Tanzania October 2026
This journey will take you deep into the bush lands of Northern Tanzania, with ample time to explore the famous parks that make Tanzania’s safaris so famous.
September and October are what we call the start of the dry season when all the wildlife congregates around the remaining water sources and many species are found within close proximity of each other. The Migration herds of wildebeest will be moving south, aiming to be ready for the new grasses in the western areas of the Serengeti by January.
To be in the African bush in the dry season means very close up encounters, lots of action near water sources, and easy spotting of game at quite a long distance – with less foliage and the need for water it is easier to find and watch the animals.
Price per person based on double occupancy $6,507.85 cash or check.
Please Note: All rooms are double occupancy. You may book a single but the cost is double occupancy.
Paymane Schedule 4% fee for credit cards
Tanzania/Zanzibar
$1500/500 deposit due at sign up
$1500/400 due January 15th 2026
$1500/400 due March 1st 2026
Final Payments due May1st 2026
Payments are non-refundable
Travel insurance is strongly suggested, Rooms cannot be transfered. DAN dive insurance is required if diving.
Day by Day
Day 1 Arrival into JRO, accommodation Arusha
Upon arrival at Kilimanjaro International Airport, please make your way past immigration and collect your bags. Exit and meet the safari representative. They will transfer you in your own vehicle to the lodge for the first night near Arusha. This transfer takes about 1 hour. Accommodation is at Katambuga House on the outskirts of town. The guides will answer any last questions you may have. If you need any (dive) luggage stored, he will take it off you now (dive gear, beach wear, surplus gear.) On this first day and after a long trip, we have included lunch and dinner at the Lodge. Depending on your arrival time either one is ready for you.
Katambuga House is a gorgeous place to spend the first night. With a great view of Mt Meru, set in lush gardens it has wifi, a large pool, spacious bungalow rooms and a myriad of bird species in the gardens. Dinner is served in the communal lounge around the main house where fresh local food is served with the best wine. Coffee is local and freshly ground. Enjoy a night cap on the patio by the fire and you’ll likely feel great about this adventure is about to start.
Day 2 Rest Day in Arusha (with day tours optional) A day of rest after a long flight is always good. Any missing bags can catch up with you, you can stretch the legs with a walk, a coffee plantation visit, even a local massage or curio market – or just enjoy the lodge with a book and the birds around you. You would spend a second night at the same lodge, in ensuite rooms on HB basis.
Overnight is again at Katambuga House, half board meal plan, ensuite double room
Day 3 Starting your safari, Tarangire National Park.
After your previous easy day of rest – today the adventure truly starts. Your driver- guide will collect you at Katambuga House just after breakfast. You then set off on the short drive to Tarangire National Park. To start with, this road is still mostly tarmac, but as soon as you leave Arusha town behind you will see the first glimpses of bush life, small Maasai villages and markets, and many bicycle pedal traders. This drive takes about 1.5 to 2 hours heading west. After about 2 hours, you turn into the proper bush and will enter the park. You enter the park late morning and spend the rest of the day game viewing enroute to your lodge.
Tarangire National Park is famous for its’ enormous herds of elephants, but you also have a good chance of seeing cheetah and leopard, lion and the various animals inhabiting the plains and savannah.
The name Tarangire means ‘always water’; even when it gets hotter and drier this park still has reliable watering areas which draws in the animals from surrounding parks. Huge herds of elephant live here. The Park has a high variety of landscapes within its borders and offers many photographic opportunities.
http://www.orientafricatravel.com/african-wildlife-safaris/tanzania/tarangire-national-park
Your overnight accommodation is in Burunge Tented Camp, which is located on the southern side of the park and on the edge of a soda lake (Burunge Lake). The enormous, tented rooms are spaced out to have optimal views. The views of the lake, the birdlife and the savannah beyond are a great setting for that afternoon cold drink and dinner. We suggest a total of 3 nights here (2 full days) so that you may be able to fully appreciate the dense wildlife in the park. All good safaris are based on the being in the right park and area in the right season – and in the drier times of September and October there is nowhere better then Tarangire park.
At Burunge Tented Lodge, your ‘tented rooms’ have Western style amenities but do take into account that you will have only limited hours of electricity. It gets turned off at night (midnight – 05:00AM). There is a wide variety of vegetation around the camp and it gets comfortably cool at night; hundreds of birds will be in the vicinity of your tent and private deck area, along with zebra, antelope and giraffe. In the early morning and late afternoon, it is an immense pleasure to sit on the deck and watch the shy little birds come closer, followed by the warthog aiming for the water pools. The lodge features a lovely pool to cool down, has all fresco dining and drinks and serves great food – meals are served in a communal large tented. Tents are double or twin, ensuite, and all meals are included whilst here. Game drives are either done at dawn and dusk or you can opt to stay out the whole day with a packed meal.
https://twctanzania.com/accommodation/lake-burunge-tented-lodge/
Day 4 & Day 5 Tarangire National Park
Both days are spent exploring different habitats and areas of this enormous park. You can choose locally whether you wish to stay out and come back only at dusk; or maybe you want to go out and come back for time at the Camp and a rest during the hot hours of the afternoon. This can be arranged locally with the guide.
You can count on spotting many different species in this park – many bird species, elephants and buffaloes, crocodiles in the lake, but also the ungulates like giraffe, zebra, wildebeest, gazelle, elands. There will be predators to find as well: lion and cheetah, hyena, jackal, perhaps even the leopard. Despite of being one of the best places to be during the dry times, this is one of the least visited parks at this time of year. Tarangire National Park has a multitude of landscapes to experience: riverbanks, marshlands, forest and steep cliff areas. The classic savannah shot is all around you and each area features its’ own distinct animal life.
Day 6 -Tarangire to the NgoroNgoro Crater, Farmhouse Lodge
With a slow game drive, you exit Tarangire Park today and head towards the mountain ridge that form the Rift Valley – this is the NgoroNgoro Crater and her highlands. You will pass the small town of Karatu and your lodge for tonight. You can briefly drop your bags off and freshen up, then head up the Crater Forest Road to visit the NgoroNgoro Crater this afternoon. From Karatu and your Lodge, your vehicle would climb the steep outer walls of the NgoroNgoro Crater to reach the rim. From here, the sight into the caldera (extinct crater) is fantastic! With an altitude of over 1800 metre high, it is a pleasant place to have a snack and stretch the legs. From the viewpoint, you circle the Crater halfway towards the north to reach the ‘Descend’ road. A hair -raising steep track leads down into the crater to the floor of the volcano. Here, you will spend the afternoon with game drives around the many pools, forest, smaller stands of trees and bushland. The Crater is the size of Paris, so you have more than enough to explore this afternoon. The Crater floor itself always has some water sources and a lot of the animals move up, over, or into the Crater to find water and food here.
At dusk, it is time to climb up and out of the Crater (via the ‘Ascend’ road) and head down towards the Lodge at the foot of the hills. You will see the shimmer of Lake Manyara ahead of you. The colors of the sunsets here are great.
Your lodge for the next 2 nights offers accommodation in some individual stone cottages and large rooms with log fires. The lodge is at some altitude so you will notice a chill in the evening air. The lodge is set in its own coffee plantation so a pot of fresh beans after dinner is a delight here. NgoroNgoro Farmhouse – double rooms, ensuite, all meals included.
https://twctanzania.com/ngorongoro-highlands/ngorongoro-farm-house/
Day 7 Touring Lake Eyasi and the Hadzabe tribal lands
You spend a second day in this region but we give it a different twist: you will visit the Hadzabe tribal people today, with a tour of Lake Eyasi, their ancestral lands. Meet the last hunting tribe of East Africa and explore their homelands, their hunting techniques and the stunning landscape of the Lake Eyasi and Rift Valley Escarpment.
You would be accompanied by your own safari guide, as well as a translator / elder of the Hadzabe people. Return to your Farmhouse Lodge late afternoon to fresh up, relax around the fire and get ready for the next days adventures.
Day 8 Enter the Serengeti National Park; Kati Kati Serengeti Camp (central Seronera area / Serengeti National Park).
This day is a day with even more highlights. After breakfast you once more climb up the Crater rim road and have again the chance to enjoy that view into the caldera but then – today you continue on top of the Crater rim circular road and drop down on the far side of the Crater (northerly edge). Here you find the grasslands at the northern edge of the Crater, from where you head into the endless yellow sea of the grasslands of the Serengeti. You will next find yourself on the dead straight road towards the Park gates at Naabi Hill and may see some Maasai tribal famers crossing this landscape on foot, dressed in their strikingly colorful fabrics. They do still hold on to their traditional lifestyle in this popular wildlife region – and form an intriguing contrast to the many brown and khaki shaded visitors.
Approximately halfway on this section of the trip you will pass the turn off to Olduvai Gorge. Those that remember Mr and Mrs Leaky might recognise the name: this is where the world famous remains of hominins were found in the Olduvai Gorge (homo habilis and homo sapiens, or: Lucy and her contemporaries). If you wish, you can stop off for a poke around the museum and the outdoor exhibition but this will add about 30minutes to your driving today, each way, plus a visit.
From Naabi Hills Gates you have the rest of the day to reach your Serengeti accommodation at Kati Kati Serengeti Tented Camp – in the heart of the Seronera area of the Central Serengeti. The Seronera area is truly the area which this park is named after; meaning a ‘sea of grass’ to which the Maasai word ‘Siringit’ translates. On a clear day, you can see the curvature of the earth. Along the road from the park gates toward Seronera you will start seeing giraffe, zebra, hyena, jackal, more zebra, hundreds of gazelles bounding away from the car – mixed up with birds of prey, a lion or cheetah perched on a termite hill. In this region the view is so far reaching it is easy to even spot small shy animal species in the grass. Your guide will be able to point all of these out to you while slowly moving towards the central area of Seronera (‘fresh/cool water’).
The name of this camp for tonight, ‘Kati Kati’ – roughly translates to mean ‘in the middle’. And it is exactly that! It is a ‘mobile camp’ which means that it moves with the seasonal migration and presence of the animals. This means it has the minimum of impact possible on its surroundings and is by necessity kept very simple. It needs to be packed up and moved, every 4 months. It is gorgeously located in the middle of the enormous expanse of the central grasslands.
It is a wild place and this small camp blends in amazingly well with its surroundings. Being a mobile camp, it would not have much in the way of permanent infrastructure built up around it, and so it is quiet and lets animals come close without noise or lights to disturb them. Often, you will have a view of animals during your meals. It is a wonderful place: https://twctanzania.com/serengeti-national-park/serengeti-kati-kati-tented-camp/
Day 9 & Day10 – Two full days in the Serengeti; Kati Kati Mara Tented Camp
We have opted to make the most of your three nights (total) in the Serengeti by getting you as far north in the Park as possible. After your night in KatiKati Central Camp (see above) we drive you on a slow game tour northbound to the Kogatende area in the far north of the Serengeti.
Here, there are even fewer camps and hardly any permanent lodges. Best of all is that we expect the annual wildebeest migration to be in this area during your tour dates. It will be a real privilege to see the thousands of animals slowly plod their way south, having crossed the Mara River from Kenya into Tanzania a few weeks earlier in search of fresh grass and head for their calving region further south, due in January and February. The Mara River forms the border between Kenya and Tanzania and is the natural boundary between the Serengeti in Tanzania, and the Masai Mara on the opposite side. The animals, however, take no heed of these imaginary lines and cross to wherever they wish to be and where food is available.
Your camp for these final 2 nights has a similar name (‘Kati Kati’) but this is the KatiKati MARA Camp – it is seasonally located near the Mara river: https://twctanzania.com/serengeti-national-park/mara-kati-kati-tented-camp/
KatiKati Mara Camp is again a small, mobile camp just like the previous night in Central area of the Park. This is also an unfenced camp and the animals can freely pass by, through or into the camps grounds. Kati Kati Mara Camp aims to let you get as close to nature: the fire pit is set a little way into the bush to give you the amazing skies overhead. Dinner is served under a tree if the night is warm enough. Tea and coffee are had at dawn in the dewy grass. Every activity you do from here, is done with a focus on finding and spotting animals.
Your game drives in this area will be quiet, sightings will be very private with very few other cars, and you can spend these days to your own will. Some may wish to be out all day, some may wish to return to camp to rest in some shade with a coffee – the cars can go out independent from the other car or share the same route. Rest assured that on each evening, you can discuss with your safari guide what area to explore the next day, what timings you prefer to start, and what you might hope to see.
Around the area of the KatiKati Mara Camp location there will be a number of hill tops to reach and explore. The landscape of the north is stunning with small round hill and rocky outcrops offering perfect perching spots for cats to gaze out and spot prey. Due to the presence of the river and various water sources there will be many buffalo, zebra and giraffe. These will bring in the predators. October is the dry season, which draws the animals to be near the remaining water resources of the area. The Grass will be relatively short and so game viewing is easier then in the green season with tall grass. While near the Mara river, you will also likely still see some carcasses of the many wildebeest that did not survive the dangerous river crossing. These are silent witnesses to this annual dramatic event. http://www.orientafricatravel.com/african-wildlife-safaris/tanzania/the-serengeti-national-park
Day 11 Ending your safari, travel to Arusha / Zanzibar / fly home.
All good things must come to an end: your safari part of the tour would end at the Kogatende Airstrip in the northern corner of the park. This is about 1 hour drive from the Camp – so even on the morning of your departure you still have a dawn game drive before flying out.
The flight out of Kogatende might pass by the central Seronera area or may head to Arusha directly. You will know this probably only on the day off the flight or shortly before then. Even if so: you simply stay on the aircraft and head towards Arusha where you land.
If you fly out of JRO – we can amend this flight to continue towards JRO International Airport.
-A note about your flights out of Tanzania:
-Some clients may need a short stay in a lodge near JRO Airport if using a early dawn flioght. We can arrange transport and a night in the Airport lodge near JRO if needed.
-If anyone flies the next day, we can arrange for accommodation / a full night stay and any necessary transport in Arusha itself, and transport to JRO the next day.
-If anyone continues to another regional destination (Uganda or Victoria Falls for example) then we can do the same as above.
-We can finetune and personalise this in due time, once flights are booked.
END OF SERVICES
WHAT IS INCLUDED IN THESE PACKAGES:
2 nights Arusha Lodge, prior to safari, FB / 8 nights accommodation during safari / entry into 3 national parks /private cars /private english speaking driver-guides / all meals in national parks mainland / unlimited mileage in parks / tea, coffee, water, soda in vehicle in parks /any tribal & concession fees / day tour to Lake Eyasi and Hadzabe tribe / free storage (dive) gear in Arusha if needed / pick up at JRO airport / temporary insurance cover with Flying Doctors/ one way flight Serengeti to Arusha /
WHAT IS NOT INCLUDED IN THESE PACKAGES:
international flights / visa / vaccinations / insurance / any other or extra activities not mentioned in the above / any upgrade / alcoholic or soft drinks / other meals (lunches and dinners on Zanzibar, other meals) / personal expenses / gratuities / any other item not specifically mentioned in the above / hotel levy tax in ZNZ of 4 USD pp per night in Zanzibar
Florida Seller of Travel Ref. No. ST45472
