Day 1 Tarangire National Park
After breakfast, drive to Tarangire National Park in Tanzania. In Tarangire National Park, take a full-day game drive. Tarangire’s landscape is diverse, with nine different vegetation zones. The largest trees in Africa, baobab trees, dot the landscape, dwarfing the animals that feed beneath them. Elephants, lions, leopards, buffalos, zebras, giraffes, antelopes, and a variety of colorful birds all frequent the Tarangire River, which meanders through the park. The park is well-known for having Tanzania’s largest elephant population. During a safari here, you’ll have the opportunity to quietly observe many elephant families interacting. After a picnic lunch at a park observatory where you can see animals drinking water from the river (and, on rare occasions, lions attacking a thirsty zebra or wildebeest), continue game viewing before returning to your campsite for dinner.
Day 2 Lake Manyara National Park
After breakfast, depart for Lake Manyara National Park for a full-day game drive across the Great Rift Valley. This enchanting park is known for its beauty and incredibly lush acacia forest of giant fig and mahogany trees, which is home to troops of baboons and blue monkeys, despite its small size of only 205 square miles. Lake Manyara is well-known for its birds (over 400 species), and it’s one of the few places where you can see the ground hornbill and crested eagle. The climbing lions and flamingos on the lakeshore have made this park famous. This park’s landscapes are absolutely stunning, in stark contrast to the Serengeti, for example. The game drives take place along the lake’s shore, offering breathtaking views of giraffes and buffalos in the foreground, as well as the lake, flamingos, and flat plains in the distance. Photographic opportunities abound! You’ll return to the campsite for dinner in the afternoon.
Day 3 Serengeti National Park
Today you’ll travel to the Serengeti National Park, which is home to the Great Migration. Today’s drive up the crater highlands is spectacular, with a stop at the rim for a birds-eye view of the spectacular Ngorongoro Crater. Continuing on, as you reach the top of the hill, the vast Serengeti spreads out before you as far as the eye can see.
You can choose to stop at the famous Oldupai Gorge on your way into the Serengeti, where Dr. Louis and Mary Leakey discovered the first man on the planet. You’ll have time to visit the small museum after listening to a short lecture about the archeological digs and the geology of the gorge.
Day 4 Serengeti National Park
After breakfast, you’ll have a full day in the Serengeti National Park (morning and afternoon game drives).
Serengeti means “endless plains” in Kiswahili, and the park covers 6,900 square miles (18,000 square kilometers) and is home to over 2 million large animals. More than a million wildebeest, hundreds of thousands of plains zebras, and Thomson’s gazelles are among the animals. The abundance of prey that migrates throughout the park attracts large predators such as lions, cheetahs, and hyenas. Along with nearly 500 species of birds, the area is home to rock hyrax, bat-eared foxes, mongoose, honey badgers, jackals, monkeys, baboons, and African hares.
The wonderful hot air balloon flight over the Serengeti plains is a must-do extra tour.
Day 5 Serengeti National Park to Ngorongoro Conservation Area
Transfer to Ngorongoro Crater, the World’s 8th Natural Wonder, in the afternoon. The crater is a virtual Noah’s Ark, with 2,000-foot-high walls and a 102-square-mile crater floor. It is home to nearly every species of East African wildlife, including the endangered black rhino. In fact, the crater has the world’s highest concentration of wildlife. Due to the rich mineral content of the volcanic soil and grass, the large bull elephants that live here have extremely large tusks. They are the most magnificent elephants you will ever see. Drive up the steep road out of the crater and transfer to Lake Eyasi after a picnic lunch near the Hippo Lake and more wildlife viewing in the afternoon. You’ll spend the night at a public campground or in a tent lodge at Eyasi
Day 6 Hadzabe Tribe and Lake Eyasi
Join the Hadzabe tribe, one of Africa’s last true nomadic tribes, in a fascinating hunting or fruit-gathering session very early in the morning, before breakfast. This is something truly one-of-a-kind and off-the-beaten-path. It provides you with a fantastic and authentic cultural experience as well as fantastic opportunities for world-class photography. Visit the beautiful Lake Eyasi after spending time with the tribe. It is a seasonal shallow salt lake located at the base of the Serengeti Plateau on the Great Rift Valley’s floor. You will return to Arusha in the afternoon.