7 Days Big Five and Walking Tanzania Safari

Welcome to Tanzania, meet your guide for the drive to Kibo palace hotel. Tucked away in Arusha, Kibo Palace Hotel is straddled between the gateway to some of the most enchanting safari destinations and Mount Kilimanjaro, whose highest point it is named after. This little paradise comes with all the amenities and access you would expect in a modern city right in the wild. After settling into your room, take a walk around the town of Arusha and experience life in real Africa style or relax on the poolside and enjoy a cold Kilimanjaro beer.

You leave Kibo hotel, after breakfast with a picnic lunch packed safely away. The Rift Valley landscape drifts past as your guide heads for Tarangire National Park, the least visited reserve on the itinerary but one capable of delivering fantastic game viewing. Home to Tanzania’s biggest elephant population, Tarangire supports large numbers of buffalo, giraffe, zebra, and many antelope species, most evident during the dry season when concentrations of animals at the life-giving Tarangire River are at their peak June-October. Your accommodation Plantation lodge lies on the edge of the Ngorongoro conservation giving magical views of the Ngorongoro highlands. Explore the park’s rich habitats from the life-giving River, a landscape dotted with baobab trees, swamps, and open plains at your own pace. After an extensive day of game viewing leave the park and procced to your accommodation for dinner, and overnight.

“Home to the world’s last remaining large mammals”
You leave the Plantation safari lodge after breakfast with a picnic lunch packed safely and depart this morning for game viewing in the central part of the Serengeti. This part is famous for the abundance of lions and leopards that can usually be seen easily. Game viewing in the central area is spectacular all year round. Enjoy the views of endless plains and stunning wildlife like cheetahs, elephants, giraffes, hippos, ostrich, jackals, hyenas, hyrax, and many more, and if you time your safari very well you might come across the great migration of wildebeest, and zebra which are here between the months of November to June, but even when the migration is not around game viewing is superb. Late in the evening proceed to your accommodation for dinner and overnight.

After a leisurely breakfast at your camp, we set out for the endless open plains and stunning skies of Serengeti National Park - a famous migration corridor and UNESCO World Heritage site. Here, you'll have a chance to witness the great migration of wildebeest and zebra. Depending on the time of the year, the migration is within the southern grass plains and the central part during the months of December-May. On these day, we will explore the park rich habitats for the big cats who rule the plains, Serengeti is home to lion, leopard, hippos, cheetah, giraffe, elands, warthog, and hyrax. The plains are dotted with mammoth rock out-crop, swamps, valleys, acacia tree lines, and River-line habitats, in the central part, marking game-viewing good throughout the year. Our camp is set in the central park giving us perfect movement for game viewing. After an extensive day of game viewing return to your camp for dinner, and overnight.

Today you will start with a walking safari in the heart of Serengeti national park, the walking safari is another way of exploring these pristine wild area on foot escorted by an armed park ranger, we will be looking for small things which we always miss while in the car like animal tracks, animal droppings, look for medicinal plants and a way of doing some exercise. After heading to the camp for brunch and then proceed with a short morning drive in the outer part of central Serengeti trying to look for more cats and hunting predators before crossing to the Ngorongoro and visit a Maasai village to enjoy the leaving culture since most of the other cultures are dead or dying.

Explore the crater floor.
Leave the Serena lodge very early in the morning, with a picnic lunch packed nicely for you, and descend, 610 meters down to the grasslands of the crater floor, an area of about 265 square kilometers. Despite its small size, the Crater is a Big 4 country, and the terrain's openness means easy and rewarding game viewing. You will spend the day exploring the crater floor, stopping for a picnic on the grasslands amidst the sight of hippos. Formed by a massive volcanic eruption, the world’s largest intact and un-flooded caldera provides a year-round home to an astonishing 25,000 large mammals including black rhino, wildebeest, and zebra along with hyena. The Crater’s forests shelter elephants and buffalo, and its wetlands are home to hippos and flamingos while lions, jackals, leopards, and caracals make up the full range of predators. After an extensive day of game viewing leave the crater, and head to your accommodation.

After breakfast leaves the camp and proceeds to Lake Manyara National Park for a day of game viewing an area Hemingway described as, “the loveliest I had seen in Africa”.
Lake Manyara National Park is a naturalist’s delight thanks to its diverse environments. Ranging from the underground-water forest and acacia woodlands, grasslands, swamps, marshes, and hot springs, the park is simply packed with wildlife. Over 400 species of bird have been recorded including large flocks of flamingos and migratory water birds. Manyara’s forests ring with the call of monkeys and birds while its acacia woodlands are home to Manyara’s infamous tree-climbing lions and slow-strolling elephants. The park is also home to the largest troops of baboons in Africa, zebra wildebeest, giraffe, hippos, leopard, and impala, and in the late afternoon drive back to Arusha. You will be dropped at your accommodation or at the airport.