4 Day Classic Northern Circuit Safari, Tanzania

Distance: 120 km — approximately 1.5 to 2 hours
Meals: Lunch & Dinner
Overnight: Tarangire area

Depart your Arusha hotel at 7:00 AM and drive southward through the beautiful Arusha highlands toward Tarangire National Park. Enter the park through the main northern gate and begin your first extraordinary game drive through the park’s iconic ancient baobab landscape — searching for enormous elephant herds, giraffe, lion, leopard, buffalo, zebra, and wildebeest along the beautiful Tarangire River corridor. Bush picnic lunch served in the field. Afternoon game drive through the park’s diverse woodland and riverine habitats. Sundowner stop before dinner and overnight at your Tarangire camp or lodge.

Distance: 80 to 120 km within park
Meals: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
Overnight: Tarangire area

A full and deeply rewarding day exploring the extraordinary diversity of Tarangire National Park. Dawn game drive along the Tarangire River — the most productive and most exciting time for predator activity and elephant viewing. Search for lion prides hunting on the open floodplain and the critically endangered African wild dog packs in the remote Boundary Hill area. Bush picnic lunch served beneath an ancient baobab tree. Afternoon game drive through the park’s northern Lemiyon area and beautiful Silale Swamp — exceptional for buffalo, elephant, zebra, and the park’s extraordinary endemic bird species. Sundowner stop before dinner and overnight.

Distance: 200 km — approximately 3 hours
Meals: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
Overnight: Ngorongoro crater rim

After breakfast depart Tarangire northward toward Lake Manyara National Park for a morning game drive through the extraordinary groundwater forest — searching for black and white colobus monkeys, blue monkeys, and the world-famous tree-climbing lions in the acacia woodland zone. Visit the famous hippo pools at very close range. Bush picnic lunch served overlooking the beautiful lake. After lunch depart westward ascending the dramatic Rift Valley escarpment toward the breathtaking Ngorongoro Conservation Area crater rim. Arrive late afternoon for an extraordinary first view of the magnificent Ngorongoro Crater at sunset before dinner and overnight at your crater rim lodge.

Distance: 200 km — approximately 3 hours return
Meals: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
Overnight: Return to Arusha

Early morning descent into the extraordinary Ngorongoro Crater — the world’s largest intact volcanic caldera — at first light for the most productive and most dramatic game drive of the entire itinerary. Search the crater floor for the critically endangered black rhinoceros, enormous lion prides, massive buffalo herds, spotted hyena clans, hippo pools, flamingo flocks on the alkaline Lake Magadi, and the magnificent old elephant bulls of the crater in one of Africa’s most extraordinary and most consistently rewarding Big Five game viewing experiences. Bush picnic lunch served on the crater floor. Ascend from the crater in the early afternoon and drive eastward back to Arusha arriving approximately 6:00 to 7:00 PM, concluding four extraordinary days of northern Tanzania wildlife adventure.