Game drives across the northern circuit
Wildlife Safaris
Classic game-viewing in Tarangire, Lake Manyara, the Serengeti and the Ngorongoro Crater, in a private vehicle with your own guide.
Ways to travel
Safari experiences
Most people arrive knowing roughly what kind of trip they want before they know which parks. Start here, and the itineraries follow.
Following the herds through the Serengeti
Migration Safaris
Timed itineraries that put you where the wildebeest are. Calving on the southern plains early in the year, river crossings in the north from July.
Maasai, Datoga and Hadzabe communities
Cultural Safaris
Time with communities who live alongside the parks, built into a wildlife itinerary instead of bolted on as a photo stop.
Six routes to Uhuru Peak
Kilimanjaro Trekking
Marangu, Machame, Rongai and Lemosho, from five to eight days. Route choice is mostly a question of how much acclimatisation time you want.
Waterfalls, hot springs and short excursions
Day Trips
Single-day trips from Arusha and Moshi, useful either side of a climb or as a gentle first day.
The coast, an hour from the safari circuit
Zanzibar Holidays
Beach time after the parks. Short flights from Kilimanjaro make a combined safari-and-island trip straightforward.
Your own vehicle, your own guide, your own pace
Private Tanzania Safaris
Every safari we run is private. No shared seats, no fixed departure you have to fit around.
Tarangire, Manyara, Ngorongoro and the Serengeti
Northern Circuit Safaris
The four parks west of Arusha that hold most of northern Tanzania's wildlife, close enough together to combine on a short trip.
The parks first, the islands afterwards
Tanzania Safari & Zanzibar
Combining a northern circuit safari with time on the Zanzibar coast: how the two halves fit together, and how long each needs.
Smaller camps, better siting, more space
Luxury Tanzania Safaris
What the premium actually buys on a Tanzanian safari, and what it doesn't.
Comfortable lodges, sensible money
Mid-Range Tanzania Safaris
Where most Tanzanian safaris sit, and why: private bathroom, proper bed, no premium for polish.
Public campsites, same parks, same wildlife
Budget & Camping Safaris
The cheapest way to do a Tanzanian safari properly, and an honest account of what you give up.
Trips that work with children in the vehicle
Family Safaris
What changes when children come along: pace, distances, and which parks suit a short attention span.
Safari and coast, at an unhurried pace
Honeymoon Safaris
What we change for a honeymoon: fewer moves, better-sited camps, and the beach at the end.
Built around light, position and time
Photographic Safaris
Safaris arranged for people who came to photograph, not just to look, and what that changes.
The southern Serengeti in the early months of the year
Calving Season Safaris
When the wildebeest drop their calves on the short-grass plains, and the predators that follow.
On foot, where the parks allow it
Walking Safaris
The places in northern Tanzania where you can walk, what it's actually like, and what it isn't.
Choosing a style
Start with what you want out of the trip
Most enquiries start with a number of days, but the length of a trip is usually the last thing worth deciding. What matters more is what you want from it — the first sighting of the big animals, time with the people who live alongside them, the migration specifically, a summit, or a beach at the end. Each of those points at a different route, a different month, and often a different budget.
A wildlife safari is the default and the right starting point for a first visit to Tanzania. The migration is a subset of that: the same parks, but timed around where the herds are likely to be, which changes the itinerary and sometimes the price. A cultural safari trades one or two game drives for time with Maasai, Hadzabe or Datoga communities, and suits travellers who find a week of driving between sightings repetitive.
Kilimanjaro is a separate trip with its own preparation, and Zanzibar is usually an extension rather than a destination in its own right. Day trips from Arusha fill the gaps at either end — the day you land, or the day before you fly home.
Nothing here is fixed. Every trip is quoted privately, so the categories below are a way into the conversation rather than a menu.
Choosing
Working out which kind of trip you want
The pages listed here cut the same set of parks in different directions, and most people belong to more than one of them. It helps to decide in this order.
First, the subject. Wildlife, Kilimanjaro, culture, or the coast. That determines the shape of the trip more than anything else, and the combined safari-and-Zanzibar page covers the most common answer of all: some of each.
Second, the style. Private is the default here and means your own vehicle, guide and schedule. Budget camping, mid-range and luxury describe where you sleep, not what you see. The parks, the vehicle, the guide and the animals are the same at every level.
Third, the specialism, if you've one. Photography, walking, birding, the calving season and the migration each change where you should be and when, sometimes by a lot.
Fourth, who is travelling. Family and honeymoon pages exist because both change the pace of a trip, not its content. Fewer parks, more nights in each, and different priorities on the driving days.
If none of that resolves it, start with the northern circuit page. It explains the geography everything else is built on.
Planning
What every one of these trips has in common
Whatever kind of trip you choose, some things don't change, and knowing them makes the choice easier.
Every trip is private. Your own vehicle, your own guide, and a day shaped around what you want, not a group schedule. Every itinerary on this site is a starting point that can be lengthened, shortened, re-ordered or re-based.
Park fees are the same for everybody. They are charged per person per 24-hour period by TANAPA, with crater entry levied separately by the NCAA, and they're the largest fixed cost on any northern-circuit trip regardless of who you book with or what standard you choose.
The wildlife is the same for everybody. The parks are public, the tracks are shared, and no standard of accommodation changes what's on the plains.
The driving is the same for everybody. Corrugated murram roads, three to four hours on a transfer day, and distances that take much longer than the kilometres suggest. The only genuine fix is flying a leg.
And nothing is guaranteed. You can plan to be in the right place in the right month with enough days to be patient.
Timing
When to travel, whatever you choose
- June to October
- Dry season on the mainland and the coast alike. Best visibility, most vehicles, highest prices. The Mara River crossings usually fall here, and Kilimanjaro is in its main climbing season.
- December to March
- The calving on the southern plains, the best light of the year, and the hot dry season on Zanzibar. February is the peak of all three. Kilimanjaro's quieter, warmer climbing season runs January to mid-March.
- April and May
- The long rains everywhere. Cheapest by a wide margin, emptiest parks, some camps and island hotels closed. Not a sensible time for a first Kilimanjaro climb.
- November
- The short rains: afternoon showers instead of all-day rain, green country, thinning crowds and consistently good value.
- Fixed dates
- If you can't move your window, base a safari in the central Serengeti and the crater, both of which work in every month, and choose a Kilimanjaro route by season, not by popularity.
Practical
What is included, whatever you choose
Normally included on a safari itinerary: airport transfers, a private vehicle with a pop-up roof, fuel, a driver-guide, all park and conservation-area entry fees, crater entry, camping or concession fees, accommodation, three meals a day once the safari has started, and drinking water in the vehicle.
Normally excluded: international flights, the Tanzanian visa, travel insurance, drinks other than water, tips, laundry, and optional extras such as balloon flights, night drives, walking safaris and the Lake Manyara canopy walkway.
On a Kilimanjaro climb, add hotel nights in Moshi either side, all crew wages, group camping equipment and rescue fees to the included list. Hire gear, personal equipment and crew tips go on the excluded one.
Insurance is the thing most often got wrong. A standard policy frequently excludes trekking above 4,000 or 5,000 metres, and Zanzibar requires its own medical cover bought on arrival on top of any policy you hold.
Ask which specific camps a quote is based on. That single answer explains most of the difference between two prices.
How these categories overlap
These aren't separate products so much as different ways of describing the same trip.
A family safari can be mid-range or luxury. A photographic trip is usually also a private one, because you need control of the vehicle. Almost any of them can have Zanzibar on the end.
So don't treat the choice as a menu where you pick one. Work out the two or three things that matter most, budget, who's travelling and how much time you have, and the category tends to name itself. If two pages both look right, they probably both are.