Family-Friendly Group Safaris in Tanzania2 — 7 Days Epic Northern Tanzania Safari

Overview

Experience the very best of Tanzania’s famous Northern Safari Circuit on this 7 Days Epic Northern Tanzania Safari. This unforgettable journey takes you through Tarangire National Park, Lake Manyara National Park, Serengeti National Park, and the breathtaking Ngorongoro Crater. Encounter the Big Five, witness vast herds of elephants, explore the endless plains of the Serengeti, and descend into one of the world’s largest intact volcanic calderas, home to an extraordinary concentration of wildlife.

Whether you are travelling during the Great Migration or any other season, this safari offers exceptional game viewing, spectacular scenery, rich cultural experiences, and unforgettable memories.

Safari Highlights

Game Drive
Nature walks

Detailed Itinerary

Day 1: Arrival in Arusha

Upon arrival at Kilimanjaro International Airport or Arusha Airport, you will be welcomed by your professional safari guide and transferred to your hotel in Arusha.

Depending on your arrival time, relax at the hotel or explore the city before your safari briefing.

Accommodation Options

Budget: Arusha Planet Lodge

Mid-range: Four Points by Sheraton Arusha

Luxury: Gran Meliá Arusha

Meals: Dinner

Day 2: Arusha to Tarangire National Park

After breakfast, depart for Tarangire National Park, one of Tanzania’s finest wildlife destinations.

Enjoy a full-day game drive while exploring the park’s open savannah, river valleys, and iconic baobab trees. Tarangire is famous for its large elephant herds and is home to lions, leopards, cheetahs, giraffes, buffaloes, zebras, wildebeests, impalas, warthogs, and over 550 bird species.

After a picnic lunch, continue your afternoon game drive before transferring to your lodge for dinner and overnight.

Accommodation Options

Budget: Fanaka Safari Camp

Mid-range: Marera Valley Lodge

Luxury: Lake Manyara Kilimamoja Lodge

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner

Day 3: Lake Manyara National Park to Serengeti National Park

After breakfast, enjoy a morning game drive in Lake Manyara National Park.

Explore its groundwater forests, open grasslands, and lakeshore habitats while searching for elephants, hippos, baboons, giraffes, flamingos, and the park’s famous tree-climbing lions.

Later, continue through the Ngorongoro Conservation Area before arriving in Serengeti National Park. Enjoy an afternoon game drive en route to your lodge.

Accommodation Options

Budget: Seronera Public Campsite

Mid-range: Serengeti Heritage Camp

Luxury: Serengeti Serena Safari Lodge

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner

Day 4: Full Day Safari in Serengeti National Park

Spend an entire day exploring the world-famous Serengeti.

Search for the Big Five while observing lions, leopards, cheetahs, elephants, buffaloes, giraffes, hyenas, jackals, hippos, crocodiles, and countless antelope species.

Depending on the season, your guide will take you to areas where the Great Migration can be best experienced.

Enjoy a picnic lunch in the wilderness before continuing your afternoon game drive.

Accommodation

As Above

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner

Day 5: Second Full Day in Serengeti National Park

Another full day allows you to explore different regions of the Serengeti ecosystem.

Track predators during the early morning hours, observe wildlife behaviour, and visit areas with excellent opportunities for photography. Your guide will adjust the day’s route based on recent wildlife movements to maximise your safari experience.

Return to your accommodation in the evening.

Accommodation

As Above

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner

Day 6: Serengeti to Ngorongoro Conservation Area

After breakfast, enjoy a final morning game drive as you leave the Serengeti.

Travel towards the Ngorongoro Conservation Area while continuing to enjoy wildlife sightings along the route. Stop at scenic viewpoints overlooking the Ngorongoro Crater before checking into your lodge on the crater rim.

Spend the evening relaxing while preparing for the next day’s crater safari.

Accommodation Options

Budget: Simba Public Campsite

Mid-range: Rhino Lodge

Luxury: Ngorongoro Serena Safari Lodge

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner

Day 7: Ngorongoro Crater Safari and Return to Arusha

After an early breakfast, descend approximately 600 metres into the Ngorongoro Crater for a half-day game drive.

The crater supports one of Africa’s highest concentrations of wildlife, including black rhinos, lions, elephants, buffaloes, hippos, hyenas, zebras, wildebeests, gazelles, warthogs, and hundreds of bird species.

Enjoy a picnic lunch near the hippo pool before ascending the crater and driving back to Arusha.

Arrive in the late afternoon and transfer to Kilimanjaro International Airport or your hotel.

Meals: Breakfast and Lunch

Optional Activities

Hot air balloon safari over the Serengeti
Champagne bush breakfast
Visit to a Maasai village
Olduvai Gorge archaeological tour
Guided wildlife photography safari
Bird watching excursion
Walking safari in a designated conservation area
Coffee plantation tour in Arusha
Cultural tour in Mto wa Mbu
Scenic flight over the Serengeti
Bush dinner experience
Sundowner experience
Night game drive in Lake Manyara (where available)
Canoeing on Lake Manyara (seasonal)
Mountain biking in Mto wa Mbu

Best Time to Visit

This safari can be enjoyed throughout the year, with each season offering unique wildlife experiences. The dry season from June to October provides outstanding game viewing as animals gather around permanent water sources. From December to March, the southern Serengeti hosts the wildebeest calving season, while the famous Mara River crossings are typically experienced between July and October in the northern Serengeti. Tarangire is particularly rewarding during the dry season when large elephant herds congregate along the Tarangire River, and the Ngorongoro Crater offers exceptional wildlife viewing in every month of the year.

Tour Includes

Travel in a 4×4 car
Professional guide
Park fees
Accommodation
Meals
All Activities In Itinerary

Tour Excludes

Alcoholic drinks
Laundry
Tips
Shopping
Insurance
Anything not included per itinerary

A Full Week Across the Northern Circuit

This seven-day itinerary gives a full week to Tanzania’s northern circuit, typically the Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater and Tarangire, with genuine time at each destination rather than a rushed, compressed schedule.

This length balances thorough coverage of the northern circuit’s key parks with a manageable overall trip duration, making it one of our most consistently booked standard Tanzania itineraries.

Practical Notes

Most nationalities can apply for a Tanzania e-visa online before travel. A yellow fever certificate is required for entry if arriving from a country with risk of transmission. Travel insurance covering wildlife or trekking activities and medical evacuation is strongly recommended.

Tanzanian shillings are useful for everyday purchases, tips and markets, while US dollars printed after 2009 are widely accepted for park fees, conservation fees and lodge bills.

Because lodge and permit availability tightens considerably during the June to October peak season, we recommend booking this itinerary at least three to four months in advance for travel during that window.

Tipping is customary though not compulsory. Your driver-guide is typically tipped at the end of the full trip, scaled to group size and length of stay, and we’re glad to advise on typical ranges when you book.

A private 4×4 safari vehicle with a pop-up roof and an experienced English-speaking driver-guide accompanies you throughout this itinerary.

Why This Length Works Well

Seven days strikes a genuine balance for Tanzania’s northern circuit: enough time for multiple game drives in each park without the extended commitment of our ten-day or longer itineraries, making it accessible to travelers with standard vacation time constraints while still delivering real depth at each destination.

This itinerary can be extended with a Zanzibar beach addition or Kilimanjaro trek for travelers who decide partway through planning that they want to add a coastal or mountain component to their Tanzania trip.

Wildlife and the Great Migration in the Serengeti

The Serengeti’s vast, open plains support one of the last great terrestrial wildlife migrations on earth, as roughly two million wildebeest, zebra and gazelle move in a broadly circular pattern through the ecosystem each year, following the rains in search of fresh grass. Depending on the season, this can mean vast herds spread across the southern plains during calving season, dramatic river crossings in the west and north, or smaller, more dispersed groups elsewhere in the park — so the exact experience varies considerably by month. Beyond the migration, the Serengeti’s year-round resident wildlife, including some of Africa’s largest lion prides and healthy cheetah and leopard populations, makes it a rewarding destination regardless of when the herds themselves are present.

Wildlife Density in the Ngorongoro Crater

The Ngorongoro Crater, the world’s largest intact volcanic caldera, contains an estimated 25,000 large mammals within its roughly 260-square-kilometre floor, a natural enclosure formed when a volcano larger than Kilimanjaro collapsed in on itself some two to three million years ago. Because the crater walls largely confine the resident wildlife year-round, sighting rates for lion, elephant, buffalo, hippo and the crater’s small but present population of black rhino are exceptionally high regardless of season, making it one of the most reliable single-day game drives in Africa. The descent into the crater floor along a steep access road, followed by a full day exploring the grassland, swamp and forest habitats within, is typically treated as its own dedicated day on a Tanzania itinerary.

Elephants and Baobabs at Tarangire

Tarangire National Park is known for two distinctive features: some of the largest elephant herds in Tanzania, with family groups sometimes numbering in the hundreds gathering along the Tarangire River during the dry season, and a landscape studded with ancient, swollen baobab trees that can live for well over a thousand years. The Tarangire River is the area’s only permanent water source through the dry months, which concentrates wildlife along its banks and makes June through October a particularly productive period for game viewing here. The park also supports species less commonly seen elsewhere in northern Tanzania, including fringe-eared oryx and gerenuk, alongside large pythons that are more frequently spotted here than in other parks in the region.

Climbing Routes on Mount Kilimanjaro

Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest peak at 5,895 metres, can be climbed via several established routes that vary in scenery, traffic and acclimatisation profile. The Marangu route, the only one with hut-based rather than tented accommodation, is the shortest but also has one of the lower summit success rates due to its fast ascent profile; Machame, nicknamed the Whiskey Route, is more scenic and allows better acclimatisation over a longer itinerary; and Lemosho, the longest of the popular routes, offers the most gradual ascent and correspondingly higher success rates. Regardless of route, the climb passes through five distinct ecological zones, from cultivated farmland through rainforest, moorland and alpine desert to the arctic summit zone, a transition unlike almost any other trek in the world.

Zanzibar’s Beaches and Marine Life

Beyond its historical centre, Zanzibar’s coastline is ringed with white-sand beaches and warm, turquoise water, with the northern and eastern shores around Nungwi and Paje generally favoured for swimming due to less dramatic tidal swings than elsewhere on the island. Offshore, the reefs around Mnemba Atoll are considered among the best snorkelling and diving sites in East Africa, with regular sightings of green sea turtles, reef fish and, seasonally, dolphins. A traditional dhow sunset cruise, sailing on the same style of wooden boat that has carried traders along this coast for centuries, is a popular way to end a day on the island.

Health and Travel Preparation

Most countries in this region require proof of yellow fever vaccination for entry, particularly if arriving from or having transited another yellow-fever-endemic country, and it is worth checking current requirements with your airline or embassy well ahead of departure. Malaria is present across most safari areas at varying risk levels, so consulting a travel health clinic about prophylaxis, alongside practical measures like insect repellent and covering up at dawn and dusk when mosquitoes are most active, is standard advice for the region. Comprehensive travel insurance that explicitly covers emergency medical evacuation is strongly recommended for any itinerary involving remote parks, since the nearest advanced medical facility can be several hours away by road or air.