4-Day Lake Manyara, Serengeti & Ngorongoro Camping Safari

Day-by-day itinerary

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

1. Day 1

   Arusha to Lake Manyara

   Bags are loaded after breakfast and you depart Arusha bound for Lake Manyara, driving west from Arusha past Maasai settlements and the escarpment wall. You arrive in time to settle in, and the day continues with a game drive across groundwater forest, open floodplain and an alkaline lake beneath the Rift Valley escarpment. Your guide works the area for elephant, baboon troops, hippo, giraffe and large numbers of waterbirds including flamingo, with sightings varying by season and conditions. Manyara is known for its groundwater forest fed by springs at the base of the escarpment, and for lions that are sometimes seen resting in trees. Transport and game drives are shared with other travellers on this joining departure. You return for dinner and an overnight stay at Lake Manyara.

2. Day 2

   Lake Manyara Area to Serengeti

   The day opens in Lake Manyara Area with a morning departure for Serengeti, crossing the Ngorongoro Conservation Area and descending onto the open plains. Arrival is followed by check-in and a first drive into vast short-grass plains broken by granite kopjes and seasonal watercourses. There is the possibility of seeing lion, cheetah, elephant, giraffe and immense herds of wildebeest and zebra, depending on movement and conditions on the day. 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. The evening is spent at your Serengeti accommodation, with dinner and overnight there.

3. Day 3

   Serengeti to Ngorongoro Conservation Area

   Breakfast is taken before you set out from Serengeti for the drive to Ngorongoro Conservation Area, climbing the forested crater highlands to the rim viewpoint. After check-in and a chance to freshen up, you head out into a collapsed volcanic caldera roughly six hundred metres deep, with grassland, soda lake and fever-tree forest on its floor. Your guide works the area for lion, elephant, buffalo, flamingo and one of the few remaining populations where black rhino may be seen, with sightings varying by season and conditions. The crater floor holds a resident concentration of wildlife year-round because the caldera walls create a largely self-contained ecosystem. You return for dinner and an overnight stay at Ngorongoro Conservation Area.

4. Day 4

   Ngorongoro Crater to Arusha

   Breakfast is taken before you set out from Ngorongoro Crater for the drive to Arusha, continuing through the farmland and Maasai country below Mount Meru. Once you reach Arusha there is time to check in before heading out among 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.