Great Safaris Trip Itinerary for a Group Safari

Prepared By: Guillaume Van Wyk on Feb 19, 2025

Tanzania African Safari

Tanzania African Safari

Quick Summary

Itinerary Detail

Day 1: Arrive Kilimanjaro Airport, Tanzania. Receive a warm welcome with a private transfer to the hotel.

Arusha
Arusha
Arusha
Daily Summary

Meet & Greet - Tanzania

Your exciting adventure begins today, as you touch down in Tanzania. Upon arrival you will be meet and greet by our representative and assisted to your next service.

Private transfer to the hotel

Arusha

Arusha is Tanzania's gateway to the northern circuit of stellar national parks and the starting point of a memorable safari. Located below Mount Meru on the eastern edge of the eastern branch of the Great Rift Valley, Arusha City has a temperate climate. The city is close to the Serengeti National Park, the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Lake Manyara National Park, Olduvai Gorge, Tarangire National Park, Mount Kilimanjaro, and Mount Meru in the Arusha National Park.

It's also a large, sprawling city with vibrant markets that sell everything from meat and fish to fabrics and electronics, curios and African art by local artists. They are crowded and busy but a great way to experience 'local' Africa. Arusha is also considered an international diplomatic hub. It is home to the East African Community, and is set to be the capital city of the proposed East African federation. Arusha is home to many industries and business sectors, including banking, manufacturing, and tourism.

Day 2: Private transfer to Tarangire National Park followed by lunch and and afternoon game drive.

Tarangire National Park
Tarangire National Park
Tarangire National Park
Game Drives in Tarangire National Park
Game Drives in Tarangire National Park
Game Drives in Tarangire National Park
Daily Summary
  • Land Transfers: Land Transfer from Arusha to Tarangire National park
  • Activities: Tarangire National Park
  • Game Drive: Game Drives in Tarangire National Park
  • Accommodation: Tarangire Sopa Lodge - Standard Room
  • Meals: B, L, D

Land Transfer from Arusha to Tarangire National park

Tarangire National Park

Welcome to one of Africa's most underrated parks. Thanks to its proximity to Serengeti National Park and Ngorongoro Crater, Tarangire National Park is usually assigned only a day visit as part of a larger northern-circuit itinerary. Yet it deserves much more. It is a place where elephants dot the plains like cattle, and where lion roars and zebra barks fill the night.

But here the wildlife tells only half the story. Dominating the park's 2850 sq km, Tarangire's great stands of epic baobabs should be reason enough to visit. There are also sun-blistered termite mounds in abundance, as well as grassy savannah plains and vast swamps. And cleaving the park in two is the Tarangire River, its meandering course and (in some places) steep banks providing a dry-season lure for animals and thus many stirring wildlife encounters for visitors.

Game Drives in Tarangire National Park

Morning and afternoon game drives are conducted in a 4x4 customized game viewing vehicle with a professional driver - guide. Tarangire is an elephant enthusiast's paradise with up to 6,000 roaming the park. It is impossible to spend time in the park without encountering these iconic animals, feeding at the base of a baobab, strolling through the riverine forests or 'playing' in the mud of the marshlands. They are often present in a conglomeration of herds that could be 300 individuals - an incredible sight for even the most seasoned safari-goer.

Elephants aside, Tarangire is home to one of the greatest concentration of wildlife outside of the larger Serengeti ecosystem. They dry season influx of ungulates sees a profusion of wildebeest, zebra, gazelle, eland, hartebeest and buffalo assembled near the river, or around residual pools in the swamps. Such a conservation of prey serves to attract the attention of the park's various resident predators, particularly the ever-attended lions. The lions of the Silale Swamps are particularly renowned, not only for their marshy hunting techniques, but also for their habit of lounging in the boughs of trees. Leopards and cheetah are also present, and even the highly endangered African wildlife dog. Away from the wetter areas of the park, one might be fortunate enough to spot a gerenuk or fringe-eared oryx, making Taranigire one of the few places in Tanzania to see these arid species.

Day 3: Drive to Lake Manyara with a picnic lunch. Enjoy a Tree-Top canopy walk and an afternoon game drive in search of famous tree climbing lions.

Game drives in Lake Manyara National Park
Game drives in Lake Manyara National Park
Game drives in Lake Manyara National Park
Game drives in Lake Manyara National Park
Treetop Canopy walk in Lake Manyara National Park
Treetop Canopy walk in Lake Manyara National Park
Treetop Canopy walk in Lake Manyara National Park
Treetop Canopy walk in Lake Manyara National Park
Daily Summary

Game drives in Lake Manyara National Park

Welcome to Lake Manyara National Park, famous for its tree climbing lions. One of the small parks in Tanzania with an exceptional diverse vegetation ranging from savannah to marsh to evergreen forest, a total of 11 ecosystems. The chance to see elephant families moving through the forest or Lake Manyara's famous population of tree-climbing lions are alone reason enough to come. Lake Manyara also provides the perfect introduction to Tanzania’s birdlife with more than 400 species have been recorded to date, which include pink-hued flamingos (by the thousands during migration), as well as other large water-birds such as pelicans, cormorants and storks. The dramatic western escarpment of the Rift Valley forms the park’s western border. To the east is the alkaline Lake Manyara, which covers one-third of the park but shrinks considerably in the dry season. During the rains, the lake hosts millions of flamingos and other bird life.

Treetop Canopy walk in Lake Manyara National Park

This is Tanzania's first Treetop Walkway and one of the longest in Africa. This 370m airwalk starts with a short board-walk that gradually rises from ground level up through the canopy of the forest. This walk takes you on a sky-high adventure through the beautiful forest of Lake Manyara Park. As you walk amongst the treetops and experience untouched nature and wildlife from a unique perspective, keep a lookout for wildlife in the trees and on the ground.

You walk over a series of suspension bridges with thick netting on the sides, and reach a height of 18m off the ground. Each of the bridges end on a viewing deck situated around tree trunks. These treetop platforms are perfect places to stop and enjoy life in the canopy amongst butterflies, monkeys and birds. Guides will point out interesting facts about Lake Manyara's flora and fauna, while you can enjoy a unique birds-eye view of the world around you.

Day 4: Enjoy a full day Safari in the Ngorongoro Crater with a picnic lunch in the bush - home to 25,000 resident animals and the BIG 5.

Ngorongoro Crater & Conservation Area
Ngorongoro Crater & Conservation Area
Ngorongoro Crater & Conservation Area
Game drives in Ngorongoro Crater
Game drives in Ngorongoro Crater
Game drives in Ngorongoro Crater
Daily Summary

Ngorongoro Crater & Conservation Area

Ngorongoro Crater is an extinct volcanic caldera in the Eastern Great Rift Valley, northern Tanzania. The caldera measures between 10 and 12 miles across and has an area of 102 square miles. Its heavily forested rim rises 2,000 feet above the caldera’s floor to an elevation of 7,500 feet. Ngorongoro is thought to have formed about 2.5 million years ago from a large active volcano whose cone collapsed inward after a major eruption, leaving the present vast, unbroken caldera as its chief remnant.

The caldera’s floor is predominantly open grassland. It is home to a diverse array of animals including elephants, black rhinoceroses, leopards, buffalo, zebras, warthogs, gnu (wildebeests), Grant’s and Thomson’s gazelles, and the densest population of lions in the world. The local Masai people also graze their livestock in the crater. Lake Magadi, a shallow soda lake ringed by extinct volcanoes, is renowned as a habitat for great flocks of pink flamingos.

Game drives in Ngorongoro Crater

Game drives descend into the Ngorongoro Crater through a lush highland forest, with magnificent birdlife to be spotted among the different tree species. Once on the grassy crater floor, you may discover a large variety of grazing herbivores, up to 25,000 animals, as well as the predators that are attracted by this abundant supply of prey. Depending on the time of year, you may see huge flocks of pink flamingo around the shores of the shallow Lake Magadi, while the surrounding swamp is inhabited by hippo. Safari vehicles are closed, with glass windows and a pop-up roof.

The crater has formed its own ecosystem due to its enclosed nature, and is one place where you can certainly tick all the boxes. Lerai Forest comprised of yellow fever trees and Lake Magadi, a shallow soda lake. Roam to the east and you will find Gorigor Swamp and the Ngoitokitok Springs where happy pods of hippo can be found. The north of the Crater is where the bulk of the resident game resides thanks to the drier, open grasslands.

Day 5: Enjoy a scenic drive to Serengeti National Park. Settle in at the lodge and go on an afternoon game drive

Serengeti National Park
Serengeti National Park
Serengeti National Park
Daily Summary
  • Activities: Land transfer from Ngorongoro to Serengeti
  • Activities: Serengeti National Park
  • Accommodation: Sound of Silence - Luxury Tent
  • Meals: B, L, D

Land transfer from Ngorongoro to Serengeti

Serengeti National Park

The Serengeti National Park is partly adjacent to the Kenya border and northwest of the adjoining Ngorongoro Conservation Area. It is best known for its huge herds of plains animals, especially wildebeest, gazelles, and zebras and it is the only place in Africa where vast land-animal migrations still take place. The park, an international tourist attraction, was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1981.

The park was established in 1951 and covers 5,700 square miles with some of the best grassland range in Africa, as well as extensive acacia woodland savanna. With elevations ranging from 3,020 to 6,070 feet, the park extends 100 miles southeast from points near the shores of Lake Victoria and, in its eastern portion, 100 miles south from the Kenya-Tanzania border. During the wet season, from November to May, the herds graze in the southeastern plains within the park, with the calving season peaking around February when up to 8,000 calves are born daily for nearly two months. Early June one major group of animals moves west into the park’s woodland savanna and then north into the grasslands just beyond the Kenya-Tanzania border, an area known as the Masai Mara National Reserve, and another group migrates directly northward. The herds return to the Serengeti southeastern plains in November, at the end of the dry season.

Days 6 - 7: Morning and afternoon game drive with the option of a hot air balloon safari

Game Drives in the Serengeti National Park
Game Drives in the Serengeti National Park
Game Drives in the Serengeti National Park
Hot Air Balloon safari over the Serengeti
Hot Air Balloon safari over the Serengeti
Hot Air Balloon safari over the Serengeti
Daily Summary
  • Game Drive: Game Drives in the Serengeti National Park
  • Activities: Hot Air Balloon safari over the Serengeti
  • Accommodation: Sound of Silence - Luxury Tent
  • Meals: B, L, D

Game Drives in the Serengeti National Park

Morning and afternoon game drives in and over the vast plains of the Serengeti. Serengeti National Park is a World Heritage Site teeming with wildlife: over 2 million ungulates, 4000 lions, 1000 leopard, 550 cheetahs and some 500 bird species inhabit an area close to 15,000 square kilometers in size. Dotted with trees and kopjes from which majestic lions control their kingdom; gaze upon the Great Migration in awe or find an elusive leopard in a riverine forest. The biological diversity of the park is very high with at least four globally threatened or endangered animal species: black rhinoceros, elephant, wild dog, and cheetah.

Serengeti National Park is at the heart the larger Serengeti ecosystem, which is defined by the area covered by the annual migration. The property is contiguous with Ngorongoro Conservation Unit, an area of 528,000ha declared a World Heritage Site in 1979. The entire ecosystem also includes the Maswa Game Reserve in the south, Ikorongo Game Reserves in the east, Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya (1,672km2) to the north, and Loliondo Game Controlled Area in the west. This entire ecosystem is intact and no barriers hamper the migration. Serengeti National Park is sufficiently large and intact to ensure the survival and vigour of all the species contained therein, if maintained in its present state but does not, by itself, ensure the protection of the entire ecosystem.

Hot Air Balloon safari over the Serengeti

In the crisp air of dawn, the passengers watch the crew partially inflates the balloon with enormous fans before the gas burners are ignited to fill the balloon with hot air. The crew directs clients how to get into the basket moments before take-off. The balloons lift off just before sunrise when the breeze on the plains is still cold. Once airborne, the balloon is blown by the prevailing winds across the broad landscape. Apart from the hiss of the burners, the flight above the plains is magically silent. The pilot controls the height of the craft by regulating the flow of hot air into the balloon. Sometimes the balloon will descend over the plains for a close up view of the wildlife; on other occasions, it rises to clear a tree canopy and rise over the riverine forest. This is an experience never to be forgotten. Enjoy the rest of the day on safari exploring this amazing park.

*** The hot air balloon safari is an optional activity and not included in the tour price

Day 8: Fly to Arusha for lunch. Private transfer to Kilimanjaro Airport for your flight home.

Departure flight from Kilimanjaro Airport
Daily Summary
  • Land Transfers: Transfer to Airstrip
  • Internal Flights: Internal Flight From Seronera Airstrip to Arusha
  • Land Transfers: Private transfer to the Airport
  • International Flights: Departure flight from Kilimanjaro Airport
  • Meals: B, L

***Scheduled flight to Arusha depart 1100hrs and arrive 1220hrs (flight included)

Transfer to Airstrip

Internal Flight From Seronera Airstrip to Arusha

After breakfast transfer to Seronera airstrip to Arusha, on arrival meet and transfer to Arusha for lunch.

Private transfer to the Airport

Departure flight from Kilimanjaro Airport

Bid farewell to Africa, for now until your next Safari !

Accommodation

Arusha Four Points Sheraton
Arusha Four Points Sheraton

Arusha Four Points Sheraton

Arusha, Tanzania

Room Type: Traditional Room

Dates: Jun 1, 2026

Established in 1894, the Four Points by Sheraton Arusha is one of the oldest hotels in East Africa. Saturated with the history of a bygone era, the traditional ambience is effortlessly combined with the style and service you wish for when travelling. The hotel features 114 stylish rooms, free Wi-Fi, a 24-hour gym, Parachichi a full-service restaurant, and as well as the famous Hatari Bar.

The Parachichi Restaurant, meaning ‘avocado’ in Swahili, overlooks our beautiful garden and is the perfect place for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Take a dip in our outdoor swimming pool and relax after a good workout in our gym with amazing views of the pool and gardens. With multiple meeting and conference venues, we can ably assist in your event planning for up to 150 delegates. This historic hotel is also a perfect wedding venue with a backdrop of our lush gardens

Tarangire Sopa Lodge
Tarangire Sopa Lodge
Tarangire Sopa Lodge
Tarangire Sopa Lodge

Tarangire Sopa Lodge

Tarangire, Tanzania

Room Type: Standard Room

Dates: Jun 2, 2026

Hidden among the kopjes, lies Tarangire Sopa Lodge, surrounded by ancient baobab trees. It is the home of the greatest concentration of elephants in Africa, and other game including the elusive leopard. Over 400 bird species can be spotted here as well. With water constantly available in the area, the greenery is lush providing a wonderful contrast to the burnt ground. In the Tarangire National Park which covers an area of 2800 sq km. The lodge lies 118 km south west of Arusha, approximately 2 hours drive from Arusha town and 20 mins flying time with another 20 mins transfer time to the lodge.

Acacia Farm Lodge – Karatu
Acacia Farm Lodge – Karatu

Acacia Farm Lodge – Karatu

Karatu, Tanzania

Room Type: Double Room

Dates: Jun 3, 2026 - Jun 4, 2026

Acacia Farm Lodge is a charming country lodge nestled in an active farm located high on the Great Rift’s escarpment area with a panoramic view of the Karatu farmlands and the nearby Ngorongoro forest area. The location of the lodge makes this is a perfect base from which to explore the Ngorongoro Conservation Area as well as enjoy many other adventurous activities and impressive cultural experiences found in the local area. Acacia Farm Lodge has a total of 32 Rooms in 16 well-spaced cottages, each room has a private balcony or terrace complete with stunning views. All are en-suite and have tea/coffee making facilities, air conditioning, Wi-Fi and a mini bar.

Your time at Acacia Farm Lodge will be packed with plenty to do and see! Most people will spend at least one full day visiting the Ngorongoro Crater but for those who choose to spend a day or two longer, there is much to explore. Acacia Farm Lodge is an active farm and there is always a friendly guide on had to give you a tour of the coffee plantation and expansive vegetable gardens, spotting birds as you go and learning all about the valuable trees and shrubs that surround the farm and cottages. And for those that like to explore on two wheels, Acacia Farm Lodge has long biking trails which intersect the 25 acres of land. The biking trails are suitable for all abilities and can be booked on-site. If you enjoy a slower pace the property has a stunning swimming pool and a spa offering a wide range of massage treatments. Regardless of how you spend your days, your evening meal will be a real highlight. Acacia Farm Lodge offers a huge variety of dining options, and the kitchen is graced with 70 percent of all the vegetables used coming from the organic vegetable garden.

Sound of Silence
Sound of Silence

Sound of Silence

Arusha, Tanzania

Room Type: Luxury Tent

Dates: Jun 5, 2026 - Jun 7, 2026

Sound of Silence is a private, intimate lodge in the heart of the Serengeti. Almost every single night herds of antelope and Zebra will come into the camp environment for safety whilst resting. The tents are very, very comfortable with linen, duvets and mattresses of the highest quality guaranteeing a good night's rest. Hot and cold water on tap, 24 hour electricity from our solar plant, and permanent WIFI to share the photographs of the day. We offer an A la Carte menu, catering to most often found dietary requirements. Breakfast is a full buffet with hot items to order. Our safari lunch boxes for those who will be out all day with their guides are very tasty and nutritious. Dinner is easily paced to take in the night time sounds and sights.

Cost Includes

Meet and greet services

Assistance at the airport with private transfers to the hotel 

Two 4x4 vehicles with services of experienced English speaking driver-guides 

Accommodation and meals as specified

Park fees, entrance fees and government taxes

Internal flights as per the itinerary including airport taxes 

Filtered water will be provided in our safari vehicles

Cost Excludes

International flights

Visas

Driver guide gratuities

Drinks (unless specified), dining rooms tips, porterage, personal travel, medical and baggage insurance

Telephone bill, laundry (unless specified) and any items of a personal nature

Prices for domestic flights, airport taxes, park fees, concession fees or government levies may be changed without prior notice. This is beyond our control and any increase levied will be passed to you.


78060 Calle Estado Suite 7, La Quinta, CA 92253

P 800.409.7755  |  F 818.459.6999

info@greatsafaris.comwww.greatsafaris.com

CST# 2163276-50


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