The Best Northen Circuit Safari

Tour starts from the Office in Arusha after pick up from your hotel at agreed time. Destination: Drive to Tarangire National Park (2,850 sq km) for full day game drive. Herds of up to 300 elephants scratch the dry river bed for underground streams during the dry season, while migratory wildebeest, zebra, buffalo, impala, gazelle, hartebeest and eland crowd the shrinking lagoons. It's the greatest concentration of wildlife outside the Serengeti ecosystem "a smorgasbord for predators", and the one place in Tanzania where dry-country antelope such as the stately fringe-eared Oryx and peculiar long-necked Gerenuk are regularly observed. More ardent bird-lovers might keep an eye open for screeching flocks of the dazzlingly colorful yellow-collared lovebirds, and the somewhat drabber Rufus-tailed weaver and ashy starling – all endemic to the dry Savannah of north-central Tanzania. Dinner and overnight at Twiga Campsite.

Twiga Campsite - Lake Manyara National Park - Twiga Campsite Wake up & have breakfast at agreed time. Distance: 5 Km Destination: Drive to Lake Manyara National Park (330 sq km) on the base of the Great Rift Valley, for a full day game drive. Stretching for 50 km along the base of the rusty-gold 600-meter high Rift Valley escarpment, Lake Manyara is a scenic gem, with a setting extolled by Ernest Hemingway as “the loveliest I had seen in Africa”. From the entrance gate, the road winds through an expanse of lush jungle-like groundwater forest where hundred-strong baboon troops lounge nonchalantly along the roadside, blue monkeys scamper nimbly between the ancient mahogany trees, dainty bush buck tread warily through the shadows, and out sized forest horn bills honk cacophonously in the high canopy. Manyara provides the perfect introduction to Tanzania’s bird life. Dinner Overnight at Twiga Campsite.

Wake up & have breakfast at agreed time. Distance: 205 Km Destination: Drive to Serengeti National Park (14,763 sq km) for a game drive via Ngorongoro Crater rim. Tanzania's oldest and most popular national park, also a world heritage site, the Serengeti is famed for its annual migration, when some six million hooves pound the open plains, as more than 200,000 zebra and 300,000 Thomson's gazelle join the wildebeest’s trek for fresh grazing. Yet even when the migration is quiet, the Serengeti offers arguably the most scintillating game-viewing in Africa. The spectacle of predator versus prey dominates Tanzania’s greatest park. Golden-manned lion prides feast on the abundance of plain grazers. Solitary leopards haunt the acacia trees lining the Seronera River, while a high density of cheetahs prowls the southeastern plains. Dinner and Overnight at Seronera or Lobo Campsite.

Very early morning game drive. Breakfast at the campsite around 0900am. Continues with both morning and afternoon game drives in Serengeti national Park. As enduring as the game-viewing is the liberating sense of space that characterizes the Serengeti Plains, stretching across sun burnt Savannah to a shimmering golden horizon at the end of the earth. Yet, after the rains, this golden expanse of grass is transformed into an endless green carpet flecked with wildflowers. And there are also wooded hills and towering termite mounds, rivers lined with fig trees and acacia woodland stained orange by dust. Popular the Serengeti might be, but it remains so vast that you may be the only human audience when a pride of lions masterminds a siege, focused unswerving on its next meal. Dinner and Overnight at Lobo Campsite.

Distance: 145 Km Wake up for early morning game drive at agreed time and later drive back to campsite for brunch and continue with game drive en route to Ngorongoro Crater Rim. Destination: Continue with game drives in the Serengeti en route to Ngorongoro Crater Rim where you will spend the night. On the way, (visit optional) you can pass by the Olduvai Gorge where the English pair, Louis and Mary Leaky pioneered excavation work. In the sixties some of the earliest archaeological deposits of human evolution were found and a small museum documents these discoveries. Also you can choose to visit the shifting sands when you have time. Overnight at Simba "A" campsite.

Wake up & have breakfast at agreed time. Distance: 10 Km Destination: Drive to Ngorongoro Crater (19.2 km of diameter, 610m deep, 304 sq km) where you will descend into the crater floor for a full day game drive. Ngorongoro Crater is often called 'Africa's Garden of Eden' the '8th Natural Wonder of the World'. This breathtaking oasis provides a haven for both predator and prey to live among grasslands, fresh springs and the large soda lake. All the Big five Rhino, Lion, Leopard, Buffalo and Elephant live in this wonderful caldera, and many more mammals. Birds includes flamingos on the Soda lake, Geese, Storks, Vultures and more. Nowhere else can such a diversity in wildlife be experienced in such a short period of time. After game drive, drive back to Arusha on a tarmac road. Driver to Kilimanjaro Airport for the Drop off before 0500pm for your flight home/Zanzibar.