Fly into Kilimanjaro International Airport, where your driver/guide awaits to greet and escort you to Serena Mountain Village, Arusha. This charming accommodation stands on the shores of Lake Duluti with views of Mount Meru. Dinner at the lodge.

After breakfast, a scenic drive brings you to Tarangire National Park in time for lunch at Kikoti Camp. Kikoti, an ancient Maasai name meaning “the place where life began,” describes the pre-Jurassic ecosystem surrounding the camp. After lunch, enjoy a game drive in Tarangire before arriving back in camp in time for sundowner cocktails and dinner.

Kikoti’s proximity to Tarangire affords a wide choice of exploratory game drives through the surrounding savannah and acacia parkland. It is ideally positioned adjacent to the migratory corridor and offers a variety of activities to acquaint you with nature in its primeval state—from guided walks and foot safaris to extended bush trekking with rangers.

Enjoy a full day on safari in Tarangire National Park with morning and afternoon game drives. An essential dry-season (June/July) wildlife sanctuary, the park supports vast herds in clearly defined seasonal patterns. Zebras and wildebeests begin their trek in October. Then come gazelles, buffalos, elands, oryxes, and hartebeests. Finally, the elephants move in. Throughout these migrations, defassa waterbucks, impalas, giraffes, lesser kudus, Kirk’s dik-dik, and warthogs remain resident. June marks the return of the park’s own migratory species: oryxes, elands, elephants, zebras, and wildebeest.

Included: Game drives. Meals: BLD

After a farewell camp breakfast, drive on to Lake Manyara National Park and arrive at Kirurumu Tented Lodge in time for lunch. Below the lodge, at the base of the Rift Valley, Lake Manyara shimmers in a lilac and golden haze. If the time is right, you will see it streaked with the vivid pink of thousands of flamingos. Backed by a narrow band of forest, your vista rises to the dramatically sheer red and brown cliffs of the Mto wa Mbu Escarpment.

Behind Kirurumu, the Ngorongoro Highlands rise in green and fertile splendor and form the gateway to Ngorongoro Crater, Olduvai Gorge, and the Serengeti. Begin your explorations after lunch, with an afternoon game drive in the park.

After breakfast at the lodge comes the excitement of a drive to the spectacular Ngorongoro Crater Conservation Area. Ascending the edge of the crater, discover Ngorongoro Serena Safari Lodge, where you will be welcomed for an afternoon at leisure followed by dinner. Active options include a nature walk on the grounds or along the crater rim.

A World Heritage site, Ngorongoro is one of Africa’s best-known wildlife arenas and one of the largest, most perfect volcanic craters in the world. It forms a unique biosphere sheltering grasslands, swamps, forests, salt pans, a freshwater lake, and a glorious variety of birdlife, all enclosed within its towering walls. Its high concentration of wildlife creates close-range viewing opportunities framed by striking scenery.

Depart after breakfast for a journey to the ancient past as you drive to Olduvai Gorge, also called Oldupai Gorge, one of the world’s most important Paleolithic sites. A stop here affords the opportunity to take in the excavation sites as well as a visit to the compact but enormously engaging museum. Following another stretch along the route that leads from the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, you will arrive in spectacular Serengeti National Park in time for lunch at your hotel. Also on your agenda: an afternoon’s game drive. Dinner and overnight at the lodge.

Covering 5,700 square miles of endlessly rolling savannah plains, the Serengeti is Tanzania’s largest and most legendary park. Massive herds of wildlife roam in perpetual search of fresh grasslands. The million-plus wildebeest are the predominant herbivore and also the main prey of a huge cast of large carnivores, principally lion and hyena. While famous for its annual migrations, the Serengeti is also renowned for its lions, many of which are fitted with radio-transmitter collars to track their movements. Also populating the savannah is an abundance of cheetah, zebra, giraffe, Thomson’s and Grant’s gazelle, eland, impala, klipspringer, hippo, and warthog.

Luxuriate in a full-day safari across the vast and sensational Serengeti. Opportunities for wildlife sightings and discovering the area’s unique ecology abound. You set off in the early morning sunlight to catch the savannah come to life―the flashing tails of baby impala, a chorus of birdsong, and hippos returning to their pools after a night of grazing―as vast as it may be, it is all in the details of nature here. Returning to the lodge for lunch, there is time to enjoy the amenities, stretch out on a walk on the grounds of the lodge, or simply relax before setting off for a late-afternoon drive, perhaps heading straight to a secret waterhole as elephants return for the last drink of the day. Have your camera ready, as sunset in the Serengeti is something you will never forget. You may cap off your final dinner this evening in the lodge’s bar with the sights and sounds of traditional music and dance.

After a farewell breakfast, you will be driven to the nearby airstrip for your flight to Arusha airport. A transfer will be provided according to your travel plans either to a city hotel or to the Kilimanjaro International Airport.