4-Day Eastern Circuit: Mkomazi, Saadani & Bagamoyo

On arrival at Kilimanjaro International Airport you are met by a member of the Gip Adventure team and driven south-east to Same, a small town in the Kilimanjaro region between the Pare Mountains and the plains of Mkomazi.

Your lodge in Same is easy to reach and wonderfully tranquil, with warm, caring staff and reliable service. In the early evening, short walks can be arranged, with views of Mount Kilimanjaro, the world's tallest free-standing mountain.

Fall asleep to a free lullaby of chirping crickets and the calls of the night that remind you exactly where you are. Lunch, dinner and overnight in Same.

After a warm breakfast at around 08:00, you drive to Mkomazi National Park for game drives and a visit to the rhino sanctuary, where you can set eyes on the endangered black rhino, and on the African wild dog. Mkomazi National Park, the southern extension of Kenya's Tsavo West, covers 3,234 km² and forms part of one of East Africa's most important savannah ecosystems. Nestled between Mount Kilimanjaro, Tsavo West and the Pare and Usambara Mountains, it is dry acacia–commiphora country where fringe-eared oryx, gerenuk and lesser kudu – rare elsewhere in Tanzania – are found among 78 mammal species, along with more than 400 species of birds.

Enjoy a picnic lunch in the park, followed by a short afternoon game drive. Then continue to the coast and your resort in Tanga, with its comfortable deluxe rooms and suites and a swimming pool. Dinner and overnight in Tanga.

After breakfast at around 08:00, drive to Saadani National Park, where the bush meets the beach, for a day's excursion. Visit the Wami River – 395 km long and home to plenty of crocodiles – as well as the Mafui sandbank, Mbuyu Maria and Madete, the green sea turtle breeding ground on the Tanzanian mainland, among other sites.

Saadani is the only park in East Africa to combine marine and land ecosystems, and buffalo, eland, greater kudu, sable antelope, hartebeest, wildebeest and warthog roam its grasslands. After a picnic lunch, enjoy a short game drive, then return to Tanga for dinner and the night.

After a warm breakfast at around 08:00, you drive south to Bagamoyo, a town founded at the end of the 18th century as an extension of the much older 8th-century settlement at Kaole, and once the capital of German East Africa and a great trading port.

Explore the historic buildings, tombs and old settlements of the area and uncover its hidden stories, with lunch at a picnic site. In the afternoon you are transferred to Dar es Salaam for your flight or onward plans, and our services end.