Tanzania wildebeest migration safari

Arrival at Arusha

After arriving at Kilimanjaro International Airport (flight booked by agent) and sorting out the customs/immigration formalities, you’ll be met outside by a driver guide and transferred to the Lake Duluti Serena Hotel for where you'll spend your first night in Tanzania including breakfast and dinner.

Designed to replicate the traditional style of the colonial coffee farm, the lodge is ideally located at the gateway to the renowned Tanzanian ‘Northern Safari Circuit’. The ideal spot for a pre-or-post-safari stay, the country house-styled cottages offer a comfortable and relaxed place to enjoy the tranquil surroundings of Lake Duluti.

A walk with the resident naturalist will have you identifying some of the 130 different types of birds, while a walk on the lake shore might give the opportunity to spot the colobus monkey and forest antelope.

For more active options, you can enjoy mountain biking on the slopes of the magnificent Mount Meru or go canoeing on the lake. The convenient location of the lodge offers easy access to the town of Arusha and the national parks in the area. 

Exploring the Lake Manyara National Park

After breakfast, you’ll be transferred to the Lake Manyara Serena Safari Lodge, where you’ll spend the next two nights with all your meals and activities included. Lake Manyara Serena Safari Lodge is located 130 kilometres from Arusha and is adjacent to the colourful market town of Mto wa Mbu (Mosquito Creek) where several tribes converge to form a cultural mix that is one of the richest in Africa. The lodge is situated on a towering terracotta escarpment and offers panoramic views over the waters of Lake Manyara.

During your game drives and nature walks, spot abundant sightings of monkey, jackal, mongoose, hyena, hyrax, zebra, hippo, warthog, buffalo, Masai giraffe, duiker, waterbuck, impala, elephants, black rhino, leopards and a wealth of bird life such as sugar-pink Lesser Flamingos, significant numbers of Greater Flamingos and a host of other woodland, plains and water birds.

Highlights include mountain biking, canoeing and forest walks, while cultural choices include tours of the neighboring villages and dance displays by the local Iraqw and Sukuma people. 

Into the Ngorongoro Crater

Enjoy a game drive while being transferred to your next home - the Ngorongoro Serena Safari Lodge, built on the rim of the Ngorongoro Crater, and its natural stone and ivy-covered walls blends in with its surroundings. Deep within the crater, enclosed by towering walls, some 25,000 large mammals wander the plains, lakes and forest of ‘the land that time forgot’, it is dominated by enormous bull elephants, rhinos and lions.

The lodge has taken the cave painting of Olduvai Gorge as its main décor inspiration, with all the interiors filled with African artifacts and frescos.

Enjoy completely uninterrupted views of the volcanic amphitheatre far below. Highlights include game drives on the crater floor - home to impressive wildlife - or enjoy a guided walk with a picnic across the Serengeti plains or among the nearby volcanic mountains of the Crater Highlands. After a long day, you can enjoy a herbal massage at the lodge, browse the African wildlife library, or simply sit with a drink and enjoy the sunset over the crater for two nights with all your meals included.

Move to the Serengeti National Park

After spending two nights at the Ngorongoro Crater, you’ll be transported to Camp Zebra, named after the zebra which followed the Wildebeest during their world famous annual migration to the Northern part of the Serengeti National Park in June, July, August, September, October and November and to the Serengeti part from December till March.  

Guests will enjoy game drives and spend the evening around all-important campfire exchanging stories about the day’s events and making plans for the days ahead. Depending upon the location of the camp at any given moment, guests are also able to participate in Balloon Safaris. Spend three nights with all your meals and activities included.

Special note:

Since the movement of the migration is dictated primarily by rainfall, which can be as unpredictable in Tanzania as in most other parts of the world, Camp Zebra has been designed to be mobile so that is can be moved as quickly as possible to keep up with the Wildebeest when they move.

Enjoy the North Eastern Serengeti National Park

Spend two nights with all your meals and activities included in the Buffalo Luxury Camp, that offers a unique combination of luxurious accommodation, extraordinary wildlife, the exhilarating freedom to participate in guided game and nature walks as well as bush dinners, the rare opportunity to go on night game drives and a fascinating insight into the culture of the local Maasai tribesmen and women.

The camp is situated approximately five kilometres from Kleins Gate, to the North East of the Serengeti National Park and offers truly stunning views into the Serengeti National Park.

Highlights include walking in the bush with a professional guide, surrounded by all the sights, sounds and smells that Africa has to offer is something that cannot be experienced from inside a safari car. An important part of these walks is to understand the ecology of the area being visited as well as to gain skills in tracking, dung identification and medicinal uses of trees and bushed in Maasai tradition.

Night game drives are conducted in the camp’s open vehicle with a Maasai track seated in the jump seat to locate wildlife with the help of a specialist spot-light. The experience of a game drive at night is very different from one during the day and you can see an aardvark, striped hyena, lions on the hunt and kill, leopard, elephants, impala, zebra, owls, night jar, bush babies and giraffe.

Enjoy sundowners and bush dinners from a vantage point from where you can watch the sunset over the Serengeti National Park. This is followed by a bush dinner in an authentic Maasai krall, complete with acacia bush, camp fire and African night sky.

Depature

After spending two nights in the Buffalo Luxury Camp, you'll be transferred to the airstrip for your flihgt to Arusha Airport, after which you will be transferred to Kilimanjaro International Airport for your onward flight home.