5 Day Camping Safari: Tarangire, Serengeti and Ngorongoro

Arusha to Tarangire National Park

Breakfast, then Arusha behind you. About two hours on, the farms fall away and you meet baobabs, the park gate and the river in that order. Tarangire is the start of the safari. It is not a transfer with a short game drive tacked on. The Land Cruiser is private, with a pop-up roof, and the window seat is yours for the whole trip.

Come for elephants. Dry months concentrate whole families on the Tarangire River and in the Silale swamp. Giraffe work the acacias. Lion lie in the shade of the same giants you came to photograph. Stay for a picnic; be in the park when the light tilts and the herds move toward water.

Your Super Luxury Safaris' Guide knows which track is quiet that week. No convoy from a distant call centre. The Super Luxury Safaris Team answers WhatsApp after dinner.

Overnight: in a safari tent in the Karatu highlands, with a cook and a hot bucket shower

Karatu to Serengeti National Park

Iraqw farmland, a pause at the Ngorongoro viewpoint, the drop through Naabi: that is how the horizon opens onto the Serengeti, a grassland so wide it rearranges how you think about space. Give the afternoon to the Seronera River. Lion use the kopjes. Leopard use the sausage trees if the day is kind. Zebra and gazelle hold the open grass.

Since they booked, most guests have been holding this moment in their heads. We do not rush it. Picnic or late lodge lunch first; then a slower drive so you arrive in camp with the sun still on the plains.

Overnight: in a safari tent in the Serengeti — hyena, not a hotel generator

Full day in Serengeti National Park

No long transfer today. That is the point of sleeping in the Serengeti instead of driving through it. We leave in the cool, carry a picnic, and stay with whatever the morning offers — a hunt, a crossing of resident herds, a kopje that has a leopard on it if you sit still.

In the dry months we work the riverine strips. From December to March we can lean south toward Ndutu when the calves are on the short grass. A balloon at first light is there if you want it; it is not hidden inside the base package. The rest of the day is yours, in your own vehicle, with a Super Luxury Safaris' Guide who would rather you see one pride well than ten animals from a traffic jam.

Overnight: in a safari tent in the Serengeti — hyena, not a hotel generator

Serengeti to Ngorongoro

East toward the crater highlands, on a game drive, after a last dawn on the plains. Not empty tarmac: giraffe, eland and Maasai herds still hold the open slopes of the conservation area.

Sleep early because tomorrow is the descent. Evening is on the rim or in Karatu. The caldera is below you if the lodge class you chose sits on the edge.

Overnight: in a safari tent at Simba rim camp or a Karatu farm site

Ngorongoro Crater to Arusha

The grass is still cold; drop of roughly 600 metres onto the crater floor. The morning that sells the northern circuit. Short grass: zebra, wildebeest, buffalo. Pools: hippo. Open ground: lion, often. Black rhino: never guaranteed, and we never pretend they are. Fairest chance you will have: this closed caldera.

Still looking, not watching the clock — that is the pace, and you will talk about this day for years. Picnic lunch on the floor. Not a rushed snack at the gate. Climb out with time to wash off the dust.