Morning breakfast at the lodge in Arusha, safari briefing and afterwards we depart for Tarangire National Park. Your first experience of safari will be the thrilling game drive through the vastness of Tarangire National Park, arrive in good time for lunch. Afternoon game driving through the park followed by dinner at the lodge.

• Dinner and overnight at Karatu Tented Camp: Bed, dinner, breakfast, and lunch.

We head towards the Serengeti National Park. En route, there is an opportunity to visit Olduvai Gorge. It is within this steep-sided ravine that Louis and Mary Leakey made some of the world’s most important archaeological discoveries in the 1950s. Here is a small museum, we are able to see evidence of our ancestors that have been dated back 2.5 million years. After lunch, we drive into the Serengeti itself and the rest of the afternoon is spent game viewing in the vast plains that are broken only by stands of acacia trees and the occasional kopje. In December, January and February we will normally meet the migration with large herds of wildebeest, zebra, and gazelle. There are always plenty of resident animals, such as giraffe, buffalo, and elephant, and many large predators such as lion, cheetah, and leopard. We return to our special tented camp for the night.

• Dinner and overnight at Serengeti Bush Tented Camp: Bed, dinner, breakfast, and lunch.

We have another full day in this wonderful park, rising early to make the most of our time. Our guides will choose the best spotting locations for the time of year; we can spend time at the Hippo pool watching these majestic animals laze about in the cool water happily living alongside the crocodiles, watch a big pride of lions, be in the middle of the migration, sometimes surrounded by wildebeest, sometimes by zebras, which travel with the wildebeest. We journey from the wide-open plains to the kopjes: these volcanic rocky outcrops provide protection and shelter for a wide variety of animals and from the top, we can look out across the vast grasslands of the Serengeti. This diverse and interesting landscape will provide us with the ultimate in game viewing, we will hopefully see all of the plain games; elephants, giraffe, zebra, wildebeest, lions and if you are lucky the elusive leopard and cheetah, as well as huge amounts of the interesting birdlife, from the elegant secretary birds to the flightless ostrich. We return to our special tented camp for the night.

• Dinner and overnight at Serengeti Bush Tented Camp: Bed, dinner, breakfast, and lunch.

Depending on the time of the year and the migration of the herds you can expect to see wildebeest, lions, elephants, giraffes, zebras, monkeys, baboons, hippos, rhinos, antelopes as well as a multitude of birds.

• Dinner and overnight at Serengeti Bush Tented Camp: Bed, dinner, breakfast, and lunch.

After breakfast, we will take the packed lunch with us and proceed with the game drive in the Serengeti National Park. The migration can be seen on a long chain approximately 40 Km heading in the southwestern direction. Around 1230 and 1300 break for your lunch. After having our lunch we will proceed with our game viewing following the move of the migrants on the southwest of the park. Approximately 1.3 million wildebeest, 250,000 gazelle, and 200,000 Zebras have been recorded sharing the short grass.

• Dinner and overnight at Serengeti Bush Tented Camp: Bed, dinner, breakfast, and lunch.

Today we will descend 2000 feet (over 600 meters) to the floor of the Ngorongoro Crater for your crater tour. Here you will explore the forest areas inhabited by monkeys and elephants, the lake area, where we may see flamingos. We will also visit the open savannah where the lions hunt. Picnic lunch will be served in the crater. In the late afternoon, we make a short journey to Arusha.

• Dinner and overnight at Masailand Safari Lodge: Bed, dinner, and breakfast.

Afternoon lunchtime drives back to Kilimanjaro International airport (JRO) ready for the evening flight