8-Day African Luxury Lodge Safari – Tanzania

After breakfast, you will be picked up from your hotel and drive to Tarangire National Park for a game drive with a picnic lunch. Tarangire National Park (2,600km2) has an unrivaled landscape of open plains, dotted with thousands of baobabs. It is located about 120 km south of Arusha. Tarangire is known for its lions and huge herds of buffalos. This is one of Africa’s little-known gems and should be on the itinerary of all lovers of wilderness and solitude. The animals include zebras, wildebeest, buffalos, elephants, Maasai giraffes, and fringe-eared oryx (gemsbok). Predators include lions, cheetahs, and leopards. Birders will want to look out for the endemic ashy starling, rufous-tailed weaver, and black-collared lovebird. Your dinner and overnight stay will be at Maramboi Tented Lodge.

After breakfast, you'll collect a picnic lunch and drive to Lake Manyara National Park for a full-day game drive. This is one of the most diverse of Tanzania’s national parks, a tiny (325km2) combination of Rift Valley lakes, dense woodlands, and steep mountainsides. Manyara is a birding paradise (more than 380 species), especially for waterfowl and migrants and the forests are one of the best places around to see leopards. Lions hunt on the grassy shores of the lake. Most visitors tailor a visit to Manyara to fit in with a trip to one of the big three parks (Serengeti, Tarangire, and Ngorongoro). Your dinner and overnight stay will be at Lake Manyara Serena Safari Lodge.

After breakfast, you'll drive to Serengeti National Park. You'll have lunch at the lodge. You'll have an afternoon game drive in Serengeti National Park for a chance to see the great herds of wildebeest, zebras, and gazelles or a pride of lions lounging in the shade. The Serengeti, one of the largest parks in Africa at 15,000 sq km, is home to some three million large mammals and is made up of a diversity of landscapes with the southern region being dominated by the lush grassy plains that draw about two million wildebeest, half a million zebra and some quarter million antelopes to make the hazardous journey in search of pasture when the autumn rains come. Your dinner and overnight stay will be at Serengeti Serena Safari Lodge - standard room.

You'll have a morning and afternoon game drive in the park (or a full day with a picnic lunch) in search of migration. The great migration is arguably the greatest wildlife show on earth. It is the largest single movement of wildlife on earth in search of water, pasture, and breeding grounds. Other than the migrating herds we seek, you may also see cheetahs, lions, leopards, buffalos, elephants, wildebeest, hartebeests, topi, elands, crocs, Thomson’s, and Grant’s gazelle, amongst many more. With over five hundred bird species identified, the park is a veritable ornithological paradise, ostrich abound, secretary birds, marabou storks, and the largest flighted bird on Earth, the kori bustard. You will seek out these creatures with the keen intuition and experience of our "wild guide." With the day drawing to a close, you will wend your way to your camp to unwind, dine, and take your ease by the fire under the endless East African sky. Your meals and overnight stay will be at the lodge.

After an early breakfast, you'll collect a packed lunch and drive to the Ngorongoro Crater tour with a picnic lunch. You'll descend 2000 feet (over 600 meters) to the floor of the crater. This 304 square kilometer enclosed ecosphere was formed some two or three million years ago in the massive explosion of a volcano once higher than Kilimanjaro and offers the best wildlife viewing opportunities in all of Tanzania. You'll explore the forest areas inhabited by monkeys and elephants, the lake area, where you may see the flamingos and the open savannah where the lions hunt for food. With some 25,000 large mammals within the caldera, you will have the opportunity to see, in addition to the Big Five (elephant, lion, rhino, buffalo, and leopard), animals such as wildebeest, reedbucks, bushbucks, hartebeests, hippos, antelopes, both Grant’s and Thompson’s gazelles, to name a few, as well as over 500 bird species. Your dinner and overnight stay will be at Ngorongoro Serena Safari Lodge.

After breakfast, you'll drive back to Arusha. If you wish, you may visit Mto wa Mbu market or any Masai market on the way before reaching Arusha in the afternoon. Please let us know if you are flying back home on this day or need accommodation in Arusha. Accommodation after the safari can be arranged at extra cost. End of our services.