Explore the famous Northern Tanzania Safari Circuit, game viewing in four of the country’s best safari parks in just one week! Go on safari in Serengeti National Park, Ngorongoro Crater, Tarangire National Park, and Lake Manyara Park, starting and ending in Arusha.
This affordable Tanzania Safari is ideal for nature lovers and slightly more discerning budget travelers, offering camping with a bit of glamour, otherwise known as Glamping. No participation is required with cooking or setting up camp, as the tour price includes a guide, a cook, and camp assistants.
This week-long Private Tanzania Safari starts with collection in Arusha city, Tanzania’s safari capital located at the foot of Mount Meru.This diverse Tanzanian park covers 2600 km² of diverse habitats, ranging from grassy savannahs and seasonal marshlands to woodlands and the African giants baobab trees.
We travel to Tarangire National Park, our first safari destination on the Northern Tanzania Circuit. Tarangire Park is one of East Africa’s best places to see elephants up close, hosting more than 3000 elephants. The national park is home to the second-highest concentration of wildlife in Tanzania, after the Serengeti Ecosystem. Wildlife includes Masai giraffes, buffalos, lions, leopards, baboons, and a variety of antelopes and gazelle species.
After game viewing in Tarangire National Park, we head to our campsite outside the game park. We enjoy dinner and an overnight stay at the camp.
The national park is also known for its tree-climbing lions, as well as its big baboon troops. On our game drive, we lookout for elephants, hippos, buffalos, banded mongooses, monkeys, klipspringers, and numerous gazelle and antelope species.
Later in the afternoon, we exit Lake Manyara Park, taking a scenic drive towards our campsite.
Leaving the Lake Manyara area today, we travel to Serengeti National Park, the highlight of our Private Tanzania Safari!
Our drive takes us via Karatu and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. We pass through the Ngorongoro Crater Highlands, with the southern Serengeti Plains opening up before us as we get closer to our next camp in Tanzania. This scenic journey reveals the vast rolling plains of Serengeti dotted by rocky hills called “kopjes” (inselbergs). The Serengeti aptly derives its name from “Siringiti”, the Masai word for endless plain. The plains of the southern Serengeti truly appear to stretch on infinitely, providing prime hunting territory for Africa’s big cats, especially cheetahs.
In the afternoon, we arrive at our public camp in the Serengeti.
For a full day we explore Serengeti’s top areas for sighting wildlife, visiting the best viewpoints to get fantastic photos, and enjoying the scenic landscapes, teeming with animals. Your knowledgeable guide takes you to areas where wildlife spottings are most likely, ensuring that you get the most out of your game drives.
The Serengeti is most famous for the Wildebeest Migration, one of the world’s most spectacular wildlife phenomena. Witness the awe-inspiring stampede when hundreds of thousands of hooved animals migrate north at the end of the rainy season (April to June). During the minor rainy season (October and November), the herds of grazers migrate back south from the Masai Mara in Kenya to the Serengeti Plains. Seasonal variations and changes in the rainfall, do however affect the migration times and routes.
Overnight at the campsite at Seronera
On day five of our Private Tanzania Safari, we enjoy a final game drive in the renowned Serengeti National Park.
Keep a lookout for wildebeest, zebra, and the occasional lion, cheetah or leopard, found in the Seronera Valley area as we leave Serengeti. We stop at a picnic spot before leaving the national park and heading to the Ngorongoro Crater, known as the Eden of Africa.
Reaching the rim of the Ngorongoro Crater we are met by the spectacular sight of the huge caldera below. We overnight at crater rim at one of the public campsite available in the area.
After early breakfast we descending into the largest unflooded caldera in the world we embark on a game drive in search of the amazing abundance of wildlife found here. The Crater is home to Africa’s Big Five (lions, elephants, buffalos, rhinos, and leopards) and these are frequently sighted over the short space of a few hours. The conservation area is home to over 25 000 larger animals, the highest density of animals inhabiting any one area in Africa.
After our thorough exploration of Ngorongoro, our last Northern Tanzania safari park, we ascend the crater walls and make our way back to Arusha, where this exclusive camping safari started.
Overnight at your hotel in Arusha
African Merit Safari is an experienced team of African travel specialists based in Arusha, Tanzania. Together our team of talented travel experts has well over a decade worth of experience in Tanzania travel industry.
