even if it is a small park, it boasts a broad diversity of both landscapes and animals. The park also offers both walking safaris and canoe safaris so please let us know if this is something you are interested in, and we plan accordingly.
After lunch it is time to go on to the next stop which is Tarangire National Park where you will spend the next two nights.
Accommodation: Tarangire, Sangaiwe Tented Lodge
Meal plan: Full board
Day 4, Full day safari in beautiful Tarangire
The whole day is devoted to Tarangire, the sixth’s biggest of Tanzania’s totally 22 national parks. To fully experience your amazing surroundings, we recommend you start the day with an early walking safari. This is a perfect way to experience Africa with all your senses before continuing the day in your safari vehicle.
Tarangire National Park is a favourite among many driver-guides thanks to its beautiful and everchanging landscapes. Here you can find acacia woodlands, savanna, the river that has named the park but above all, hundreds of the “trees of life” – the Baobab tree.
Except for the Baobabs this park is mainly known for the large herds of elephants that’s roams here part of the year. Tarangire is also home to vast variety of species like the lesser-known fringe-eared oryx & gerenuk and the more common ones like zebras, wildebeests and giraffes. And yes, of course you can find the majestic big cats here.
You will enjoy a picnic lunch in the park surrounded of the beautiful landscape maybe even in the shadow of a baobab tree. Eventually you return to your lodge for a rest before it’s time to set of on a night safari. A great opportunity to meet the nocturnal inhabitants of Tarangire.
Accommodation: Tarangire, Sangaiwe Tented Lodge
Meal plan: Full board
Day 5, Explore Tarangire even further
A day to explore Tarangire off the beaten track. So, to fully experience your amazing surroundings, we recommend you start the day with an early walking safari. This is a perfect way to experience Africa with all your senses.
Through the miscellaneous terrain with riverine woodlands and grasslands, acacia and baobab you continue your safari deeper into the park. Did you know that safari is Swahili for travel?
After your picnic lunch you leave for Karatu.
Accommodation: Karatu, Hhando Coffee Lodge
Meal plan: Full board
Day 6, Meet the Hadzabe people – one of the world’s last gathering tribe
Immerse yourself in the tradition of the Hazdabe tribe. Journey into the heart of East Africa’s Great Rift Valley, where the captivating Lake Eyasi glistens with soda-like hues. Amidst this breathtaking landscape, encounter the timeless Hadzabe people, ancient hunter-gatherers who embody an unwavering harmony with the earth.
Engage with the Bushmen, discover their revered hunting techniques, age-old survival skills, culinary traditions, and cultural norms. Witness their incredible skill as they skillfully navigate their surroundings, selectively and opportunistically providing sustenance for their families and tribe.
Accommodation: Karatu, Hhando Coffee Lodge
Meal plan: Full board
Day 7, Take a cooking class or explore Lake Manyara
Today give you two options:
Option 1: Dive even deeper into Tanzanian culture and take a cooking class. Meet up one of the women from the Mto wa Mbu village at the market to shop the ingredients to today’s lunch before you make your way to a kitchen.
Enjoy engaging in meal preparation of different dishes sampled from some tribes reciting in Mto wa Mbu. Food such as ugali, rice, beans, chapatti, makande, pilau, bamia (okra), egg plants, mchicha (traditional spinach), bananas, sweet potatoes, cabbage, etc. Don’t miss experience how to prepare fruits such as bananas, oranges, watermelons, avocados…and even how to prepare ‘kachumbari’-salad; which are all organic grown from farms and gardens of the green oasis of Mto wa Mbu.
Option 2: Go on a safari in Lake Manyara National Park. It might be one of Tanzania’s smaller national parks, but it doesn’t lack in beauty. With the mighty Great Rift Valley as a backdrop, the woodlands and the shore of the lake that has given the park its name, Lake Manyara, the park is staged like a magnificent scene.
In the lush woodlands on the slope of the Great Rift you can find, among others, baboons, blue monkey and elephant. The airier woodlands closer to the shore of the lake is instead home to giraffes, zebras and lions.
Accommodation: Karatu, Hhando Coffee Lodge
Meal plan: Full board
Day 8, Ngorongoro – paradise on earth?
Today something of extreme beauty awaits you – The Ngorongoro crater. To make the very most of this extraordinary experience we recommend you have a very early start. Reason being the crater has fewer visitors the earlier you go. But most importantly, the wildlife is entering the peak active hours as the sun rises over the rim.
Through beautiful winding roads climbing upwards, you will make your way to the viewpoint at the crater rim – and wow what a view! At your feet you have the caldera and due to its size, it’s hard to capture that the crater floor is 600 meters below you. This is the largest volcanic caldera in the world. All over the crater floor, as small, small dots, you can see the wildlife grazing in the landscape.
The Ngorongoro crater is home to no less than 25 000 animals and has one of the greatest densities of predators in the world. For example, in this “small” area alone, 60-70 lions are living. This is also one of the places where you, if lucky, could meet the mighty Big Five of Africa.
Your lunchbox will be enjoyed in this amazing and enchanting landscape.
Eventually it’s time to leave. The time has come to experience some true African massage as you set out on bumpy roads on your way to Serengeti. You will enter the Serengeti through Nabi Hill Gate and Serengeti welcomes you with its vastness. A grassland landscape as far as your eye can take you, just dotted with some occasional kopjes breaking the horizon, the so-called Simba kopjes. These kopjes are a great vantage point, and the lions – (simba in Swahili) loves to lure here.
Accommodation: Serengeti, Tanzania Bush Camps
Meal plan: Full board
Day 9, A full day Serengeti safari
Whether you are on the lookout for the Big Five, are a big cat lover or in search for elephants or birds, Serengeti has it all. You never know what you encounter in this vast and magical landscape but the thrill of the hunt for new acquaintances is the goal of today.
Serengeti is Tanzania’s second largest, but probably the most famous, national park and it is also considered to be one of the planets oldest ecosystems. Very little has changed here the last million years.
In Serengeti and the adjacent Masai Mara you can witness one of Africa’s 7 natural wonders- the great migration. During July-October every year millions of wildebeest and hundreds of thousands of zebras and Thomson gazelles roams over the savanna from Tanzania to Kenya and back again. This is often named one of the world’s most powerful nature phenomena.
Today you also could have a once in a lifetime happening. To an additional cost you can choose to book a hot-air balloon tour. Experience the majestic beauty of Serengeti from the sky – an unforgettable moment!
Accommodation: Serengeti, Tanzania Bush Camps
Meal plan: Full board
Day 10, Continue your Serengeti exploration
Today you focus on animal watching in the more central parts of the national park.
Serengeti has been a national park since 1951 and a World Heritage even longer than that. This truly wonderful park is home to approximately 70 different spices of large mammals and over 500 different spices of birds. We can never guarantee what species of animals you will encounter on the savanna, but we do promise that you will meet many of them in Serengeti’s utterly amazing nature.
You have lunch with you from the camp and it is enjoyed somewhere in this magnificent landscape. Another evening ends in the glow of the crackling fire as darkness falls.
Accommodation: Serengeti, Tanzania Bush Camps
Meal plan: Full board
Day 11, More game viewing and human history
After breakfast the time has come to leave Serengeti behind. So “pole pole” (slowly), you are making your way back towards Karatu. While still in Serengeti you will continue your game viewing along the way.
When you’re entering the Ngorongoro Conservation Area again we recommend a stop at Olduvai Gorge. The Olduvai Gorge is an interesting paleoanthropological site. It’s believed to be the place of found remains of the first human beings to walk on Earth.
Accommodation: Karatu, Hhando Coffee Lodge
Meal plan: Full board
Day 12, Time to say goodbye
Your Tanzania adventure has come to an end for this time. Sit back in the car and let all your lovely new experiences sink in as you return to Arusha and Kilimanjaro Airport. The drive will take approximately 4 hours.
We promise you will leave with memories forever etched in your heart.
Meal plan: Half board
This safari is excellent to combine with gorgeous and relaxing days in Zanzibar. If this is something you dream about, please don’t hesitate to contact us and we will make your dream come true.
