8-Day Tembo Safari

Welcome to Tanzania! We'll meet you at Kilimanjaro International Airport and drive you to Arusha, about an hour away. If your flight lands early, there's time for an afternoon in Arusha National Park. There are no lions there, which is why you're allowed to walk, and it's a lovely, gentle way to start.

In the evening, your guide will come to the hotel to talk through the week, check what you're most excited to see, and tweak the plan to suit. That chat usually changes something!

After breakfast, you'll head to Tarangire, about two and a half hours south-west. In the dry months, the Tarangire river is the only water for miles in any direction, so the animals come to it: elephants in their hundreds, plus buffalo, zebra and wildebeest.

Then there are the baobabs. These African baobabs are squat and swollen, often hollowed out by elephants, and they make Tarangire look like nowhere else on the circuit. You'll have a picnic lunch in the park, then a long afternoon game drive.

One more morning drive in Tarangire, then you'll head north past Lake Manyara and up the escarpment to the highlands. There's time to spend a few hours in Lake Manyara on the way, with its groundwater forest, big baboon troops, and brilliant birding along the lake shore.

You'll climb up through farmland to Karatu, which sits above 1,500 metres and feels noticeably cooler than the parks below.

It's an early start, but trust us, it's worth it. You'll drive down into the crater as the gate opens, ahead of the day trips coming up from Arusha, and have the floor almost to yourselves for the first hour or two.

The crater holds around 25,000 large animals in just 260 square kilometres, including lion, elephant, buffalo and one of the last viable black rhino populations in the region. After a picnic lunch on the crater floor, you'll climb out and drive west into the Serengeti, arriving in the late afternoon.

Two full days in the Serengeti, and that's what this whole trip is about. Where you go depends on the month. In the first few months of the year the herds are on the southern plains, from about July all eyes turn north to the rivers, and the central Seronera valley has resident lion, leopard and cheetah all year round.

Here, your days follow the animals, not a schedule. You'll head out before dawn with coffee, come back for the middle of the day while the cats sleep, and go out again from mid-afternoon until the gate times call you in. Fancy a balloon safari? This is where it happens, and it needs booking in advance.

One last morning drive, then the long road east. You'll stop at Olduvai Gorge on the way, where the Leakeys found hominin remains that pushed the human story back nearly two million years. The small museum is better than it looks, and it takes about an hour.

You'll drive back to Arusha in the morning, with time for a shower and a day room at a hotel before your flight. Heading on to Zanzibar? Then we'll take you to Arusha airport instead. It's a short hop, and most people are really glad they added it.