5-Day Tanzania Mid-Season Safari

This is the itinerary we recommend most often to first-time safari travellers. It runs at a properly civilised pace: a full day in Tarangire, a transit-and-game-drive day to reach the central Serengeti, two consecutive nights in the same Serengeti camp with a full uninterrupted day of game-viewing in between, and a final day on the Ngorongoro Crater floor before the drive back to Arusha. Nothing is rushed, every park gets the time it deserves, and you sleep two nights at the same address mid-trip.

Tarangire opens the safari with elephants and birding along the river. The transit day into the Serengeti crosses the Ngorongoro highlands, the wildflower-strewn plains around Naabi Hill, and the southern grassland that holds the wildebeest herds during calving season. By the time you reach the tented camp at Seronera you have already spent six hours game-viewing.

The Serengeti is the heart of this trip. The full middle day allows for a long morning circuit through the kopjes, granite outcrops that lion prides use as observation posts, a retreat to camp for lunch in the heat of the day, and an afternoon loop along the Seronera River for leopard and crocodile. The cadence (drive, lunch in camp, drive) is a more humane way to safari than the all-day-in-the-vehicle approach.

The final descent into the Ngorongoro Crater is one of the great drives in Africa. The caldera walls are 600 metres high, the floor is 19 kilometres across, and the wildlife density on the floor is the highest in Tanzania. You spend roughly six hours inside the crater before the climb out and the four-hour drive back to Arusha, long, but worth it.