Zanzibar
The route
8 stops · about 1,055 km by road · 1 flight
Drawn from the itinerary below: drives on the main safari roads, flights as dashed arcs, climbs as a dotted footpath. Distances are approximate.
A 13-day combination of a 6-day Northern Tanzania safari - Tarangire, Lake Manyara, the Serengeti, and the Ngorongoro Crater - followed by a Zanzibar beach holiday, with a domestic flight to Zanzibar included.
This 13-day holiday pairs a classic six-day Northern Tanzania safari with a relaxed week on the beaches of Zanzibar - the perfect balance of adventure and rest. The safari explores Tarangire, Lake Manyara, the Serengeti, and the Ngorongoro Crater in a private 4×4 safari Land Cruiser with a pop-up roof and a professional English or Spanish-speaking driver-guide, with a domestic flight to Zanzibar included afterwards.
On safari you travel through the elephant country of Tarangire and the tree-climbing lions of Lake Manyara before reaching the vast Serengeti, where the great wildebeest migration moves across the southern plains. The journey finishes with a game drive on the floor of the Ngorongoro Crater, home to the Big Five including the rare black rhino, with full-board lodge accommodation throughout.
You then fly to Zanzibar to unwind at a 4-star beach resort, with time to relax by the Indian Ocean between guided excursions - a spice farm tour, the historic streets of Stone Town, Prison Island and its giant tortoises, dolphin snorkelling, and a Safari Blue boat trip. The Zanzibar stay is on a half-board basis, rounding off the trip with sea, sun, and culture.
Arrive at Kilimanjaro International Airport, where you are met and transferred to Medan Lodge in Arusha for an overnight on a bed-and-breakfast basis, ready to begin your safari the next morning.
Pickup from your hotel at 08:30 and drive to Tarangire National Park, known for its large elephant herds, ancient baobab trees, and wildlife along the Tarangire River. Enjoy a day of game viewing before driving in the evening to Manyara Heritage Lodge for dinner and overnight.
After breakfast, drive to Lake Manyara National Park in the Great Rift Valley. With a picnic lunch in the park, look for its famous tree-climbing lions, elephants, hippos, and colourful birdlife on an afternoon game drive, then return to Manyara Heritage Lodge for dinner and overnight.
Depart for the Serengeti National Park, with a picnic lunch en route and the chance to see the wildebeest migration gathered across the southern plains. Enjoy a sunset game drive into the evening before dinner and overnight at Serengeti Bush Camp.
Enjoy a sunrise game drive in the Serengeti, watching for the migration once more, followed by a picnic lunch and game viewing en route as you drive toward the Ngorongoro highlands. Arrive at Ngorongoro Rhino Lodge for dinner and overnight.
After breakfast, descend into the Ngorongoro Crater for a game drive in search of the Big Five, including the rare black rhino. After lunch, ascend from the crater and drive back to Arusha for dinner and overnight at Medan Lodge.
After breakfast, transfer to the airport for your included flight to Zanzibar. On arrival, you are met and transferred to your beach resort on the coast, with the rest of the day at leisure. Dinner and overnight at the resort.
After breakfast, enjoy a guided visit to a spice farm to see cloves, ginger, cinnamon, garlic, cumin, and other spices that give the island its “Spice Island” name, before returning to the resort for dinner and overnight.
Still atZanzibar · Sunset Kendwa Beach Resort
Spend the day exploring historic Stone Town, including the site of the former slave market, the Anglican Cathedral, the Old Fort, and the House of Wonders, before returning to the resort for dinner and overnight.
Still atZanzibar · Sunset Kendwa Beach Resort
After breakfast, drive to Stone Town and take a boat to Prison Island to see its giant tortoises and learn about its history, with a full-day tour before returning to the resort for dinner and overnight.
Still atZanzibar · Sunset Kendwa Beach Resort
Head to the south of the island and take a boat trip to swim and snorkel with dolphins, with lunch at a village restaurant, before returning to the resort for dinner and overnight.
Still atZanzibar · Sunset Kendwa Beach Resort
After breakfast, drive to Fumba for the Safari Blue full-day boat excursion, with lunch and time to relax on a sandbank, before returning to the resort for dinner and overnight.
Still atZanzibar · Sunset Kendwa Beach Resort
After breakfast, and depending on your departure time, you are transferred to Zanzibar Airport for your onward or homeward flight. This marks the end of the trip.
Every day of this itinerary is tailor-made and can be shaped around your dates, pace and budget. When you are ready, our team handles every detail - you simply arrive and enjoy.
Yes – return transfers between Zanzibar airport (or the ferry) and your hotel are included, with our local representative on hand throughout your stay.
This varies by package – it may be bed & breakfast, half board or all-inclusive. Your quote states the exact board basis, and we are happy to arrange an upgrade.
Plenty – a Stone Town heritage tour, a spice-farm visit, snorkelling or diving at Mnemba Atoll, a sunset dhow cruise, or swimming with turtles. We can pre-book excursions or arrange them through our local team on the ground.
Zanzibar is warm year-round. June to October and December to February are the driest, sunniest months; the long rains fall around April-May. The island pairs beautifully with a mainland safari.
Yes – Zanzibar is the perfect way to unwind after a safari or a climb, and we regularly arrange combined trips with a short flight from Arusha or Kilimanjaro. Just ask.
You visit: Ngorongoro · Serengeti · Tarangire · Zanzibar
Tell us your dates and what matters most - our team designs every journey by hand and replies within 24 hours, seven days a week.
Arusha is our home town and the starting point for almost every trip we plan. It sits at around 1,400 metres on the lower slopes of Mount Meru, which keeps the air fresher than you might expect this close to the equator. It is a busy, working East African town rather than a resort: matatu minibuses, coffee and banana farms on the edges, markets full of produce, and the headquarters of the East African Community. Most safaris on the Northern Circuit begin here, and so does the drive to the Kilimanjaro gates.
Arusha is pleasant all year. June to August is the coolest stretch, with chilly mornings and evenings. The long rains usually arrive around March to May and the short rains around November, but town life carries on as normal. Our Tanzania weather guide covers the parks and the mountain too.
Most international visitors land at Kilimanjaro International Airport, roughly an hour’s drive east of Arusha depending on traffic. Arusha also has its own smaller airport on the west side of town for domestic and light-aircraft flights to the parks and the coast. By road, Arusha is about five to six hours from Nairobi, with a border crossing at Namanga.
You can stay in town, close to restaurants and shops, or just outside on coffee estates and garden properties with views of Meru and, on clear mornings, Kilimanjaro. Before a climb or a safari, most travellers spend one or two nights here to rest after the flight.
Arusha is the hinge of every itinerary. We meet you at the airport, brief you the evening before you set off, and check your gear before a Kilimanjaro climb. From here it is a few hours to Tarangire, Lake Manyara and Ngorongoro on a private safari, and a short flight to Zanzibar when you are ready for the beach. If you arrive with a spare day, we will suggest something worth doing with it.
Tarangire is the park people tend to underrate until they get there. It is a land of huge, ancient baobab trees, wide grassy swamps and the Tarangire River, which keeps flowing when the rest of the region dries out. In the dry season that river pulls in wildlife from far around, and the result is some of the biggest elephant herds you will see anywhere in northern Tanzania. It is also close to Arusha, which makes it an easy first stop on safari.
Elephants are the main reason to come. Families of dozens are a normal sight, walking in single file down to the river or dusting themselves under the baobabs. Alongside them you can expect buffalo, giraffe, zebra, wildebeest, impala, waterbuck and dik-dik, plus lions that know the herds will come to drink. Look out for species that are harder to find further north, such as fringe-eared oryx and lesser kudu. Tarangire is also excellent for birds, from colourful lovebirds and hornbills to big ground birds like the kori bustard and ostrich.
Even in the wetter months, Tarangire is worth a day if it is on your way. Our Tanzania weather guide explains what each month is like.
Tarangire is roughly two to two and a half hours from Arusha by road, almost all of it on tarmac, heading south towards Babati. That means you can leave Arusha after breakfast and be on a game drive before lunch. It is also a simple drive on to Lake Manyara and the Ngorongoro highlands afterwards.
We often start a Northern Circuit safari here. A night or two in Tarangire, then Ngorongoro, then the Serengeti is a classic route that builds as you go. If you have only a few days after climbing Kilimanjaro, Tarangire and the crater make a strong short safari with no flights needed. You can then fly from Arusha to the coast for a few days on Zanzibar.
There are lodges and tented camps both inside the park and on its edges. Camps inside put you close to the river for early starts, while some of those outside the boundary can offer guided walks and other activities, depending on the camp and local park rules. We will suggest which suits you, depending on how much time you have and how you like to travel.
Lake Manyara is a small park with a lot packed in. It lies at the foot of the Great Rift Valley escarpment, so you drive in under a wall of rock with a shallow alkaline lake stretched out beside you. Between the two is a band of tall, shady groundwater forest, kept green by springs that seep from the foot of the cliffs. In a single morning you can move from forest to woodland to open lake shore, and that change of scene is what makes Manyara feel different from the bigger parks around it.
The forest near the gate is busy with olive baboons and blue monkeys, and elephants often feed among the trees. Further in you will find giraffe, buffalo, zebra, wildebeest and impala, with hippos in the pools near the lake. Manyara is famous for its tree-climbing lions. They are seen sometimes, lying out along the branches of acacia trees, but they are unpredictable and many visitors leave without spotting them, so enjoy it as a lucky extra rather than a promise. The lake itself is the real highlight for birders: flamingos gather in the shallows when conditions suit them, along with pelicans, storks and a wide range of water birds.
Manyara can be visited all year. The dry season from June to October is easiest for general game viewing, as the bush is thinner and animals come to water. The wetter months, roughly November to May, are the best time for birds, with migrant species arriving and the forest at its most lush. Flamingo numbers rise and fall with the water level, so they are never guaranteed. Check our Tanzania weather guide for month by month conditions.
The park gate is about two hours from Arusha on tarmac, at the small town of Mto wa Mbu. That makes Manyara an easy half day or full day visit, and it sits directly on the road to the Ngorongoro Crater and the Serengeti, so you do not have to go out of your way to include it.
Because it is right on the main safari road, we often use Manyara as the first afternoon of a safari or as a gentle stop on the way to Ngorongoro. It pairs well with Tarangire for travellers with limited time. It also suits people coming down from Kilimanjaro who want a short, relaxed taste of safari before heading to the beach. Browse our safari ideas to see where it fits.
Most travellers stay on top of the escarpment, where lodges and camps look out over the lake and the Rift Valley, or in and around Mto wa Mbu, where simpler camps are good value. A few tented camps sit closer to the park itself. Staying nearby lets you be at the gate when it opens, when the forest is cool and quiet.
The Serengeti is big, open country. Its name comes from the Maasai word for plains that seem to run on forever, and once you are out on the short grass south of Seronera you will see why. The park covers about 14,750 km² and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, but numbers do not say much. What matters is that this is one of the few places left where very large herds still move freely, and the lions, cheetahs, leopards and hyenas that follow them are part of everyday life on a game drive.
Wildebeest and zebra get the headlines, but they are only one part of it. Expect giraffe, buffalo, elephant, topi, hartebeest, Thomson’s and Grant’s gazelle, and a long list of birds, from secretary birds striding through the grass to vultures circling a kill. The central Seronera area, with its river valley and rocky kopjes, is well known for big cats, and leopards are often found resting in the sausage trees along the watercourses. Black rhino live here too, but they are rare and you should treat a sighting as a bonus.
There is no bad month in the Serengeti, only different ones. The herds follow the rain in a rough loop through the year:
The pattern shifts every year with the rains. Our Great Migration tracker shows where the herds are likely to be month by month, and the Tanzania weather guide explains the seasons in more detail.
By road, central Serengeti is a full day from Arusha, roughly seven to eight hours with stops, passing Lake Manyara and the Ngorongoro highlands on the way. Most travellers break the drive with a night near the crater. If time is short, light aircraft fly from Arusha to several Serengeti airstrips in about one to two hours, depending on which part of the park you are heading for and how many stops the plane makes.
Most of our Northern Circuit safaris build towards the Serengeti and give it at least two or three nights, because the distances inside the park are large. A common shape is Tarangire, then Ngorongoro, then the Serengeti, then a flight back to Arusha or straight to the coast. After a Kilimanjaro climb, a few days sitting in a vehicle watching lions is a very good way to rest tired legs.
You can choose between permanent lodges, fixed tented camps and seasonal mobile camps that move to follow the herds. Mobile camps put you close to the action in migration season, while lodges in the central area suit families and first-time visitors. We will match the camp to the month and to where the animals are likely to be.
The Ngorongoro Crater is the floor of an old volcano that collapsed in on itself, leaving a bowl about 260 km² across and roughly 600 m deep. Standing on the rim on a clear morning, you look down onto grassland, a soda lake, swamps and patches of forest, all ringed by steep green walls. Because so much wildlife lives inside such a small space, a single day on the crater floor can show you more species than a week in many other places. It is part of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, a UNESCO World Heritage Site where Maasai families still graze their cattle alongside the wildlife on the highlands around the crater.
The crater is one of the best places in Tanzania to look for black rhino, although they are shy and usually seen at a distance. Lions and spotted hyenas are common, and you are likely to see buffalo, wildebeest, zebra, Grant’s gazelle, warthog and hippos at the pools. Large bull elephants wander the swamps and the Lerai forest. Flamingos gather on the shallow soda lake when water levels suit them, and the birdlife around the marshes is rich all year.
The crater is good in every season because most animals live there year round. June to October is dry, with clear views and the most visitors. The green months from November to May bring fresher scenery and fewer vehicles, with the heaviest rain usually in April and May. Whatever the month, the rim sits at well over 2,000 m, so mornings and evenings are cold. Bring a warm layer. See our Tanzania weather guide for more on the seasons.
The drive from Arusha to the crater rim takes about three to four hours on a good tarmac road through farmland and the town of Karatu, with the option of stopping at Lake Manyara or Tarangire on the way. Descending to the crater floor takes around half an hour down a steep, winding track. We aim to be on the floor early, when the light is soft and the animals are most active.
Ngorongoro sits naturally between Tarangire or Lake Manyara and the Serengeti, so it slots into almost every Northern Circuit route. Many travellers spend one full day in the crater, then continue west to the Serengeti or south to Ndutu in calving season. It also works well as a short safari after climbing Kilimanjaro, since it is close to Arusha and needs no flights. Have a look at our safari ideas to see how we build it in.
You have three broad choices. Lodges on the crater rim give you the view and the shortest drive down in the morning, but they cost more and the nights are chilly. Camps and lodges around Karatu, among coffee farms and forest about forty minutes away, are often better value and a little warmer. There is no accommodation on the crater floor itself, so every visit is a day trip from above.
Zanzibar is where most of our travellers take their shoes off after a climb or a safari. The main island, Unguja, sits in the Indian Ocean off the Tanzanian coast, and it mixes two things you rarely get in one place: white-sand beaches on warm, shallow water, and Stone Town, an old trading port whose carved doors, narrow lanes and coral-stone houses are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. You can spend the morning on a market walk and the afternoon in the sea.
The north around Nungwi and Kendwa has water you can swim in at most states of the tide and lively sunsets. The east coast, around Paje and Jambiani, is quieter, with a big tidal range that leaves wide sand flats at low tide, and steady winds that suit kitesurfing. The south-west is calmer still. We will help you pick the stretch that suits how you like to spend your days.
The driest and most settled months are roughly June to October and late December to February. The long rains usually fall from about March to May, when some places close and the sea can be rougher, though there are fewer people and showers often clear quickly. The short rains around November tend to be lighter. Our Tanzania weather guide sets out the seasons month by month.
From Kilimanjaro International Airport or Arusha, a scheduled domestic flight to Zanzibar takes around one to one and a half hours. From Dar es Salaam you can fly in about 20 minutes or take the fast ferry, which takes roughly two hours. Many international airlines also fly straight to Zanzibar, so you can fly home from the island.
Stone Town has small hotels in restored merchant houses, ideal for one or two nights. On the coast you will find everything from simple beach bungalows to larger resorts and private villas. We match the place to your budget and the kind of quiet you are after.
This is the “sea” half of our summit-to-the-sea trips. After you come down from Kilimanjaro or finish a northern safari, we book your flight from Arusha or Kilimanjaro airport and you can be on the beach the same afternoon. Four to six nights is a common length; send us your dates and we will build it around you.
