10-Day Exceptional Northern Tanzania Safari: A Luxury Tour by Air

On arrival at Kilimanjaro International Airport, or any other arrival point, your driver guide gives you a warm welcome to Tanzania and drives you to your hotel in Arusha.

Our safari coordinator briefs you on the days ahead. Take a stroll through the tranquil grounds, look out for the rugged peaks of Mount Meru and enjoy dinner before a restful night.

After breakfast at around 08:00 your guide takes you to the Meserani Snake Park, then back to your lodge for a hot lunch. In the afternoon you are transferred to Arusha Airport for your scheduled flight to the airstrip in Tarangire National Park.

Your driver guide meets you on landing and drives you to your lodge to settle in before an afternoon or early-evening game drive. Enjoy the park's natural beauty, then return to your lodge for dinner and your first night in the African bush.

Today is devoted to a full day of game drives in Tarangire, a 2,850-square-kilometre park some 120 kilometres south-west of Arusha. It is famous for its superb game viewing in the dry season, when animals gather along the Tarangire River, their main source of water at that time of year.

Follow the river circuit as animals come down to drink, wallow in the mud and bathe to escape the scorching sun. You will see a wonderful variety of wildlife roaming freely in its natural surroundings.

After a picnic lunch and a short afternoon drive you return to your lodge for dinner and a campfire under the stars.

After breakfast you enjoy another morning game drive in Tarangire, stopping at leisure for a picnic lunch, before heading to the Tarangire airstrip for your short flight to the Lake Manyara airstrip.

Your driver guide meets you and drives you to your lodge to check in. Relax in its peaceful surroundings and beside its clear swimming pool, and in the evening enjoy dinner and a restful night.

After breakfast your guide drives you into Lake Manyara National Park, home to some of the largest troops of olive baboons ever recorded and to one of the loveliest lakes in Africa, in Ernest Hemingway's words.

The lake covers more than 200 square kilometres, depending on the season, and is beautified by great flocks of pink flamingos, waterfowl and waders. Large pods of hippos gather at the hippo pool viewpoint, the Rift Valley wall rises 600 metres above, and hot springs reach temperatures of 60°C. The park lies beside the busy market town of Mto wa Mbu, where a cultural tour or a bike ride to the lake's mudflats can be added.

After a picnic lunch you return to your lodge for dinner and the night.

After breakfast you drive up to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area and descend 610 metres into the crater, the world's best-known intact, unflooded volcanic caldera, for a full day of game drives.

Some 30,000 animals thrive here year-round across 260 square kilometres of crater floor. Admire the towering walls and the birdlife of salty Lake Magadi, and search with your guide for all of the Big Five: lion, leopard, buffalo, rhino and elephant.

After a picnic lunch and a final game drive you return to your lodge near Lake Manyara for dinner and the night.

After breakfast, and depending on your flight schedule, your guide transfers you to the Lake Manyara airstrip for your flight to Seronera airstrip in the central Serengeti.

Your driver guide meets you on arrival and takes you to your lodge to settle in before an afternoon game drive. After dinner, relax around the campfire under a starry sky and relive the day's adventures.

After breakfast at around 08:00 you venture deep into the Serengeti for a full day of game drives. The plains are a green carpet after the rains and a golden-brown one in the dry season, and the park's best viewing spots are spread across them.

Depending on the season, huge herds of wildebeest and zebra may be on the move. At the right time of year they gather on the banks of the Mara River, which rises in central Kenya and flows into Lake Victoria, Africa's largest lake, and plunge across while giant Nile crocodiles lie hidden beneath the water. The weakest fall to the waiting predators, and the scavengers are never far away.

Enjoy a picnic lunch on the plains, then return to your lodge for dinner and the night.

A second full day in the Serengeti lets you explore further from Seronera: the kopjes where lions bask, the woodland where leopards rest, and the open grassland where cheetahs hunt.

Your guide plans the day around the latest sightings, with a picnic lunch in the bush. Relish every moment in this remarkable wildlife sanctuary before returning to your lodge for dinner and the night.

This morning you can relax at your lodge or rise before dawn for a hot-air balloon flight, drifting silently over the backs of the animals with a 360-degree, eagle's-eye view of the park.

After lunch at your lodge your guide drives you to Seronera airstrip, game-viewing on the way, for your flight to Arusha. On arrival your driver guide meets you and transfers you by road to Kilimanjaro International Airport in time for your onward international flight (transfer timing depends on your flight schedule). The Gip Adventure team wishes you a safe journey home and a lifetime of memories.