6-Day Tanzania Safari

Your guide collects you from your Arusha hotel or Kilimanjaro Airport by 07:30. The drive to Tarangire takes you through the Masai Steppe — a landscape that feels genuinely remote before you even reach a park gate. Tarangire is one of Tanzania's most distinctive parks: ancient baobab trees dot the landscape like sculptures, and in the dry season the Tarangire River draws enormous elephant families to its banks. You arrive in time for lunch at camp, then head out for an afternoon game drive from 15:00 to 18:00. Lion, leopard, giraffe, and large buffalo herds are common. Dinner and overnight at camp.

An early morning game drive in Tarangire from 06:00 to 09:00 catches the wildlife at its most active. After breakfast, you depart for the Serengeti via Lake Manyara — a scenic drive through the Rift Valley escarpment with a half-day game drive in Lake Manyara's groundwater forest. The park's lake shore fills with flamingos in the right season, and the forest is one of the best places in East Africa to see colobus monkeys. Lunch at a scenic spot, then you continue to the Serengeti, arriving at your camp by mid-afternoon. Rest, then an evening game drive from 16:00 to 19:00 in the central Serengeti. Dinner and overnight in camp.

This is the core of your safari. A full day in the Serengeti with your private guide — no fixed schedule, no set routes. Your guide will have a clear picture of where wildlife is concentrated based on the morning's radio reports from other guides, and will take you to wherever the best sightings are. In the dry season, predator concentrations around the Serengeti's rivers and rocky outcrops are extraordinary. In the green season, newborn wildebeest calves and predator action around Ndutu in the far south are among the most extraordinary wildlife spectacles on earth. Morning game drive from 06:00 to 12:00. Lunch at camp. Afternoon game drive from 15:30 to 19:00. As an alternative during the migration season (July–November), you can fly from the central Serengeti to the northern Mara River sector this morning to be at the river crossing — your guide will advise on the best option for the current conditions.

A second full day in the Serengeti — this is where a 6-day safari truly earns its value. With two full days in the park, your guide can go further afield, spending time in areas that other visitors rushing through never reach. The western corridor, the southern plains around Nabi Gate, the central hills — all are accessible with a full day and a guide who knows the terrain. Morning game drive from 06:00 to 12:00. Lunch at camp. Afternoon game drive from 15:30 to 19:00. Dinner and overnight in camp.

One last morning game drive in the Serengeti from 06:00 to 10:00 — often the best wildlife viewing of the trip, as the predators are still active from the night's hunting. After breakfast, you drive north and descend into the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. You stop at the crater rim viewpoint for your first sight of the caldera — 2,400 metres above sea level, 19 kilometres wide, approximately 30,000 animals living within its walls. Picnic lunch at the rim with a view, then you descend into the crater at 15:00 for a 5-hour evening game drive. The crater floor is extraordinary: lion families on the lake shore, hippos in the pools, elephants moving through the swamp, and — with good fortune — the rare black rhino. You exit the crater at 18:30 and drive to your rim lodge for dinner.

A second, shorter game drive inside the Ngorongoro Crater from 06:30 to 10:00 — the early morning light on the crater floor is exceptional, and the predators are still active from the night's hunting. Breakfast at your lodge after the game drive. You then drive back to Arusha (approximately 4 hours) or to Kilimanjaro International Airport for your outbound flight. If your international departure is in the evening, we can arrange a day room at a hotel in Arusha. Alternatively, this morning can be spent at a Maasai village cultural experience near the crater rim — a deeply memorable encounter with one of East Africa's most storied cultures.