Big 5 Serengeti Luxury Safari
Tanzania's Northern Circuit — from savanna to crater rim
Some places don’t just show you wildlife. They change the way you see the world.
This 7-day journey takes you deep into Tanzania’s Northern Circuit — through the tree-lined shores of Lake Manyara, across the endless golden plains of the Serengeti, down into the ancient bowl of Ngorongoro Crater, and through the baobab forests of Tarangire. You’ll encounter lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo, and rhino — the Big Five — not from a distance, but close enough to understand why this land has held people in its grip for thousands of years.
Small group. Expert guides. Luxury lodges positioned inside the parks themselves.
This is not a highlight reel. This is the real thing.
Quick Highlights
- 7 days / 6 nights, full board
- 4 national parks: Lake Manyara, Serengeti, Ngorongoro, Tarangire
- Custom 4×4 Land Cruiser with pop-up roof
- Professional English-speaking naturalist guide
- Luxury lodge accommodation inside the parks
- Maximum group size: small group format
- Departs from Kilimanjaro International Airport (JRO)
7 days · 6 nights | Once-in-a-lifetime experience
Cancellation flexibility
What you'll do
Day 1: Arrival in Moshi
- Your guide meets you at Kilimanjaro International Airport — no transfers to figure out, no uncertainty. You’re taken directly to Springlands Hotel at the foot of the mountain, where the evening is yours: pool, garden, a proper meal, and a pre-safari briefing from your team.
- Tomorrow, it begins.
- Overnight: Springlands Hotel
Day 2: Lake Manyara National Park
- After breakfast, you drive to Lake Manyara — a place of contradictions. Dense groundwater forest meets open floodplains. Tree-climbing lions drape themselves across acacia branches. Flocks of flamingo turn the lakeside pink. Elephants move through the undergrowth with quiet certainty.
- This is your first game drive, and it sets the tone for everything that follows. In the afternoon, you continue to Karatu for the night.
- Overnight: Highview Coffee Lodge, Karatu
Day 3: Into the Serengeti
- This is the morning everything opens up.
The drive into the Serengeti takes you past Olduvai Gorge — the cradle of human history — before the landscape flattens into something vast and ancient. Acacia trees thin out. The horizon extends further than it should. And then: the plains.
Your first Serengeti game drive happens en route.
By evening, you’re settled at Serengeti Safari Lodge — positioned inside the park, where the wildlife doesn’t stop at the fence line.
Overnight: Serengeti Safari Lodge or Serengeti Wild Camp
Serengeti Wild Camp
Serengeti Safari Lodge
Day 4: Full Day in the Serengeti
- A full day. No transfers. Just the Serengeti.
- This is the day for lions at dawn, leopard in the kopjes, cheetah on the move. The park shifts with the light — gold in the morning, white-hot at midday, amber as the sun drops behind the plains. Your guide reads the land the way others read a map.
- Return to the lodge at dusk.
- Overnight: Serengeti Safari Lodge or Serengeti Wild Camp
Day 5: Ngorongoro Crater
- The world’s largest intact volcanic caldera. 600 metres deep. 265 square kilometres of enclosed ecosystem, home to 20,000 large animals — including some of Tanzania’s last wild black rhino.
- You descend into the crater for a morning game drive across the floor: open grassland, soda lake, forest edge. The density of wildlife here is unlike anything else on the circuit.
- Afternoon drive back to your lodge on the crater rim.
- Overnight: Highview Hotel
Day 6: Tarangire National Park
- Tarangire is the Serengeti’s quieter counterpart — and for many people, the most affecting park on the circuit. Ancient baobab trees punctuate the landscape. The Tarangire River draws the largest elephant herds in northern Tanzania during the dry season.
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A morning game drive before the long drive back to Springlands Hotel.
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Overnight: Springlands Hotel, Moshi
Day 7: Departure
- Transfer to Kilimanjaro International Airport. You leave the same way you arrived — except you’re not the same person.
All of our guides are experts and locals
Things to know
INCLUDED
Full board accommodation (breakfast, lunch & dinner) throughout
- All game drives in a custom 4×4 Land Cruiser with pop-up roof
- Professional English-speaking naturalist guide
- All national park entrance fees
- Airport transfers (arrival and departure)
- Ngorongoro Conservation Area fees
- Drinking water during game drives
NOT INCLUDED
- International flights to/from Kilimanjaro International Airport
- Tanzania entry visa (approx. $50 USD — apply online before travel)
- Travel and medical insurance (required)
- Optional hot air balloon safari over the Serengeti (~$550/person)
- Gratuities for guides and lodge staff (customary, at your discretion)
- Personal items and laundry
- Any items not listed under Included