Today is arrival day, and you need to be at our starting point hotel at midday, as we transfer by public shuttle to Arusha, Tanzania in the afternoon. There you will meet up with the safari crew.

Putting into consideration the border crossing might take close to one hour, the drive from Nairobi to Arusha will take 6 hours (280Kms).

Drive west across the Great Rift Valley to Mto Wa Mbu and take time to explore the market in this small town. There are many crafts and fabrics to be found here, and the batiks and makonde wood carvings are particularly good. Afterwards, we enter the attractive Lake Manyara National Park. 

The Manyara has a very high concentration of animals for such a relatively small park and is probably best known for its tree-climbing lions and excellent hippo pool. It is also home to large numbers of elephants, warthogs, buffaloes and other savannah game animals, in addition to a wide variety of birdlife.

We depart Arusha at approximately 9.30am and the drive from Arusha to Manyara National Park takes roughly 2 hours ( 140Kms) and then it is another 40 minutes ( 30Kms) from Manyara to Karatu where we camp at a privately owned camp in the Karatu area. We camp at a privately owned camp in the Karatu area.

We use large dome tents (3 x 3 x 2.25m high) and sleep on camp beds with matresses whilst camping on this tour. The staff help to erect your tent and you are not required to help out in the kitchen. The staff will provide individual warm face washing water outside your tent every morning for the duration of the trip.

We pass through traditional Masai homelands, where you are likely to see these elegant warriors dressed in their scarlet robes and elaborate jewellery, grazing their much prized cattle.

Our destination today is the Serengeti. Here, millions of plains animals feed on the grasses - an unforgettable spectacle - and they attract all the major predators: lions, cheetahs and leopards. The Serengeti is justly famous for the quality of its game viewing and we spend our time here exploring the huge plains, rocky outcrops (kopjes) and sparsely wooded river valleys. On game drives, we hope to see wildebeest, gazelles, zebras and giraffes, in addition to the predators already mentioned.

While here, we follow the animals' example and rest during the heat of the day, so game viewing takes place only in the cooler hours of the early morning and late afternoon. It is 165Kms to Ngiri camp in the Serengeti (roughly 4hrs travel time).

We will go to sleep to the sounds of the nocturnal birds and animals. It is possible to take an early morning balloon ride as an optional excursion.

We spend the morning on a game drive, leisurely making our way out of theSerengeti and into the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, stopping en route to visit Olduvai Gorge. This steep-sided ravine is a truly ancient site where our ancestors lived over a million years ago. Some of the oldest humanoid skeletons were discovered here in the 1950s by the Leakeys, and there is a small museum containing many of the fossils and relics that were found in the area. Afterwards, we head up onto the Ngorongoro Crater, a huge, perfectly intact volcanic caldera that is home to some 30,000 animals. The night is spent at a campsite on the rim of the crater, where spectacular views of the surrounding region can be had.

Once we exit the Serengeti it will take us 3 hours driving ( 70Kms) to get to our camp on the rim of the crater.

The crater floor offers excellent game-viewing all year round and the photographic opportunities here are unrivalled. We spend a memorable half-day on safari in this unique wildlife environment, where we hope to see endangered black rhinos, lions, elephants and much more. At the end of the safari, we head east to camp near the town of Karatu.

It is 50 Kms from the Crater to our camp in Karatu ( roughly 1.5hrs travel time).

Descend once more into the Great Rift Valley and enter the Tarangire National Park. The Tarangire's open savannah and unique baobab trees provide a mixed habitat for a wide variety of bird and animal life, including elephants, oryx, kudu, gazelles and eland.
Today we travel 115Kms (roughly 2hrs travelling time) to Tarangire National park.

We return to Arusha and leave the lovely safari crew behind, catching a shuttle bus north to Kenya and arriving in Nairobi in the late afternoon. This is a long transfer so please do not book departure flights before early evening in case of delays.

The shuttle bus from Arusha to Nairobi will take 6 hours (280Kms) This timing allows around one hour for border formalities.
Please note that this tour finishes on arrival in Nairobi on the afternoon of day 8. No accommodation provided this night but we are able to arrange additional accommodation for you if you plan to stay longer in the capital - please ask at the time of booking this trip.

While transport from Arusha to Nairobi forms part of this tour, it is also possible to fly out of either Arusha or Kilimanjaro International airports if this suits your flight schedules better and to avoid the backtracking to Nairobi. In this instance you will be dropped at the Impala Hotel in Arusha around late morning. Post accommodation and transfers to either airport are available on request at an extra cost. No refund is available for the unused return to Nairobi.