INTRODUCING Snake Park & Tarangire National Park & Ngorongoro Crater & Serengeti National Park & Lake Manyara National Park & Arusha National Park
OPTIONS:
Seven days, seven completely different experiences, and every major park in Tanzania’s Northern Circuit covered at a pace that lets you actually take it all in. This tour earns its name. It begins with venomous snakes and camel rides, moves through elephant country and the crater, crosses the Serengeti plains, dips into the Great Rift Valley, and finishes on foot among colobus monkeys in Arusha National Park. It is the full picture, and it has been shaped by twenty years of knowing exactly what leaves a lasting impression.
Each option follows the same itinerary and differs only in accommodation type. On the last day, an armed ranger accompanies you on the walking safari in Arusha National Park, keeping you safe while getting you genuinely close to the wildlife.
On Day 2 or Day 5, you have the option to add a hot air balloon flight over the Tarangire or the Serengeti at sunrise, finishing with a champagne toast and a full breakfast prepared in the bush.
Our Safari Tips and Safari FAQ pages cover everything you need before you travel. The Wildlife section introduces the animals you will encounter along the way, and the Photo Gallery is filled with images taken by guests on this very itinerary.
For questions or a quick price quotation, including fully tailor-made programmes, please get in touch. We are happy to help.
ITINERARY:
DAY 1: Arusha – Snake Park – Tarangire
A morning at the Snake Park sets an immediate tone. Green and Black Mamba, Puff Adder, Gaboon Viper, lizards, chameleons and Nile crocodiles, all observable from a safe and fascinating distance. Maasai outside the park can arrange camel rides for those who want to add something unexpected to the morning. After lunch the drive continues in Tarangire for an afternoon game drive among year-round resident elephant herds moving through a landscape of ancient baobabs. Overnight: Lodge, Hotel, Luxury Tented Camp or Basic Camp
DAY 2: Tarangire
A sunrise game drive to open the day. During the dry season Tarangire draws wildebeest, zebra, eland, buffalo, hartebeest and the rare oryx down from the Maasai steppe to the river, with predators tracking every move. Few parks in Africa deliver this kind of density. After lunch the drive heads toward the Ngorongoro Conservation Area for dinner and overnight, the crater waiting for the morning. Overnight: Lodge, Hotel, Luxury Tented Camp or Basic Camp
DAY 3: Ngorongoro Crater
Down into the crater after breakfast for a full day among more than 30,000 animals living within the walls of this ancient volcanic caldera. The Big Five are all present, and the Ngorongoro gives you better odds of finding them in a single game drive than almost anywhere else in East Africa. Picnic lunch on the crater floor with the walls rising around you on all sides. Overnight: Lodge, Hotel, Luxury Tented Camp or Basic Camp
DAY 4: Ngorongoro – Serengeti
After breakfast the drive crosses into the Serengeti, the world’s most celebrated wildlife park and home to more than four million animals. Lions, leopards, cheetahs, spotted hyenas, giraffe, buffalo, hippo, crocodile and an extraordinary roll call of plains game spread across a landscape the size of Ireland. The afternoon game drive is your first taste of what the next two days will offer. Overnight: Lodge, Hotel, Luxury Tented Camp or Basic Camp
DAY 5: Serengeti – Olduvai Gorge – Maasai Boma
A sunrise game drive on the open plains before the drive back through Ngorongoro toward Lake Manyara, with two optional stops along the way. Olduvai Gorge, where the story of early human life was literally uncovered from the earth, is a place that quietly shifts your perspective on everything around it. A Maasai boma visit adds a different layer entirely: a community living much as their ancestors did, on the same land, by the same rhythms. Dinner and overnight at Manyara. Overnight: Lodge, Hotel, Luxury Tented Camp or Basic Camp
DAY 6: Lake Manyara
A full day for a park that consistently surprises visitors who have not spent proper time here. Manyara sits at the foot of the Great Rift Valley escarpment, its habitat shifting between forest, floodplain and open lakeshore. Over 400 bird species, elephants, buffalo, giraffe and hippo share the park with its most famous and inexplicable residents: lions that have taken to sleeping in the trees, stretched across acacia branches six or seven metres above the ground, as if they have always done it that way. Overnight: Lodge, Hotel, Luxury Tented Camp or Basic Camp
DAY 7: Arusha National Park – Arusha
The tour ends as it began, with something unexpected. A two-hour walking safari through Arusha National Park, led by an armed ranger, brings you quietly alongside giraffe, buffalo, zebra, various antelope and the park’s signature Black and White Colobus Monkeys high in the canopy above. After lunch a game drive takes in the flamingo-fringed Momela Lakes and the forested volcanic rim of Ngurdoto Crater before the late afternoon return to Arusha.
End of tour!
