Great Migration Calving Safari

Welcome to Tanzania! You will be met on arrival after passing through customs and immigration at Kilimanjaro International Airport and be transferred to Arusha Coffee Lodge, about an hour away in the town of Arusha, for dinner and overnight.

This safari is all about the Great Migration; the Southern Plains of the Serengeti are where it all begins. Here is where the wildebeest would like to call home and it’s where, each year in late February or March, life begins for half a million wildebeest.

On day 2, after an early breakfast, you will be picked up by your private guide and drive across the Great Rift Valley escarpment to Lake Manyara National Park. This park has been described as one of the most beautiful places in Africa. As you progress into the park, the tall forest gives way to woodlands, then grasslands, swamps, and finally the alkaline lake itself. The bird life is prolific with over 350 species. The park is also known for its tree-climbing lions! You have a picnic lunch by the lake to maximize your game viewing time. Late this afternoon, continue to the slopes of the Ngorongoro Crater to Acacia Farm Lodge near the town of Karatu.

After breakfast on day 3, you’ll descend through the early morning mists and 2,000 feet into the crater. Ngorongoro Crater is the World’s largest intact volcanic caldera, a World Heritage Site and also one of the World’s Seven Natural Wonders. Due to its size and diversity, the crater floor is comprised of several distinct areas, ranging from forest, swamps, lakes and springs, to open grassland and some sandy dunes. It’s an awesome wildlife experience. Return to Acacia Farm Lodge for overnight.

Rise early this morning and set out with a picnic lunch through the Ngorongoro Conservation Area to your camp in the Southern Serengeti. Serengeti Safari Camp is a classic tented mobile camp, which changes location approximately every few weeks to follow the wildebeest migration around the Serengeti area. More than 20 years of studying the migration and shadowing its movements through the Serengeti have taught us that it rarely conforms to those nice little maps you so often see. The camp’s objective is always to have Serengeti Safari Camp in the best available position for the migration, it may not always be where it’s “supposed” to be.

Today you head to a little-used part of the Southern Serengeti for your last three days on safari. Perfectly set in the remote southern part of the Serengeti, Kusini Camp’s location was specially selected after much research by our guides and the local experts. It overlooks the plains where game are a common sight all year round. Built around a spectacular rocky outcrop and on the path of the wildebeest migration, the camp is ideal for seeing cheetah and wildebeest that congregate on the grassy plains in the calving season from mid-December to March.

Sadly on day 9 it’s time to depart. Bid farewell to the Serengeti after breakfast and enjoy your last game drive en route to the airstrip. You will fly back to Arusha, where you will be picked up and transferred back to Arusha Coffee Lodge, where there is a dayroom reserved for you. Have lunch and relax, maybe do a little shopping and repack before it’s time to return to the Kilimanjaro Airport to meet your departing flights for home.