Safaris
You visit: Ngorongoro · Serengeti · Tarangire
4 Days Budget Camping Safari – Tarangire, Serengeti & Ngorongoro
- Days
- 4
- From
- $925pp
- Style
- Budget
The route
8 stops · about 1,155 km by road
Drawn from the itinerary below: drives on the main safari roads, flights as dashed arcs, climbs as a dotted footpath. Distances are approximate.
A 7-day mid-range safari through Tarangire, Lake Manyara, the Serengeti, and the Ngorongoro Crater, with a Maasai village visit and a day tour in the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro, in a private 4x4 with a professional English-speaking driver-guide.
This 7-day mid-range safari offers a well-rounded journey through Northern Tanzania’s finest parks, paired with a cultural visit and a memorable day in the foothills of Africa’s highest mountain. You explore Tarangire, Lake Manyara, the Serengeti, and the Ngorongoro Crater, travelling privately in a 4×4 safari Land Cruiser with a pop-up roof and a professional English-speaking driver-guide throughout.
Highlights include the elephant herds and baobabs of Tarangire, the tree-climbing lions of Lake Manyara, big cats and great herds on the Serengeti plains, and the Big Five on the floor of the Ngorongoro Crater. A visit to a Maasai village at Mto wa Mbu adds a genuine cultural dimension, with traditional dance and a glimpse of everyday life.
The safari finishes with a day tour in the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro – taking in mountain views (weather permitting), a walk to the waterfalls, a coffee and banana plantation, and a Chagga village with its historic caves. Accommodation is in comfortable 3-star lodges on a full-board basis while on safari, making this a relaxed, well-paced mid-range adventure.
Arrive at Kilimanjaro International Airport, where you are met and transferred to Arusha for an overnight at Medan Lodge on a bed-and-breakfast basis, ready to begin your safari the next morning.
After breakfast, drive to Tarangire National Park, Tanzania’s third-largest park and a sanctuary for large elephant herds, with baobab-dotted plains and wildlife along the Tarangire River. Enjoy a day of game viewing before returning to Twiga 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 Twiga Lodge for dinner and overnight.
Depart for the Serengeti National Park, travelling from the Manyara area onto the great plains. Arrive in time for a picnic lunch and an afternoon game drive across one of the last great wildernesses, before dinner and overnight at Serengeti Heritage Camp.
After an early breakfast, drive to the Ngorongoro Crater and descend for a game drive in search of the Big Five, including the rare black rhino. After lunch, ascend from the crater and continue to Farm of Dream Lodge near Karatu for dinner and overnight.
After breakfast, visit a Maasai village at Mto wa Mbu to experience traditional dance and a glimpse of daily life. After lunch, drive to Arusha for dinner and overnight at Medan Lodge.
After breakfast, drive to the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro for a day tour: enjoy views of Africa’s highest mountain (weather permitting), walk to the waterfalls, and visit a coffee and banana plantation and a Chagga village with its historic caves. Return to Arusha for a final dinner and overnight at Medan Lodge. This is a foothills day tour, not a mountain climb.
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.
Kilimanjaro is a non-technical trek – no ropes or climbing skills are needed – but it is a serious high-altitude challenge. A good level of general fitness and some hill-walking preparation make it far more enjoyable. Determination matters as much as fitness.
Longer routes (7-8 days) give your body more time to acclimatise and significantly improve your summit chances. We help you choose the route – Machame, Lemosho, Marangu or Rongai – that best fits your experience, budget and time.
Your guides are trained in altitude first aid, monitor you twice daily with pulse-oximeter checks, and carry emergency oxygen. “Pole pole” (slowly, slowly) is the golden rule – a steady pace is the key to summiting safely.
Your climb includes park fees, mountain accommodation, all meals on the mountain, a professional crew (guides, cook and porters) and group equipment. Porters carry your main duffel; you carry only a daypack. We send a full packing list and can arrange gear rental.
The main seasons are January-March (colder, quieter, often clearer) and June-October (dry and popular). We generally avoid the long rains of April-May. Full-moon dates are popular for summit night.
A deposit secures your climb dates and permits; the balance is due before you arrive. Once booked we send a detailed packing list, training tips and pre-departure guidance.
You visit: Ngorongoro · Serengeti · Tarangire
You visit: Lake Manyara · Ngorongoro · Serengeti · Tarangire
You visit: Kilimanjaro · Ngorongoro · Serengeti · Tarangire
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.
Kilimanjaro has been at the heart of what we do since 2012. At 5,895 m, Uhuru Peak on the Kibo crater rim is the highest point in Africa, and the mountain stands alone above the plains rather than as part of a range. You do not need ropes or climbing experience to reach the top. What you need is enough days, steady walking and a crew who keep the pace slow. Along the way you pass through farmland, rainforest, heather and moorland, high alpine desert and finally the cold, stony summit zone with its glaciers.
The higher you go, the less oxygen there is in each breath, and your body needs time to adjust. Climbing too fast is the main reason people feel unwell on the mountain. So our guides walk slowly, the Swahili pole pole, encourage you to drink plenty of water, and plan routes where you climb higher in the day and sleep lower at night. They check on you every day, and if your health needs it, going down is always the right call. Adding a day to your climb is the single most useful thing you can do.
The main climbing seasons are January to March and June to October, when the weather is drier and clearer. January to March tends to be a little warmer and quieter. June to October is cooler and busier. April, May and November are wetter, though climbs still run. Our Tanzania weather guide has more detail.
Most people who are reasonably fit and walk regularly can reach the summit if they give themselves enough days. You do not need to be an athlete. Training on long hill walks with a daypack in the months before is the best preparation. Summit night is the hardest part, usually starting around midnight so you reach the top near sunrise.
Kilimanjaro International Airport sits between Arusha and Moshi, and the route gates are roughly one to two hours’ drive from Arusha. Many of our travellers climb first, then rest their legs on a private safari and finish on the beach in Zanzibar, from the summit to the sea. Read more about our climbs on the Kilimanjaro page.
Serengeti Heritage Camp is a tented camp in the Serengeti, giving guests a classic under-canvas base close to the plains and the wildlife. It suits itineraries that want a bush-camp feel in the central park.
Accommodation is in en-suite safari tents. Facilities include a campfire area, full-board dining, solar power and easy game-drive access from the camp.
Meals are provided full-board during safari stays. It offers a tented-camp atmosphere rather than lodge-style comfort.
