Big game safari Tanzania
| country: | Tanzania |
| location: | Serengeti National Park |
| departures: | This trip can be tailor made to suit your requirements |
| price: | From £1470 - £1870 (8 days) excluding flights. We can arrange flights from the UK |
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the amazing things you'll be doing
This trip is ideal for those wishing to experience Tanzania for the first time, or to combine a northern Tanzania safari with another destination.
The Serengeti is the highlight of the trip for many people, especially with the luxury private camping in this famous park. This prime game-viewing safari also stops at the Ngorongoro Crater and Lake Manyara.
After travelling from Arusha to Lake Manyara National Park, you have an afternoon of game viewing. Lake Manyara is a shallow, alkaline lake which attracts masses of pink flamingoes.
The park is well known for its herds of elephants, and for its unusual tree-climbing lions. This was the location for the comprehensive research and subsequent book "Among the Elephants" by Iain and Oria Douglas-Hamilton. The park is also home to hippos, baboons, giraffes, zebra, wildebeest, and is particularly good for bird watching with over 380 species having been recorded. You will be staying at Kirurumu Lodge, overlooking the Great Rift Valley and this magnificent lake and park. The lodge offers thatched tented accommodation with en-suite facililties.
Your next 3 days are spent in the Serengeti. The vast Serengeti Plains are perhaps the highlight of a Tanzanian wildlife experience. Here you will see massive herds of zebra, wildebeest and gazelle, large numbers of giraffe, buffalo and warthog, and of course the big cats - lion, cheetah and leopard. The park is particularly known for the annual migration of the herds to Maasai Mara. A visit here is an amazing experience at any time as the landscape is wonderful and there are always resident herds in the park, though the seasons do have a strong influence on your experience. Your base in the Serengeti is in a private camp with luxury camping facilities, so you are always very close to the wild experience of the African savannah! Travelling towards the Ngorongoro Crater, you will stop at Olduvai Gorge. This is known as the 'cradle of mankind', as it was where the Leakeys unearthed the secrets of man's early evolutionary heritage. By late afternoon you will be at the Crater rim enjoying a drink with superlative views over the park from your luxury lodge, the Ngorongoro Serena.
The focus of this famous national park (Ngorongoro Crater Conservation Area) is the immense volcanic Ngorongoro Crater which is about 16 miles in diameter. The walls of the crater are covered with dense forest and the crater floor has quite a diverse range of habitats encompassing open grassland, an area of mature forest, and wetlands including a permanent lake. There is a profusion of wildlife here and in a relatively short time you are bound to see lions, elephants, buffalo, black rhino, hippos, zebra, wildebeest, antelope and occasionally you can even find leopard. The crater is packed full of animals all year around. Of course this means that there are always a lot of visitors, but you should not find that this detracts from your experience.
The Serengeti is the highlight of the trip for many people, especially with the luxury private camping in this famous park. This prime game-viewing safari also stops at the Ngorongoro Crater and Lake Manyara.
After travelling from Arusha to Lake Manyara National Park, you have an afternoon of game viewing. Lake Manyara is a shallow, alkaline lake which attracts masses of pink flamingoes.
The park is well known for its herds of elephants, and for its unusual tree-climbing lions. This was the location for the comprehensive research and subsequent book "Among the Elephants" by Iain and Oria Douglas-Hamilton. The park is also home to hippos, baboons, giraffes, zebra, wildebeest, and is particularly good for bird watching with over 380 species having been recorded. You will be staying at Kirurumu Lodge, overlooking the Great Rift Valley and this magnificent lake and park. The lodge offers thatched tented accommodation with en-suite facililties.
Your next 3 days are spent in the Serengeti. The vast Serengeti Plains are perhaps the highlight of a Tanzanian wildlife experience. Here you will see massive herds of zebra, wildebeest and gazelle, large numbers of giraffe, buffalo and warthog, and of course the big cats - lion, cheetah and leopard. The park is particularly known for the annual migration of the herds to Maasai Mara. A visit here is an amazing experience at any time as the landscape is wonderful and there are always resident herds in the park, though the seasons do have a strong influence on your experience. Your base in the Serengeti is in a private camp with luxury camping facilities, so you are always very close to the wild experience of the African savannah! Travelling towards the Ngorongoro Crater, you will stop at Olduvai Gorge. This is known as the 'cradle of mankind', as it was where the Leakeys unearthed the secrets of man's early evolutionary heritage. By late afternoon you will be at the Crater rim enjoying a drink with superlative views over the park from your luxury lodge, the Ngorongoro Serena.
The focus of this famous national park (Ngorongoro Crater Conservation Area) is the immense volcanic Ngorongoro Crater which is about 16 miles in diameter. The walls of the crater are covered with dense forest and the crater floor has quite a diverse range of habitats encompassing open grassland, an area of mature forest, and wetlands including a permanent lake. There is a profusion of wildlife here and in a relatively short time you are bound to see lions, elephants, buffalo, black rhino, hippos, zebra, wildebeest, antelope and occasionally you can even find leopard. The crater is packed full of animals all year around. Of course this means that there are always a lot of visitors, but you should not find that this detracts from your experience.
day-by-day itinerary
| Day 1: | On arrival, transfer to a lodge near Arusha. |
| Day 2: | Travel from Arusha to Lake Manyara National Park. Afternoon game drives. Kirurumu Lodge |
| Day 3-5: | Gameviewing in the Serengeti. Classic Camping or lodge (chosen to optimise your gameviewing chances). |
| Day 6: | Stop at Olduvai Gorge, then continue on to Ngorongoro Crater. Afternoon gameviewing in the Crater. Lodge on Crater rim. |
| Day 7: | A morning in the crater. Return to Kirurumu Lodge overlooking Lake Manyara |
| Day 8: | Return to Arusha after breakfast. |
travellers' tales
Everywhere we looked there were birds: on the water's edge, in the air, perched in trees. Crocodiles slipped into the water and there were pods of hippos, plus giraffes, elephants, buffalo and impala.
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Highly Commended
This tourism business was Highly Commended in our 2007 Virgin Holidays Responsible Tourism Awards - the largest awards of their kind in the world, and organised by responsibletravel.com in association with The Times, World Travel Market and Geographical Magazine, of the Royal Geographical Society.Since 2004, the Awards has recognised individuals, companies and organisations in travel making a big commitment to the culture and economies of local communities and helping to conserve biodiversity.
how this holiday makes a difference
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Kirurumu Tented Lodge is run on strict environmental principles. The lodge is also at the forefront of an initiative to set up the Kirurumu Gorge Conservation area, to help stop the degradation of the gorge, and help local villagers with an income and sustainable wood source. All staff on this trip are paid fair wages.
The company offering this safari has won an international responsible tourism award twice in the last three years. They run their office in an environmentally friendly way, donate funds and administrative help to a charity the directors set up, and try to ensure that the services they offer are run responsibly and fairly, as regards the people, wildlife and environment. Flights are automatically carbon offset through The Travel Forest, which plants 10 indigenous trees on your behalf (currently in northern Tanzania). Whilst the primary motivation for planting the trees is to offset carbon emissions, the project also works as a poverty alleviation and environmental improvement scheme. |
Tourism can be good and bad for destinations & local people. We carefully screen every holiday against our criteria for responsible travel. 'Look behind the brochure' to find how each holiday makes a difference (see left). We don't claim to be perfect - there is no global accreditation - but we've led the way since 2001 and screened 1000's of holidays. We invite every traveller to write a review about their experiences and responsible tourism. This valuable feedback is sent to the people who run the holidays. We keep a very close eye on it and take off holidays that don't live up to our standards. |