3-Day Big 5 Safari

Karibu Tanzania! On arrival at Kilimanjaro International Airport, or any other arrival point, your safari driver guide will be waiting to greet you and settle you into the vehicle for the comfortable road transfer to your lodge in Arusha.

Once you have had time to unwind after the journey, our safari coordinators will brief you on the days ahead. Stroll through the peaceful lodge gardens and, if the sky is clear, catch a glimpse of the rugged peaks of Mount Meru before a hearty dinner and your first night in Tanzania.

After breakfast at around 08:00 your safari guide collects you for the drive to Tarangire National Park, which covers some 2,850 km² about 120 km south-west of Arusha. The park is famous for its outstanding game viewing, especially in the dry season, when animals gather along the Tarangire River – the park's only permanent source of water. Rising in the Kondoa highlands, the river winds for about 120 km through the park before emptying into Lake Burunge.

Spend the day cruising across the park with a picnic lunch in the bush. With luck you may come across a small pack of African painted dogs patrolling the bushland, elusive kudus hiding in the thickets and shy elands watching from a distance.

In the afternoon a short, rewarding game drive takes you out of the park and on to the small, dusty town of Karatu, where dinner and the night await at your lodge.

After breakfast at around 08:00 your guide drives you up into the Ngorongoro Conservation Area and down onto the floor of the crater – a vast, extinct volcanic caldera with a permanent water supply that sustains an extraordinary density of wildlife.

Large herds of buffalo and zebra graze the grasslands, hippos wallow in the pools, great tuskers move between the swamps and dark-maned lions show off the physical prowess and health their manes signal. You will also meet the ostrich – the world's largest, fastest-running and strongest flightless bird – among a wealth of other birdlife.

Lunch is a picnic on the crater floor; afterwards a short game drive brings you back up and out of the crater, and you drive down to Mto wa Mbu, the lively market village at the foot of the Rift Valley wall. Here a local guide leads you on a cultural experience among the many communities who live side by side, sharing their way of life, farms and stories.

From there you are transferred safely and comfortably by road to Kilimanjaro International Airport for your onward international flight (transfer timing depends on your flight schedule), taking home memories that will stay with you for a lifetime.