17 Day Luxury Tanzania Safari
A seventeen-day luxury journey through Mkomazi, Arusha, Tarangire, Lake Manyara, Ngorongoro, Ndutu, the Serengeti and Lake Victoria, with cultural visits and fine lodges.
- Duration
- 17 days
- Route
- Arusha – Mkomazi – Arusha National Park – Tarangire – Lake Manyara – Ngorongoro Crater – Olduvai Gorge – Ndutu – Serengeti (Seronera and Western Corridor) – Lake Victoria – Gibbs Farm – Arusha
- Start / end
- Starts and ends at Kilimanjaro International Airport, with Lake Duluti Serena Lodge in Arusha as the base at the beginning and end of the trip.
- Best time
- The itinerary is designed around June, when the Western Corridor offers the best chance to witness the Great Migration, though departures on other dates can be discussed.
- Trip style
- A luxury lodge and tented camp safari in a 4WD vehicle equipped with VHF radio, with all meals on safari and top lodges such as the Serena properties, Ndutu Safari Lodge and Neptune Ngorongoro Luxury Lodge.
Tour overview
With household names like the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater as the headline acts, you would be forgiven for thinking a luxury safari in Tanzania is all about game viewing on the savannah. But Tanzania is also a country of remote forests and silent lakes, and its wildlife is a magical blend of Southern, East and Central Africa: big game, primates and well over 1,000 bird species.
This 17 day luxury safari goes well beyond the usual circuit. Alongside Tarangire, Lake Manyara, the Ngorongoro Crater, Ndutu and the Serengeti, you explore Mkomazi and Arusha National Parks, visit Olduvai Gorge, a Maasai village and a school in Arusha, and spend a day on the shores of Lake Victoria.
Fine suites with amazing views, elegant furnishings and gourmet food are non-negotiable on this trip, and just when you think you cannot take any more, you will be bowled over by the friendliness of the Tanzanian people.
Highlights
- Game drives in Mkomazi National Park, the southern extension of the Tsavo ecosystem
- Black-and-white colobus monkeys, Momella Lakes and Mt. Meru views in Arusha National Park
- A full day on the Ngorongoro Crater floor and a visit to Olduvai Gorge
- Game drives around Ndutu and Seronera, with an included night game drive
- The Great Migration in the Western Corridor and an optional balloon safari
- A canoe ride and village visit on the shores of Lake Victoria
Day-by-day itinerary
Day 1Arrival Day – Welcome to East Africa!
Arrive at Kilimanjaro International Airport near Moshi in the evening, where you will be met by Serengeti Joy Tours staff and transferred to the beautiful Lake Duluti Serena Lodge on the lower slopes of Mount Meru, about a 45-minute drive away. Lake Duluti Serena Lodge is your base: you will stay here at the beginning of the trip, on Day 6 and on the last day, so feel at home and leave luggage here as needed. All meals are included on a full-board basis, starting with breakfast tomorrow.
Day 2Arusha and Lake Duluti
After breakfast, enjoy an optional 3-hour, 2-mile nature walk around Lake Duluti, set in a lush crater beneath Mt. Meru. Entry to the Duluti Forest Reserve is USD 12 per person. This crater lake, covering 63 hectares, is a haven for birds, reptiles and diverse plant life. With luck you may spot species such as the eastern green mamba, large monitor lizards and some of more than 130 bird species. After the walk, return for a hot lunch and a briefing on your upcoming safari. Relax at the lodge, where you may see Mt. Kilimanjaro in the evening.
Day 3Arusha town and the New Life Band School
After a good breakfast you drive through Arusha town, the safari capital of Tanzania, to the New Life Band School, a privately run coed high school and boarding school funded by donations. The band has toured the United States several times to raise funds for the school buildings, and this is your first opportunity to donate any school items you have brought. Afterward you drive to the Cultural Heritage Center for a hot lunch, followed by time to shop for tanzanite and other items or tour the art gallery. You will also get some tips on bartering and shopping in East Africa before returning to the lodge for dinner.
Day 4Arusha to Mkomazi National Park
After breakfast you leave Arusha and travel to Mkomazi National Park, a less-visited wilderness that forms the southern extension of Kenya's Tsavo National Park ecosystem. Leaving the busier northern circuit behind for a couple of days, you settle into the quieter rhythm of this remote park, with time to enjoy the landscape and look for wildlife as you arrive.
Day 5Full day of wildlife viewing in Mkomazi National Park
Today is a full-day game drive in Mkomazi National Park, with a picnic lunch along the way. Mkomazi is the southern extension of the Tsavo National Park ecosystem in Kenya, and exploring it gives you a very different perspective from the famous northern parks. In the evening you return to camp for dinner and overnight in a private mobile tented camp.
Day 6Mkomazi to Arusha game drive and travel day
After breakfast you take the back road to Dindira Dam to look for wildlife, then stop at Ibaya Camp before leaving the park around lunchtime. You will probably eat your box lunch at Zange Gate before continuing back to Arusha and Lake Duluti Serena Lodge for dinner and overnight. This is a good chance to repack and leave luggage at the hotel to collect at the end of the trip.
Day 7Arusha National Park and on to Tarangire
After an early breakfast you drive to nearby Arusha National Park for a wildlife drive and picnic lunch. Look for the beautiful black-and-white colobus monkey, elephants, hornbills, flamingos and other mammals and birds of the montane forest. Often bypassed by travelers in a hurry to reach the Serengeti, this breathtaking park includes the alkaline Momella Lakes, Ngurdoto Crater and 14,000-foot Mt. Meru looming overhead. In the afternoon you continue to Tarangire and check in before dinner at a Maasai-run eco-lodge just outside the park, where elephants sometimes roam through camp. This is also the first lodge with a swimming pool.
Day 8Full day in Tarangire National Park
The day starts with an early breakfast and a morning game drive in Tarangire National Park, where you can expect all kinds of big game, including close encounters with elephants. Lunch is a hot meal at Tarangire Safari Lodge, which overlooks a waterhole that is often busy with wildlife. In the afternoon you continue along the riverine forest of the Tarangire River, with its baobab trees, elephant herds, lions and the occasional leopard sleeping in the trees. Tarangire is another park that many travelers hurry past on the way to the Serengeti, a mistake this safari does not make. Return to camp for dinner.
Day 9Tarangire to Lake Manyara National Park
After breakfast you take the back road through the village to Lake Manyara National Park, home to lions that occasionally climb trees. Although small, this is one of the most diverse parks in the country. The lake covers two-thirds of the park, with the wall of the Great Rift Valley as the backdrop and groundwater forest, open grassland and the soda lake itself, with a pH of 9.5, below. Enjoy a picnic lunch near the hot spring. Manyara is a birding paradise with more than 350 species and the site of Iain Douglas-Hamilton's landmark elephant study. Your lodge is perched on the escarpment overlooking the lake, with an infinity pool.
Day 10Lake Manyara to Ngorongoro Crater
After an early breakfast you drive to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area for a day in the crater. You descend the steep road to the crater floor for a fantastic safari in this extraordinary ecosystem, with high concentrations of zebra, gazelle, impala, wildebeest, hyena and lion, plus the occasional cheetah and rhino, all bound by the crater walls. Enjoy a picnic lunch inside the 11-mile-wide crater, but watch out for yellow-billed kites swooping down for your sandwich. After lunch you continue game viewing before climbing the ascent road in the late afternoon to your lodge on the rim in time for dinner.
Day 11Maasai village, Olduvai Gorge and on to Ndutu
After breakfast, start with an optional visit to a Maasai village or manyatta, a memorable cultural experience costing USD 20 per person, payable to the village chief, where you can also see the small local school. Next you continue to Olduvai Gorge, the renowned archaeological site known as the cradle of mankind, where Mary Leakey discovered the Zinjanthropus skull in 1959. This 30-mile-long, 295-foot-deep ravine holds fossils and early stone tools more than 2 million years old. Enjoy a picnic lunch at the overlook and explore the Zinj site and Mary Leakey's camp. End the day at Ndutu Safari Lodge, a long-time base for wildlife filmmakers such as Hugo van Lawick and Dame Jane Goodall.
Day 12Full day of game viewing in the Ndutu and Serengeti area
Today starts very early with a pre-breakfast game drive at 6:00 am around Lake Ndutu and Lake Masek, looking for big cats such as lions and cheetahs, as well as wildebeest, zebras, impala and much more. Return to the lodge for breakfast and packing. With a box lunch, you then cross the Serengeti plains in search of wildlife all afternoon. Your camp lies just outside the park boundary, where performances by the Simba Dance Troupe add to spectacular Serengeti sunsets and sunrises. At night, listen for trumpeting elephants, laughing hyenas, braying zebras and the roars of the camp's namesake (simba means lion).
Day 13Serengeti National Park – Seronera
A safari in Tanzania is not complete without full days of game viewing in Serengeti National Park. You may head out on a sunrise game drive before breakfast, or eat first and then explore the Seronera area, the best part of the park for finding leopards in the trees, along with elephants, buffalo, lions and hippos. Going out early at daybreak offers the chance to see nocturnal species returning and diurnal species waking to a new day. With a box lunch, you have the freedom to explore this wildlife-rich area and visit the main park visitor center. After dinner back at camp, an included night game drive may reveal chameleons, genets, civets, bat-eared foxes, steenbok and springhares.
Day 14Serengeti – travel to the Western Corridor
In June, the Western Corridor offers the best chance to witness the magnificent Great Migration, when more than one and a half million wildebeest, accompanied by hundreds of thousands of gazelles and zebras, journey north toward Kenya. Along the way they must brave the crocodile-infested Grumeti and Mara Rivers in search of greener pastures and water. Today you hope to find plenty of wildebeest and other wildlife as you travel to your next lodge, perhaps stopping at a hippo pool and enjoying a picnic lunch by the river. Your lodge has a swimming pool.
Day 15Balloon safari in the Western Corridor and Lake Victoria
This is balloon safari day for those who have signed up: you leave the lodge very early to reach the launch site by sunrise. From the balloon you may spot the migration, a colobus monkey in the trees, buffalo, zebra, giraffe or even a serval. After breakfast in the bush, the whole group continues to Lake Victoria, the largest lake in Africa and the second-largest freshwater lake in the world. You see daily life in a lakeshore village, tour a primary school and take a 1.5-hour canoe ride on the lake, learning from local fishermen (USD 35 per person to support the community). After a picnic lunch near the lake, return to the lodge after a long and exciting day.
Day 16Serengeti to Neptune Ngorongoro Luxury Lodge
After breakfast and an early start, you leave the Serengeti for the fairly long drive to Neptune Ngorongoro Luxury Lodge, stopping for your box lunch at a scenic spot along the way. You should arrive in time for afternoon tea. There may be time to stroll through the working coffee plantation or the large organic garden, relax on a sun lounger by the pool, or enjoy a treatment or massage at the Mvua African Rain Spa to rejuvenate after your adventures.
Day 17Nature walk at Gibbs Farm and return to Arusha
After an English breakfast at the lodge you have time for a short nature and bird walk at Gibbs Farm before heading back to Arusha. You eat your box lunch along the way next to the Snake Park (optional visit, around USD 10 per person). You should reach Lake Duluti Serena Lodge in the mid-afternoon, with day rooms and showers available for packing and freshening up before your evening flight from Kilimanjaro International Airport. Dinner is on your own tonight, although your airline will usually serve a meal on board.
What is included
- 18% VAT
- All lodge concession fees
- All park entrance and administrative fees
- All hotels and tented camps as per the itinerary
- All meals on safari as noted in the itinerary
- Transfers to and from Arusha/Kilimanjaro International Airport
- 4WD transportation while on safari
- Staff salaries and guiding fees
- Night game drive outside Serengeti National Park
- Special tour leaders for interpretation of the sites
- Coffee and tea at meals, and bottled water in rooms and vehicles
Not included
- International airfares and departure taxes
- Visa for Tanzania
- Travel insurance and Flying Doctors insurance
- Tips and gratuities for hotel and lodge staff, porters, camp staff and especially driver-guides
- Alcoholic and most non-alcoholic drinks, and extra bottled water
- Telephone calls and internet (Wi-Fi is sometimes available for free)
- Laundry and all items of a personal nature
- Balloon safari (USD 550 per person, paid in advance)
- Maasai village visit (USD 20 per person, paid on the spot)
- Lake Victoria boat ride and community tour (USD 35 per person, paid on the spot)
- Lake Duluti Forest Reserve entrance fee (USD 12 per person, paid on the spot)
- Arusha Snake Park (around USD 10 per person, paid on the spot)
Good to know
- Lake Duluti Serena Lodge is your base, so you can leave luggage there and repack on Day 6 and at the end of the trip.
- Several activities are optional and paid separately, including the balloon safari (USD 550, paid in advance) and the Maasai village, Lake Victoria, Lake Duluti and Snake Park visits (paid on the spot).
- Bring any school supplies you would like to donate for the visit to the New Life Band School on Day 3.
- Tips are not included; budget for gratuities for lodge and camp staff and especially for your driver-guide.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best time for this safari?
The itinerary is built around June, when the Western Corridor of the Serengeti offers the best chance to see the Great Migration. Contact us if you would like to travel at a different time of year.
Is the balloon safari included?
No. The balloon safari over the Western Corridor is optional and costs USD 550 per person, paid in advance. Those who do not fly join the rest of the group after breakfast for the trip to Lake Victoria.
Do the lodges have swimming pools?
Several do. Tarangire Roika Tented Camp, Lake Manyara Serena Lodge (with an infinity pool), Mbalageti Safari Lodge and Neptune Ngorongoro Luxury Lodge all have pools.
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