Full Circuit + Balloon Safari

We pick you up from your hotel in Arusha at 8am and drive directly to Tarangire National Park for a full day of game drives. Tarangire is known for its large elephant population, and you'll likely also spot zebra, wildebeest, giraffe, waterbuck, baboons, dwarf mongoose, impala, buffalo, antelope and fringe-eared oryx, with lion, cheetah and leopard among the resident predators.

The park's swamps draw flocks of birds, green wood hoopoes, lovebirds, herons, white-bellied go-away birds and giant kingfishers, while drier ground is home to the kori bustard and the ostrich, the heaviest of the flying birds. After the day's drive it's about 45 minutes to your accommodation for dinner and an overnight stay at Farm of Dreams Lodge.

Today we drive to the Serengeti, one of Africa's premier game parks, passing through the Ngorongoro Conservation Area on the way. The route gives you a first sense of the sheer scale of this landscape as we cross acacia-spotted savannah, with a good chance of spotting lions, wildebeest, hyenas, elephants, rhinoceros, buffalo, leopards, giraffes, impalas, zebras and many bird species along the way.

The Serengeti is Tanzania's oldest and most visited national park and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, a year-round destination whose best-known highlight is the annual wildebeest migration. We finish the day with an evening game drive and sundowners before heading back to camp for dinner and an overnight stay at Serengeti Heritage Tented Camp.

A full day deeper into the Serengeti, home to the Great Migration and around two million wildebeest, hundreds of thousands of zebra, and antelope of every kind, including impala and Thomson's gazelle. Among the big cats and predators, this is prime territory for lions, cheetahs, leopards and hyenas, alongside smaller animals like foxes, mongoose, honey badgers, jackals, monkeys, baboons, rock hyrax and African hares, plus more than 500 recorded bird species.

We keep the schedule flexible and talk through the best timing for game drives and wake-up times with you each day. We close with an evening game drive and sundowners before returning to Serengeti Heritage Tented Camp for dinner and the night.

A second full day exploring the Serengeti, giving us the chance to follow up on anything we didn't reach the day before, whether that's a particular predator sighting or simply more time in the areas with the most wildlife activity. As before, the wildlife on offer ranges from the Great Migration's wildebeest and zebra herds to lions, cheetahs, leopards and hyenas, with smaller species and more than 500 bird species rounding out the park's diversity.

We stay flexible on timing based on your preferences, and close the day with an evening game drive and sundowners before returning to Serengeti Heritage Tented Camp.

Day five is built around an optional early-morning balloon safari over the Serengeti, a well-known add-on that's booked and priced separately from this package (see Optional Activities under Excluded, below). If you choose to take it, you'll leave your lodge or camp while it's still dark, with a chance of spotting nocturnal wildlife on the way to the launch site, meet your pilot, and watch the balloon inflate before a safety briefing and liftoff at sunrise. Floating over the plains gives you a unique view of the Serengeti, including game trails worn by generations of animals that are invisible from the ground. Landing is followed by a traditional toast (sparkling wine) and an "Out of Africa" style breakfast in the bush.

Whether or not you take the balloon flight, the day continues with your driver guide on a game drive heading toward the Ngorongoro area. We arrive at the Ngorongoro Conservation Area around 5pm, in time for dinner and an overnight stay at Ngorongoro Rhino Lodge.

A full day in the Ngorongoro Crater, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1979. On the way we can stop at a Maasai village in the Ngorongoro Highlands (optional, at extra cost), where you'll meet elders, warriors, women and children and learn about the culture, beliefs and traditions of Tanzania's last nomadic tribe.

The crater is known for some of the best game viewing in Africa thanks to its permanent water supply, which keeps wildlife present on the crater floor year-round. We descend around 610 metres to where the safari truly begins: the endangered black rhino, wildebeest, buffalo, zebra, eland, Grant's and Thomson's gazelle and giant-tusked elephants share the floor with lions, leopards, cheetahs and scavengers like spotted hyenas, jackals and wild dogs, alongside more than 500 recorded bird species. In the evening we head back for dinner and an overnight stay at Farm of Dreams Lodge.

The final day is a game drive in Lake Manyara National Park, combined with the Manyara Treetop Walkway, a raised walkway through the forest canopy that lets you experience the park from a different angle. Stretched along the base of the Rift Valley escarpment, Manyara is home to giant fig trees, acacia woodland, mahogany trees and grassy floodplains, a landscape Ernest Hemingway once called the loveliest he'd seen in Africa, with its open plains, huge escarpment, soda lake and distant volcanic peaks.

Buffalo, wildebeest, giraffe, mongoose, dik-dik and zebra gather on the grassy plains, while the acacia woodland is home to Manyara's legendary tree-climbing lions and its elephants, along with flocks of pink-hued flamingos. In the afternoon we return to Arusha for your final evening.