3-Day Serengeti & Ngorongoro Crater Safari

Day-by-day itinerary

Route: Arusha → Serengeti National Park → Ngorongoro Conservation Area → Ngorongoro Crater → Arusha

1. Day 1

   Arusha to Serengeti National Park

   The day opens in Arusha with a morning departure for Serengeti National Park, crossing the Ngorongoro Conservation Area and descending onto the open plains. You arrive in time to settle in, and the day continues with a game drive across vast short-grass plains broken by granite kopjes and seasonal watercourses. Your guide works the area for lion, cheetah, elephant, giraffe and immense herds of wildebeest and zebra, with sightings varying by season and conditions. The Serengeti's wildlife moves with the seasons, so the sector visited is chosen to match where the herds and predators are likely to be at that time of year. Transport and game drives are shared with other travellers on this joining departure. The evening is spent at your Serengeti National Park accommodation, with dinner and overnight there.

2. Day 2

   Serengeti to Ngorongoro Conservation Area

   The day opens in Serengeti with a morning departure for Ngorongoro Conservation Area, climbing the forested crater highlands to the rim viewpoint. Arrival is followed by check-in and a first drive into a collapsed volcanic caldera roughly six hundred metres deep, with grassland, soda lake and fever-tree forest on its floor. This is good country in which to look for lion, elephant, buffalo, flamingo and one of the few remaining populations where black rhino may be seen. The crater floor holds a resident concentration of wildlife year-round because the caldera walls create a largely self-contained ecosystem. The evening is spent at your Ngorongoro Conservation Area accommodation, with dinner and overnight there.

3. Day 3

   Ngorongoro Crater to Arusha

   Bags are loaded after breakfast and you depart Ngorongoro Crater bound for Arusha, continuing through the farmland and Maasai country below Mount Meru. After check-in and a chance to freshen up, you head out into northern Tanzania's safari gateway town below the slopes of Mount Meru. Arusha is the staging point for the northern Tanzania circuit and where most safari briefings take place. The day ends with a drop-off in Nairobi at your hotel or the airport.