8-Day Tanzania Lodge Safari - Tarangire, Serengeti, Ngorongoro & Eyasi

Morning pick-up from your hotel in Arusha or Moshi for the drive to Tarangire National Park, famous for large elephant herds, ancient baobab trees and a high concentration of wildlife along the Tarangire River. You'll enjoy a full game drive with a picnic lunch inside the park, then continue in the afternoon to your accommodation for dinner and overnight.

Distance: Approx. 120 km from Arusha, full day including game drive

Activity: Full-day game drive in Tarangire National Park

Accommodation: Lodge or tented camp in the Karatu area

Meals: Lunch & Dinner

After breakfast, you drive west through the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, pausing at the crater rim viewpoint for your first sight of the caldera floor, then descend onto the Serengeti plains via Naabi Hill Gate. The drive itself is part of the game viewing, with giraffe and zebra often visible along the access road. You'll reach the Seronera area by mid-afternoon for your first Serengeti game drive before dinner and overnight inside the park.

Distance: Approx. 200 km, 4-5 hours driving plus afternoon game drive

Activity: En-route game drive, then afternoon Seronera game drive

Accommodation: Lodge or tented camp inside the Serengeti

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner

A full day dedicated to game drives in the Serengeti, with a picnic lunch out on the plains. The Seronera Valley has the highest leopard density in East Africa and a resident lion population that your guide tracks daily, alongside elephant, buffalo, giraffe and (seasonally) the wildebeest migration. Morning and afternoon drives explore different parts of the central Serengeti, with your guide adjusting the route based on recent sightings.

Distance: Game drives within the park, distances vary by wildlife sightings

Activity: Full-day game drive in the central Serengeti

Accommodation: Lodge or tented camp inside the Serengeti (second night)

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner

A second full day in the Serengeti, giving your guide room to range further from Seronera into the western or northern parts of the park depending on the season and recent wildlife movements. An early start catches predators returning from overnight hunts, with a relaxed afternoon drive to follow. This extra day is the single change that most improves your chances of strong predator sightings on the Northern Circuit.

Distance: Game drives within the park, distances vary by wildlife sightings

Activity: Full-day game drive in the central Serengeti

Accommodation: Lodge or tented camp inside the Serengeti (third night)

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner

An early morning game drive, the best window for predator activity as lions return from overnight hunts, before you exit the park at Naabi Hill and retrace the route through the highlands toward Ngorongoro. You'll stop at Olduvai Gorge, one of the world's most important prehistoric sites and a key location in the discovery of early human fossils, where a small site museum explains the finds. You arrive at a lodge in the Karatu area or near the crater rim in the afternoon, with time to relax before dinner ahead of the next morning's crater descent.

Distance: Approx. 200 km, 4-5 hours driving including morning game drive

Activity: Morning Serengeti game drive, then drive to the Ngorongoro Highlands via Olduvai Gorge

Accommodation: Lodge or tented camp in Karatu / near the crater rim

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner

After an early breakfast, you descend over 600 metres into the Ngorongoro Crater, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the best wildlife-viewing areas in Africa. The crater floor hosts lion, elephant, buffalo and hippo, with flamingos around the soda lake and one of the highest chances in Tanzania of spotting the endangered black rhino. After a picnic lunch near the hippo pool, you ascend the rim road and return to your lodge for dinner and overnight.

Distance: Crater floor game drive, then return to your lodge

Activity: Full Ngorongoro Crater floor game drive

Accommodation: Lodge or tented camp in Karatu / near the crater rim (second night)

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner

After breakfast, you drive down from the highlands to Lake Eyasi, a soda lake at the base of the Eyasi escarpment and home to the Hadzabe, one of the last hunter-gatherer communities in East Africa, who still speak a click language and hunt with bow and arrow. You'll spend the morning with a local Hadzabe group, joining a short hunt or foraging walk depending on what the group is doing that day, followed by an optional visit to a Datoga blacksmith homestead nearby. This is a genuine cultural exchange rather than a staged show, and your guide acts as translator throughout. In the afternoon you continue to your lodge near Karatu for dinner and overnight.

Distance: Approx. 1-1.5 hours each way from Karatu

Activity: Morning with a Hadzabe hunter-gatherer community, optional Datoga homestead visit

Accommodation: Lodge or tented camp in the Karatu area

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner

After breakfast, drive to Lake Manyara National Park, a narrow strip of park squeezed between the Manyara escarpment and the lake shore, known for its lush groundwater forest, large troops of baboons, flamingos, and the tree-climbing lions that rest in the branches of acacia and sausage trees during the heat of the day. After a game drive through the park, you exit in the afternoon and continue to Arusha or Moshi, or transfer to the airport as arranged.

Distance: Approx. 1.5-2 hours from Karatu to Lake Manyara, then 1.5-2 hours back to Arusha

Activity: Game drive in Lake Manyara National Park, then return to Arusha/Moshi

Accommodation: N/A, end of safari

Meals: Breakfast & Lunch

Extend your trip

• Prefer to spend the extra day on wildlife instead of culture? Our 7-Day Tanzania Lodge Safari covers the same parks without the Lake Eyasi day.
• Travelling during the wildebeest migration? Ask us about adjusting the Serengeti routing on this itinerary to follow the herds.
• Combining with a Kilimanjaro climb or a Zanzibar beach stay? This safari pairs well as a pre- or post-climb add-on, ask us about a combined itinerary.