Day 1

Arrive Kilimanjaro International Airport (JRO) and transfer to a lodge/hotel in Arusha for dinner and overnight.

Day 2

Morning: breakfast at the lodge/hotel

9:00am: depart for Arusha National Park for morning game drive (with picnic lunch)

Afternoon: walk/canoeing in the park

Arusha National Park is close to the famous “safari town” of Arusha (29 km), as well as the Kilimanjaro International Airport. The Park is one of the most beautiful and topographically varied game reserves in Tanzania, with a rich variety of wildlife, including giraffe, Cape buffalo, zebra, warthog, the black-and-white colobus monkey, the blue monkey, flamingo, elephant, lion and many others.  Birdlife is also prolific, with many forest species more easily seen here than in other places.

Evening: dinner and overnight at a lodge/hotel in Arusha
 

Day 3

9:00am: pick up from Arusha and drive to Tarangire National Park with picnic lunch

Tarangire is home to some 300 herds of elephants that scratch the dry river bed to tap into underground streams, while migratory wildebeest, zebra, buffalo, impala, gazelle, hartebeest and eland crowd the lagoons as they shrink in the dry season. 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 the peculiar long-necked gerenuk are regularly observed.    

Afternoon: game drive in the park

Evening: dinner and overnight at a lodge/tented camp FB

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Day 4

Morning: breakfast at the lodge/camp

9:00am: depart for a full-day game drive in Tarangire  National Park

Lunch: return to lodge/camp for lunch

Evening: dinner and overnight at lodge/tented camp

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Day 5

Morning: Breakfast at lodge/camp in Tarangire

9:00am: depart for Lake Manyara National Park (with picnic lunch) for half-day game drive

Lake Manyara National Park provides a perfect introduction to Tanzania’s birdlife. More than 400 species have been observed, and even a first-time visitor to Africa might reasonably expect to observe 100 of these in one day. Highlights include thousands of pink-hued flamingos on their perpetual migration, as well as other large water birds such as pelicans, cormorants and storks.

Late afternoon: drive to Karatu area for dinner and overnight at a lodge

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Day 6

Morning: Breakfast at lodge

After breakfast: depart for the Serengeti National Park; picnic lunch along the way, plus a brief stop at Maasai Boma to see Maasai way of life.

The Serengeti is Tanzania's oldest and most popular national park, as well as a world heritage site and recently proclaimed a 7th worldwide wonder. 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 some of the most scintillating game-viewing in Africa: great herds of buffalo, smaller groups of elephant and giraffe, and thousands upon thousands of eland, topi, kongoni, impala and Grant’s gazelle.

Afternoon: Game drive in the Serengeti

Evening: Dinner and overnight at a Serengeti lodge or tented camp FB

Day 7

Morning: Breakfast at the lodge/camp

After breakfast: depart for full day game drive in Serengeti 

Evening: Dinner and overnight at lodge or tented camp

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Day 8

5:00am: OPTIONAL balloon ride or

6:00am: depart for an early morning game drive in the Serengeti

9:00am: Return to camp for breakfast, then depart for the Ndutu area (part of the Ngorongoro Conservation area)

Consisting mainly of sweeping grasslands, the Ndutu area in the northern part of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area joins the Serengeti. As such, it forms part of the annual migratory route of hundreds of thousands of wildebeest, zebra and antelope (and their predators) who come to graze and calve between November and March, depending on the rains. The forests around Lake Ndutu and small koppies are also home to prolific, resident wildlife.

Lunch: at Lake Masek tented camp/Ndutu Luxury Tented Camp

Afternoon: game drive in Ngorongoro Ndutu area

Evening: dinner and overnight at a lodge/tented camp FB

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Day 9

Morning: Breakfast at the lodge/camp, followed by morning game drive in Ndutu area

Lunch: at camp, then depart for Ngorongoro Conservation area

The Ngorongoro Conservation Area spans vast expanses of highland plains, savanna, savanna woodlands and forests. Established in 1959 as a multiple land-use area, with wildlife coexisting with semi-nomadic Maasai pastoralists practicing traditional livestock grazing, it includes the spectacular Ngorongoro Crater, the world’s largest caldera.

Afternoon: OPTIONAL brief stop at Olduvai Gorge

Olduvai was the first place where traces of an early stone tool culture were discovered, and gave the name to the Oldowan, nowadays considered as the earliest human technology. Olduvai is also one of the first sites in Africa where the earliest Acheulean was first discovered, and where the traditional view of the Oldowan-Acheulean transition was established.

Evening: dinner and overnight at  Ngorongoro  lodge/tented camp FB

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Day 10

Morning: breakfast at the lodge/camp, then descend into the Ngorongoro Crater for a half day crater tour with picnic lunch.

The Ngorongoro Crater is a breathtaking natural wonder. It’s a deep, volcanic crater, the largest unflooded and unbroken caldera in the world. About 20kms across, 600 meters deep and 300 sq kms in area, it is home to lions, elephant, wildebeest, hippopotamus, rhinocerous, hyena, jackals, ostrich, baboon, and many other animals.

Midday: Picnic lunch at the crater floor.

Late afternoon: drive to Karatu area for dinner and overnight at a lodge FB

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Day 11

Morning: breakfast at the lodge/camp, then depart for Lake Eyasi (with picnic lunch)

Lake Eyasi is a seasonal shallow endorheic salt lake on the floor of the Great Rift Valley. Seasonal water level fluctuations in the lake are dramatic, though the northwestern shore is constrained by the cliffs of the Serengeti Plateau. The Datooga and Hadzabe live around the lake though Hadzabe are the indigenous inhabitants of the area.

Afternoon: visit to Datooga boma and blacksmith

Evening: dinner and overnight at a lodge or tented camp FB

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Day 12

5:00am: depart for hunting with Bushmen

Mid-morning: return to the lodge for breakfast and shower

Midday: early lunch at lodge, then depart for Kilimanjaro Airport/departure flights.

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Twelve Day Northern Circuit