15-Day The Best of the Northern Circuit Taste

Your safari driver-guide meets you at Kilimanjaro International Airport, or any other arrival point, welcomes you warmly to Tanzania and transfers you safely and comfortably to your hotel in Arusha, where you can recover from the journey. You will then be briefed on the safari ahead.

Enjoy the tranquil grounds and, on clear days, magnificent views of the jagged peaks of Mount Meru, Tanzania's second-highest volcanic mountain, followed by a memorable dinner and your first night.

After breakfast at around 08:00, your guide drives you to Arusha National Park, a small but magnificent 'pocket park' with a remarkable number of species and attractions close together. Visit the magical fig tree arch, explore the savannas and the alkaline Momella Lakes, and take in panoramic views of Mount Meru, a dormant volcano and Tanzania's second-highest mountain.

Birdlife is abundant, and black-and-white colobus monkeys lounge in the trees with their long white tails dangling from the branches. After a picnic lunch, a short game drive takes you on to your lodge in Tarangire National Park for your first dinner and night in the African wild.

After breakfast at around 08:00, your guide takes you out for the first of two full days of game drives in Tarangire, a huge 2,850-square-kilometre park about 120 km south-west of Arusha. It is famed for its game viewing in the dry months, when most animals gather along the Tarangire River, which rises in the Kondoa highlands of Dodoma Region and winds for about 120 km through the park before emptying into Lake Burunge.

Wildlife roams at its own pace all around you. After a picnic lunch, a short afternoon game drive brings you back to your lodge in Tarangire for dinner and another night in the bush.

A second full day lets you explore further corners of the park, through bush, savanna and woodland. With luck you may come across one of the rare small packs of African painted dogs on patrol, elusive kudu in the thickets, or shy eland standing motionless and staring from a distance.

Enjoy a picnic lunch out in the park, then take a short, thrilling game drive back to your lodge in Tarangire for dinner and the night in the African bushveld.

After breakfast at around 08:00, you drive into the Ngorongoro Conservation Area and descend to the crater floor. The great caldera formed when an immense volcano erupted and collapsed in on itself, and with water all year round it supports big-tusked elephants, dark-maned lions in their prime, huge buffalo herds, pods of hippos, dazzles of zebra, wildebeest, warthogs and the ostrich, Africa's largest, fastest-running flightless bird, among many other birds.

Savour the panoramic views of this grand natural sanctuary over a picnic lunch, then take a short game drive out of the crater to your lodge in the Ngorongoro area for dinner and the night.

Ngorongoro is known for its volcanic craters and calderas, and today, after breakfast at around 08:00, you spend the day hiking two of the most famous. Olmoti, a sunken caldera near Nainokanoka village about 30 km north of the Ngorongoro Crater by road, can only be reached on foot. You hike through montane forest to the rim of this shallow, grassy crater, a favourite grazing ground for Maasai cattle, and along the rim to a pretty waterfall where the Munge River leaves the crater.

Empakai, by contrast, is huge and deep, about 6 km across and 300 metres deep, with three-quarters of its floor covered by alkaline Lake Empakai, its waters glowing from emerald to turquoise. On clear days the rim offers views of Ol Doinyo Lengai, Mount Kilimanjaro and Lake Natron, and antelope, buffalo and blue monkeys live in the area. Hike down to the water's edge, then return to your lodge for dinner and the night.

After breakfast at around 08:00, you set off for the Serengeti by way of Olduvai Gorge, the 'Cradle of Mankind'. There is ample time at the Kigeni Shifting Sands, a magnetic black volcanic dune about 9 metres high and 100 metres long that creeps westwards across the conservation area by about 17 metres a year, and at Olduvai Gorge and its museum, one of the world's most important archaeological sites, with evidence of early humans and other creatures that lived here millions of years ago.

Continue to a Maasai boma for a genuine cultural encounter, mingling with your Maasai hosts, then head into the Serengeti with a picnic lunch and game drives on the way to your camp in the heart of the park for dinner and the night.

The first of two full days of game drives in the Serengeti. Head out across the plains with your guide in search of lions, cheetahs, leopards and the great herds of grazers, stopping wherever the action is.

Lunch is a picnic in the park, giving you the whole day in the field before returning to your camp in the heart of the Serengeti for dinner and the night.

Another full day of game driving lets you go further afield, exploring the kopjes, rivers and woodlands where predators rest and hunt and hippos and crocodiles share the water.

After a picnic lunch on the plains, enjoy an afternoon drive in the golden light before dinner and the night at your camp.

Today is a full day of rest in the park, a chance to slow down after a busy safari. Enjoy a leisurely breakfast, relax at camp with a book and your binoculars, and simply let the sights and sounds of the Serengeti come to you.

Lunch and dinner are at camp, and you spend a final night in the heart of the Serengeti.

After breakfast at around 08:00, your guide drives you from the Serengeti to Lake Natron, a vast soda lake of around 1,040 square kilometres, some 57 km long and 22 km wide. Known for its harsh, caustic waters, it is the place where more than 75% of the world's lesser flamingos are born.

Enjoy the stark, otherworldly scenery of the Rift Valley floor, with Ol Doinyo Lengai rising nearby, before dinner and the night at your tented camp.

After breakfast, you leave Lake Natron and drive south to shallow Lake Eyasi, on the remote southern border of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area at the foot of the 800 km Eyasi escarpment. The lake is strikingly beautiful in the early morning and late evening, though it can look rather desolate in the heat of the day.

Few large animals live here, but birdlife is rich, with lesser flamingos in large numbers along with other waders and waterfowl. Enjoy a hearty dinner and the night at your tented camp.

Today you head into the Hadza homeland and out into the bush for a hunt with the Hadzabe, among the last hunter-gatherers in Africa. Learn how they shoot their arrows, and discover their way of life through a day spent alongside them.

After a picnic lunch and more time with your hosts, return to your tented camp for a memorable dinner and the night.

After breakfast at camp at around 08:00, your guide drives you to Mto wa Mbu, the village known as 'Mosquito Creek', for a day exploring with the locals. Join in daily activities such as cooking and herding cattle, visit the farms and take a bicycle tour towards Lake Manyara National Park.

Taste local food and drink, learn a few words of the language, try the local transport with a donkey ride and listen to local legends. Afterwards you drive to Arusha for a welcome shower, a delightful dinner and your final night at your hotel.

After breakfast at around 08:00, and depending on your flight time, your guide transfers you safely and comfortably to Kilimanjaro International Airport for your international flight home.

This marks the end of your safari. If you would like to extend it with a flight to the spice islands of Zanzibar, just let us know.