5 Days Spin Through The Serengeti

Welcome to Arusha, the gateway to Tanzania’s Northern Safari Circuit! When you arrive at the Kilimanjaro International Airport, a friendly representative from Chalema Tanzania Safaris will be ready to greet you and transport you to the charming Ilboru Safari Lodge. This hotel is situated on the lower slopes of Mount Meru, just on the northern outskirts of town. Your accommodations tonight will be in one of the lodge’s cottage-style suites. After getting checked in, you can soak up the sun by the pool, enjoy a meal in the lodge’s charming café, or take a relaxing stroll through Ilboru’s carefully maintained botanical garden.

Take your first spin through the Serengeti as we enter the park through the iconic Naabi Hill gate, approaching this important reserve from its southern border. Leaving from Arusha, we’ll reach the park after approximately four hours of travel. This will leave us plenty of time to enjoy an afternoon game drive in the park’s central region, which is known locally as Seronera. There’s no better place to spot the animal that’s number one on most travelers’ wishlists: the lion. Our accommodations tonight will be at the nearby Tanzania Bush Camp, a superb camp recognized for its high standard of service and unbeatable location. Your tent will be right in the heart of the bush, and you can expect to nod off to sleep tonight lulled by the sounds of the African night.

The most exciting day of our itinerary has arrived: it’s time for a full-day game drive in the peerless Serengeti National Park. Spending all day in the bush allows us to roam far and wide in search of the animals you’ve always wanted to see: lion, leopard, giraffe, spotted hyena, cheetah, eland, and several different species of gazelle. Of course, you can also expect to see plenty of wildebeest and zebra—your visit may even coincide with the Serengeti’s Great Migration, which sees millions of these antelopes darkening the plains from horizon to horizon. Keen-eyed travelers will be especially delighted to learn that there are more than 500 kinds of birds to be found here, and we’ll try to identify as many as we can. After a thrilling day in the wild, we’ll return to camp for a second night.

Still haven’t gotten your fill of the Serengeti? We’ll savor one last game drive this morning as we leave the park—and in this unpredictable wilderness, we could encounter anything from lions to buffalos resting by the roadside. After just two hours’ travel from the park, we’ll arrive at the spectacular Ngorongoro Crater. The crater is all that remains of an extinct volcano; it’s now the best place in Tanzania to locate Africa’s Big Five. The elephant, Cape buffalo, lion, leopard, and black rhinoceros all in one place—what more could you ask for? But Ngorongoro has even more to offer, including several distinct clans of spotted hyena and sparkling lakes lined with flamingos. After our game drive, we’ll check in at the sublime Marera Valley Lodge in nearby Karatu for dinner and overnight accommodations.

Today marks the end of your breathtaking safari in northern Tanzania. We’ll linger over breakfast at the lodge this morning before hitting the road and returning to Arusha, which will only take approximately two hours. We hope you’ve enjoyed getting a taste of what a safari in Tanzania has to offer—and we can’t wait to welcome you back again!