5-Day Wakanda Special Camping Safari

This is the moment you’ve been waiting for: your safari is about to start and there’s so much to look forward to. We’ll welcome you, give you a taste of what lies ahead, and then get ready to set out and enjoy so many remarkable safari experiences. Explore one of Tanzania’s most rewarding national parks, a land of big baobab trees, big elephants and big cats. No wonder this ends up being the favorite park in Tanzania for many visitors. Sightings of wildebeest, giraffes, hippos, buffaloes, baboons, vervet monkeys and zebras are also almost guaranteed. Lions are plentiful here – Tarangire is home to one of Tanzania’s healthiest lion populations. While you’ll have to work a little harder to see a cheetah or leopard, it will only enhance your excitement when you do. You can also look forward to classic safari scenery – savannah plains, river woodlands and rocky hills. Overnight at Fig Tree Lodge & Camp In the fascinating town of Mto wa Mbu, Fig Tree Lodge & Camp is well-placed for getting a taste of local life. It’s also an excellent base for visiting Lake Manyara National Park as you’re just five minutes away from the park entrance by road. There’s an onsite bar and restaurant, a swimming pool and wifi.

Tarangire is the elephant capital of northern Tanzania. In the dry season the Tarangire River is the only permanent water for miles, and herds of up to 250 elephants come down to drink, calves tumbling between their mothers' legs.

You spend the day on a private game drive through baobab-studded floodplains: lions resting in the shade, giraffe browsing acacia tops, fringe-eared oryx and the strange dwarf mongoose colonies. We pack a hot picnic lunch so you can stay in the park while the light is good.

Where you sleep tonight

Fig Tree Lodge & Camp

Lodge & camp near Tarangire NP

Family-run lodge and camp just outside Tarangire's main gate, with simple chalets, pool and bush dinners under the figs.

You’ll never forget the time you spend in the Serengeti. Perhaps it will be the sightings of leopard and cheetah as they show their skills as feared hunters of the plains and valleys. Or that unforgettable moment when an elephant family feeds alongside your vehicle, so close you could almost reach out and touch them. Or the first time you hear a lion roar. Then there are the herds of buffalo, zebra or wildebeest so large that they move as one across your horizon, like a river. All of these experiences are possible in the Serengeti, one of the most beautiful parks in Africa. An optional early-morning hot-air balloon safari on Day 3 (extra cost, approx. US$560) lets you rise above the plains in the magical light of dawn. Overnight at Lala Salama Serengeti Camp • Mid-range tented camp located inside Serengeti National Park.

The Seronera valley is the heart of the Serengeti and a year-round game-viewing area. Permanent water, rocky kopjes and short-grass plains create the highest density of big cats in Africa: roughly 1 lion per 10 km², and the best leopard sightings on the circuit.

Mornings start before sunrise to catch the cats while they are still active; midday is a slow picnic in the shade of an acacia. In the afternoon we work the riverine fig trees for leopards and the kopjes for resting prides. Distances are long but every stop is worth it.

Where you sleep tonight

Lala Salama Serengeti Camp

Tented camp, Serengeti

Classic tented camp pitched in the heart of the Serengeti — warm hosting, hearty bush meals and easy access to the plains right from your tent flap.

There’s no such thing as too many days in the Serengeti – today you’ll get to enjoy it all over again. Overnight at Ngorongoro Simba Campsite Hang out with other travelers and swap safari stories with them when you stay with us at Ngorongoro Simba Campsite. It’s a camping area high on the crater rim, and the views from here as the morning mist rises from the crater are simply wonderful. The location is also conveniently close to the main descent road down into the crater.

The Seronera valley is the heart of the Serengeti and a year-round game-viewing area. Permanent water, rocky kopjes and short-grass plains create the highest density of big cats in Africa: roughly 1 lion per 10 km², and the best leopard sightings on the circuit.

Mornings start before sunrise to catch the cats while they are still active; midday is a slow picnic in the shade of an acacia. In the afternoon we work the riverine fig trees for leopards and the kopjes for resting prides. Distances are long but every stop is worth it.

Where you sleep tonight

Ngorongoro Simba Campsite

Public campsite, crater rim

Legendary crater-rim public campsite — dome tents pitched on the very edge of Ngorongoro at 2,400 m.

You’ll learn why magical Ngorongoro is unlike anywhere else in Africa. Cloud forests encircle the crater rim, and the view out across the caldera of this former volcano – quite apart from the altitude – will leave you gasping for air. Your drive down a steep trail carries you onto the crater floor where a unique wildlife offering is added to the sheer beauty of the experience. You’ll share the sunken ecosystem of the crater floor with hyenas, lions, elephants, black rhinos and hippos – an ecosystem that has formed in the crater in the millennia since the volcano wrought its terrible fury upon the land. It could just be one of your best safari days ever. Your Tanzanian safari draws to a close, and we’re sure that you will have enjoyed it as much as we have.

The Ngorongoro Crater is a 260 km² collapsed caldera with 600 m walls, and the highest density of large mammals on Earth. Inside the crater floor live around 25,000 large animals, including the densest population of black-maned lions and one of the last strongholds of the eastern black rhino.

We descend at first light when the floor is still in shadow and the cats are working. A picnic breakfast on the rim, a full morning circuit past the soda lake's flamingos and Lerai Forest's elephants, then a climb back up the escarpment in time for a late lunch.