Authentic 9 Days Luxury Lodges

When you land at Kilimanjaro International Airport, our friendly staff meet and welcome you and transfer you to Arusha for your overnight stay at Arusha Coffee Lodge on a bed and breakfast basis. It’s a restful first night before the safari proper begins.

After breakfast you drive unhurriedly to Tarangire National Park, a park of about 2,850 sq km famous for its large numbers of elephants, ancient baobab trees and, if you’re lucky, tree-climbing pythons. You have lunch at your lodge and then head out for an afternoon game drive, the first day of your wildlife experience. The Tarangire River is the main source of fresh water for wildlife in the dry season, and the park also holds giraffe, zebra, impala and over 550 bird species. Dinner and overnight at Tarangire Tree Tops or Swala Camp (one of the two, subject to availability). Swala Camp offers an exclusive safari experience in a landscape of baobabs, elephants and birdlife, and is built to high eco-friendly standards with a low carbon footprint.

After breakfast you drive from your lodge to Lake Manyara National Park for a game drive. This park combines a freshwater lake, groundwater forest, marshes and a rift escarpment, and at certain times of the year the lake shore glows pink with thousands of flamingos. More than 390 bird species have been recorded, including ostriches, egrets, herons, pelicans and storks, and you may also see hippos and baboons. Baobab trees with huge trunks grow on the escarpment slopes. You spend the night at Lake Manyara Tree Lodge, the only permanent luxury lodge in the park, known for its romantic stilted tree house suites shaded by a mahogany forest.

After breakfast you drive to Serengeti National Park through the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. The park covers about 14,763 sq km of grassland plains and savannah, riverine forest and woodlands, in the north of Tanzania, where it joins the Masai Mara National Reserve in Kenya. You spend the night at Serengeti Under Canvas, Four Seasons Safari Lodge Serengeti or Pioneer Luxury Camp (one of the three, subject to availability), with dinner at your camp or lodge.

Two full days of game viewing take you across the endless Serengeti plains. The park is best known for the annual migration, with thousands upon thousands of animals, particularly wildebeest, as far as the eye can see, and a population estimated at around 1.5 million. The herds follow the rains, so where they are depends on the time of year, and from the end of June, when the dry season begins, they start moving in search of fresh grazing. The Serengeti is also famous for cheetahs, leopards and lions, some of which follow the herds while others remain on the central plain. You return each evening for dinner and an overnight stay at your camp or lodge.

In the morning you drive to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area via Olduvai Gorge, a steep-sided ravine about 50 km long that is one of the world’s most important prehistoric sites. The crater is one of the most amazing sights in the world. You have lunch at your lodge and the rest of the afternoon at leisure to enjoy the setting at Ngorongoro Crater Lodge, on a full board basis.

After breakfast you descend to the crater floor for game viewing. The Ngorongoro Crater is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the world’s largest inactive, intact and unfilled volcanic caldera, with cliffs about 600 m high dropping to a crater floor of around 260 sq km. You may see everything from elephant to lion and, with luck, the endangered black rhino, all among large herds of zebra and wildebeest. Lunch is served in the crater, and in the late afternoon you climb back up for your second night at Ngorongoro Crater Lodge.

After breakfast you transfer to Manyara airstrip for a scheduled flight to Arusha, where you’re met and transferred into town. Lunch is served at a restaurant in town, followed by a transfer to the airport for your departure flight.