Six itineraries across the northern circuit, from a four-day first safari to nine days covering the whole of it. Every one is private and every one can be changed.
Places Lake Manyara, Serengeti, Ngorongoro
Four days from Arusha through Lake Manyara, the Serengeti and the Ngorongoro Crater, in a private…
Places Serengeti, Ngorongoro, Olduvai Gorge
Six days with two full days in the Serengeti, Olduvai Gorge on the way in and the Ngorongoro Crater to…
Places Tarangire, Ngorongoro, Lake Manyara, Lake Eyasi
Seven days through Tarangire, Lake Manyara and the Ngorongoro Crater, ending with a morning at Lake…
Places Lake Manyara, Ngorongoro, Serengeti
Seven days pairing the parks with cultural time: Lake Manyara, Lake Eyasi, the Ngorongoro Crater and the…
Places Lake Manyara, Serengeti, Ngorongoro
Eight days built around the herds: Lake Manyara, Ndutu in the calving season, two days in the Serengeti…
Places Lake Manyara, Serengeti, Ngorongoro
Nine days across the northern circuit at an unhurried pace: Lake Manyara, the Serengeti, two nights at…
Dry Shoulder Green Long rains
Green, warm and settling. The short rains have usually finished and the herds are on the southern short-grass plains around Ndutu. Good light, moderate crowds, and the crater at its greenest. A strong month that most people overlook.
The peak of the calving on the southern plains, with roughly four hundred thousand wildebeest calves dropped inside two to three weeks. The densest predator activity of the year anywhere on the circuit, and the best light. The Ndutu camps fill twelve months ahead.
The last of the green season and the start of the turn. The herds begin to string out northward, the rains build through the month, and rates drop from mid-month. Quiet, green and good value if you can take the weather.
The long rains proper. Some camps close, the western Serengeti roads become difficult, and afternoon storms are routine. It is the cheapest month of the year by a wide margin and the parks are close to empty.
Still wet, still cheap, still very quiet. The herds move west and north toward the Grumeti. Not a first-safari month, but on a longer trip the weather costs less than it sounds and the landscape is extraordinary.
The dry season begins. Grass shortens, animals start concentrating on permanent water, and Tarangire begins its best stretch. The Grumeti crossings can happen late in the month. Cold mornings arrive.
Dry, clear and busy. The first herds reach the far north and the Mara River. The timing swings by weeks. Tarangire is at its best. Book well ahead for anything in the northern Serengeti.
Peak season. The Mara River crossings are at their most likely, the crater is busiest, and every good camp is full. Excellent game viewing, the most vehicles of the year, and the highest rates outside Christmas.
The other peak crossing month and, for many guides, the better of the two: the same odds on the river with slightly thinner traffic. Dry, dusty and cold at dawn.
The dry season ends. Game is still concentrated on water and Tarangire is still excellent, but thunder clouds build late in the month and the herds begin drifting south. Quieter than August and September.
The short rains. Green country, thinning crowds, animals on the move and rates well below peak. Consistently the most under-booked good month of the year.
Green and increasingly busy. The herds arrive back on the southern plains through the month. Rates over Christmas and New Year are the highest of the year. The first three weeks are much better value.
The six routes above differ in three ways that matter: how many days they take, which parks they reach, and whether they include a cultural component. Everything else is negotiable.
Four days reaches the Serengeti and the Ngorongoro Crater and nothing else. It is the right answer when the alternative isn't coming, and it has the highest ratio of driving to game viewing of any length here.
Six days is where most first-time visitors should be looking. A full day in the Serengeti with two nights around it, a separate crater day instead of a crater morning on the way home, and Olduvai Gorge on the road between them.
Seven days comes in two shapes. One covers Tarangire, Manyara, the crater and Lake Eyasi and doesn't include the Serengeti. The other is the cultural route, with two nights at Eyasi and the Serengeti included. Read both before assuming which is which.
Eight and nine days add Ndutu and the southern plains, which is where the calving happens between December and March and where off-road driving is permitted in parts.
If you're unsure, the six-day route is the safest default and the eight-day route is the one people wish they had booked.
Four things move the number on a safari quote, and only one of them is the operator.
Park fees. Charged per person for each 24-hour period by TANAPA, with crater entry levied separately per vehicle as well as per person by the NCAA. These are the largest fixed component of any northern-circuit trip, they're identical for every operator, and they're revised periodically.
Days. Each extra day adds fees, accommodation and food. Adding a day in a region you're already in is much cheaper than adding a park, because it costs no transfer.
Accommodation. The widest variable, from public campsites to camps inside the park boundary. The most consequential part of this isn't comfort but position: a lodge outside the gate costs you the first and last hour of daylight every day.
Group size. Vehicle, fuel and guide are charged once and divided, so the per-person price falls steeply from two travellers to four and much more gently from four to six.
Season. High season is roughly June to October and over Christmas. April and May are the cheapest by a wide margin.
Quotes on the northern circuit are usually all-inclusive once you're on the road, and knowing what that means avoids the two conversations nobody enjoys.
Normally included: 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 throughout, 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 for your guide and camp staff, laundry, and optional extras such as balloon flights, night drives, walking safaris and the canopy walkway at Lake Manyara.
Grey areas worth asking about explicitly: meals on the first and last nights in Arusha, internal flights if any leg is flown, and whether the quote is based on a specific camp or a category.
The single most useful question to ask about any quote is which camps it's based on and how far each is from a park gate. That one answer explains most of the difference between two prices for the same route.
No operator can guarantee a sighting. Not a leopard, not a kill, not a river crossing, not a rhino. Anyone who does is promising something the animals haven't agreed to.
You can plan to be in the right region in the right month with enough days to be patient, in a private vehicle that can stay when a sighting is good. That converts luck into odds.
Weather can change a route. Roads in the western Serengeti and on the black-cotton stretches near Ndutu become genuinely difficult in the wet season, and a plan with no slack in it will be tested.
Park fees are revised from time to time by TANAPA and the NCAA, so a quote is confirmed against your travel dates, not against last season's tariff.
And the driving is real. Distances look small on a map and take much longer than the kilometres suggest. If you have a back or neck problem, or you get motion sick, say so when you enquire. It changes what we would recommend.
Every route on this page is a starting point, not a fixed departure. Here are the changes people most often make, so you know them before you enquire.
Length. Adding a day in a region you're already visiting is the cheapest way to improve a trip: it costs accommodation and fees but no transfer day, and the extra night is when you stop orienting and start seeing.
Region. If your dates fall in the calving season, moving Serengeti nights south to Ndutu changes the trip a lot. If they fall in the crossing season, moving them north does the same. That one usually means flying.
Order. The published order is the usual one, but a trip can be reversed or re-based to suit a flight, a wedding, or a Kilimanjaro climb either side of it.
Standard. Camps can be mixed, not matched. Camping in the Serengeti and a lodge on the crater rim is a common and sensible combination.
Pace. Fewer parks with more nights in each is almost always a better week than the reverse, particularly with children or on a long-haul first visit.
Small, well-sited camps are the constraint on the northern circuit, not availability generally, and they fill unevenly.
Mobile camps in the northern Serengeti for August and September fill roughly twelve months ahead. So do the Ndutu camps for February. If your dates are fixed and you are travelling for one of those seasons, book about a year out.
Christmas and New Year fill early across the whole circuit, and rates over that fortnight are the highest of the year.
June and July fill next. April, May and November have availability much later, and that's where the value is.
Balloon flights over the Serengeti have limited capacity and sell out in the high season. Book them with the camps, not on arrival.
If your dates have any flexibility at all, ask what's available before fixing the route. A week either side can be the difference between the camp you want and a compromise, and camp position affects your game viewing more than almost anything else you can choose.
Park fees are set by TANAPA and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority, charged per person per day, and they're identical for every operator in the country. On a mid-range northern-circuit trip they account for a large share of the daily rate before anybody's margin enters the calculation.
That single fact explains most of what looks confusing about safari pricing. There is a floor below which no legitimate operator can go, because a large part of the cost is a government charge nobody controls. It also means that the difference between two quotes for the same route lives almost entirely in accommodation, group size and the number of days, not in the operator being cheaper or more expensive as such.
So when you compare, compare those three things. Ask which camps, by name. Ask how far each is from a park gate. Ask how many people will be in the vehicle. Those answers tell you what you're actually buying.
Add a day, swap a park, upgrade the lodges, travel in a different month. Tell us what you want and we will rebuild the itinerary around it.
