On arrival at Kilimanjaro International Airport, Arusha, you will be greeted and transferred to Kigongoni Lodge, a former coffee plantation settled in the shadow of Mount Meru, complete with pool. Spend the evening relaxing and acclimating yourself in preparation for your trip..  

Arusha still has the aura of a pioneer town – a bustling, vibrant town - it is the centre of tourism for northern Tanzania and is situated in the foothills of rugged Mt. Meru. The town is named after a sub-tribe of the Maasai, the Wa-Arusha and the town is a curious contrast of ancient and modern as Maasai warriors stroll along the streets – seemingly oblivious to the 4x4 Landcruisers and modern supermarkets - aloof and more traditionally apparelled than their Kenya cousins. Apart from tourism Arusha’s economic mainstay is flower and coffee farming– the scenery here is beautiful. In the afternoon, Dean will conduct an informal discussion and demonstration on various wildlife photography techniques.

Overnight at the Kigongoni Lodge, Arusha

Welcome to the bush! Your safari begins today - at about 8am in the morning our guide will pick us up and take us to Tarangire National Park. It is a unique park, close on proximity to Lake Manyara, and absolutely fantastic at this time of year– we will most likely see many elephants, and innumerous baobabs are a guarantee.

Oliver’s Camp is a beautiful safari-style camp, offering bush luxury on a very intimate scale, with only five guest tents in total. You have got one full day to explore the wildlife that populates Tarangire. Escorted by an armed ranger and an expert area guide from the camp, you will walk the bush. This is not allowed anywhere else in the whole of Tarangire!

Overnight at the Oliver's Camp, Tarangire National Park

The Ngorongoro Crater awaits us! This imploded volcano is the world’s largest unflooded complete caldera - the floor lies some 2,000 feet below the rim - not only a stunning landscape, but also brimming with wildlife. After spending the day in the crater, Plantation, a tranquil small lodge in the coffee fields just outside the crater, awaits us for the night – excellent hospitality with a very personal touch. On our second day at Ngorongoro we will go for a hike on the crater rim, enjoying the stunning view from above.

The Ngorongoro Crater spans 20 kilometres – a natural wildlife reserve inside the crater rim. The crater floor is home to the greatest concentration of resident large mammals in the whole of Africa. This haven is protected by 600m high walls and packed with just about every species of wildlife to be found in East Africa. “The Crater” has been compared to Noah’s Ark and the Garden of Eden.

Overnight at Plantation Lodge, Ngorongoro

We leave Plantation and the crater behind, and our guide will take us to Manyara airstrip from where we catch a flight north. As the plains stretch out as far as the eye can see, we find ourselves in the Serengeti - it is only when we get into it that the vastness of the place becomes real. The coming days will find us wrapped in the bush luxury of Sayari, a tented camp located in very close proximity to the Mara river. The camp offers fantastic service on a very intimate scale and we will realize that this is a truly amazing bush experience in great style that is not to be missed! There are hardly any other camps or cars in the area; this is safari the way it was many years ago... all in all a very special experience that truly brings us to the bush.

Serengeti National Park: Tanzania’s oldest and most popular national park, the Serengeti is famed for its annual migration, when some six million hooves pound the open plains, as more than 200,000 zebra and 300,000 Thomson’s gazelle join the wildebeest’s trek for fresh grazing. Yet even when the migration is quiet, the Serengeti offers arguably the most scintillating game-viewing in Africa: great herds of buffalo, smaller groups of elephant and giraffe, and thousands upon thousands of eland, topi, kongoni, impala and Grant’s gazelle.

The spectacle of predator versus prey dominates Tanzania’s greatest park. Golden-maned lion prides feast on the abundance of plain grazers. Solitary leopards haunt the acacia trees lining the Seronera River, while a high density of cheetahs prowl the southeastern plains. Almost uniquely, all three African jackal species occur here, alongside the spotted hyena and a host of more elusive small predators, ranging from the insectivorous aardwolf to the beautiful serval cat.

But there is more to Serengeti than large mammals. Gaudy agama lizards and rock hyraxes scuffle around the surfaces of the park’s isolated granite koppies. A full 100 varieties of dung beetle have been recorded, as have 500-plus bird species, ranging from the outsized ostrich and bizarre secretary bird of the open grassland, to the black eagles that soar effortlessly above the Lobo Hills. As enduring as the game-viewing is the liberating sense of space that characterises the Serengeti Plains, stretching across sunburnt savannah to a shimmering golden horizon at the end of the earth.

Yet, after the rains, this golden expanse of grass is transformed into an endless green carpet flecked with wildflowers. And there are also wooded hills and towering termite mounds, rivers lined with fig trees and acacia woodland stained orange by dust. Popular the Serengeti might be, but it remains so vast that you may be the only human audience when a pride of lions masterminds a siege, focussed unswervingly on its next meal.

Overnight at the Sayari Camp, Serengeti

We depart Kilimanjaro on Kenya Airways flight KQ6727 for Nairobi at 3:40pm, arriving in Nairobi at 4:30pm. For those travelling onto Dubai we board a connecting flight to Dubai on Kenya Airways flight KQ310, departing at 7:30pm and arriving in Dubai at 1:45am (the following day).