Tarangire National Park * Lake Manyara visit * Ngorongoro Crater * Serengeti National Park
Taste of Tented Tanzania is a six-night private mobile camping safari through Northern Tanzania: an evocative, modern interpretation of the great exploratory journeys of East Africa. Designed for families or groups of friends travelling together, it offers the romance of that classic ‘pioneering’ under-canvas safari combined with contemporary comfort and expert guiding.
Your journey is entirely private, with your own custom-designed 4×4 safari vehicle, professional guide and dedicated camp team. Which includes a chef and support crew who move ahead to set up camp in each new wilderness location. While the spirit is pioneering, the experience is refined: spacious en-suite tents, proper beds with quality linens, excellent lighting, and thoughtfully prepared meals under wide African skies. You may even opt for a shower open to the stars, or enclosed if you prefer.
The safari begins in the Tarangire National Park, where baobab-dotted landscapes and large elephant herds set the tone for your adventure safari. After two nights, continue via Lake Manyara for game viewing before ascending to the rim of the Ngorongoro Crater for an overnight stay. A morning descent into the Crater reveals one of Africa’s most concentrated wildlife havens.
From here, you drive north to the Serengeti, where three nights of private camping place you at the heart of this iconic ecosystem. Depending on the season, you may witness vast plains game herds, dramatic predator encounters, or the quieter beauty of plenty of resident game.
The safari concludes with a scenic light aircraft flight from the Serengeti back to Arusha (included), offering a fitting aerial perspective of the landscapes you have explored.
Pricing below are indicative only and varies depending on the season and group size, with particularly attractive value for groups of four to six travelling together. Indicative rates are based on high season (June to October).
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Your guide meets you at your Arusha hotel for a safari briefing and you depart after breakfast for the Tarangire. (Your luggage and equipment travels separately so that when you arrive at camp, everything is ready for you.)
You pass through the Masai Steppe filled with many picturesque African villages as well as maize, coffee and banana plantations. You enjoy a picnic lunch and afternoon game drive in the Tarangire before arriving at your private camp.
Note: The tour assumes that you will have arrived in Arusha on the previous day. We will need to add an overnight stay in Arusha. We will add this transfer and overnight to our quote once we know your arrival arrangements.
Early this morning after breakfast, you leave for a full day of game-viewing in the park.
The Tarangire River is a vital life source for the huge amount of game in Tarangire National Park. In particular, wildebeest, zebra and buffalo migrate here during the dry season from June to October. A little known fact is that, at the tail end of the dry season (September to November), the elephant concentration in Tarangire is the greatest in Africa, numbering close to 2,500 animals.
You leave after an early breakfast and head to Lake Manyara for a game drive and picnic lunch. In the late afternoon you continue to Bougainvillea Lodge near the Ngorongoro Crater.
Lake Manyara National Park is famous for its unique ground-water forest and for (but in reality seldom seen) tree-climbing lions. It is a compact, attractive park, with good populations of lion and elephant as well as giraffes, buffalo, impala, zebra and of course hippo. Lake Manyara is also fantastic for bird-watching. Indeed, with 380 species recorded, Lake Manyara is one of the most rewarding birding regions in Tanzania.
A highlight awaits you this morning as you depart in your 4×4 vehicle to explore what is sometimes referred to as ‘the World’s largest wildlife zoo’.
After breakfast, you drive through the early morning’s mist and descend over 600 m into the crater. Here you will have a picnic lunch. Ngorongoro Crater is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and has barely changed since the dawn of time. Due to its size and diversity, the crater floor is comprised of several distinct habitats, ranging from forest, swamps, lakes and springs, to open grassland and some sandy dunes. With awe-inspiring array of animals including lions stalking the grasslands in search of vulnerable herds of zebra, wildebeest or other plains game; flamingos gathering in the shallow soda lakes and giant-tusked elephants wandering in its forests, it is no wonder that this is one of Africa’s best-known wildlife arenas.
After the picnic lunch you continue on towards the Serengeti. There is a stop at the renowned Olduvai Gorge museum en route. You’ll come into the vast plains of the Serengeti, where you may spot game well before you enter the park.
Your first night in spent in the southern or central part of the Serengeti (depending on where your ultimate destination is).
On these two days, you have a choice of a morning or afternoon game drive with lunch back at the camp or you can have a full day game drive complete with a picnic lunch.
When you return to camp as the sun sets, the fire will be lit and you’ll be able to enjoy a warm shower before settling down to a relaxing evening taking in the night sounds of the bush.
Serengeti National Park offers not only all the members of ‘The Big Five’ (elephant, rhino, lion, leopard and buffalo) but it is here, at certain times of the year, that one may see the breathtaking spectacle of the annual wildebeest migration. Every year, one and a quarter million wildebeest trek in columns of up to forty kilometres long in search of grazing, bringing with them their predators and numerous other species of game. The Serengeti is unequalled for its beauty and contains more than three million large mammals that spread over the vast endless plains.
You fly back to Arusha from the Serengeti National Park
Optional add-ons
You can end in Arusha or you can continue to Zanzibar or Southern Tanzania. We can easily quote on a few nights at the beach for some R&R.
This is a sample itinerary using specific hotels and lodges. However most of these sample tours can be adapted to suit you. If applicable, it includes domestic seat-in-charter flights. But it excludes any regional and domestic scheduled flights (as these are subject to change and specific routing). These are added to a specific quotation once we have your dates.
All accommodation and meals as specified, 4x4 vehicle safari with English speaking driver-guide, Game drives and crater tour, flight back from Seronera Airport to Arusha. All park fees, all meals, snacks. tea/coffee and bottled water
EXCLUDESInternational Flights, visas, onward flights to Zanzibar etc, insurance, drinks, tips and items of a personal nature
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