6 Days Budget Safari Lake Manyara, Ngorongoro & Serengeti

Day 1: Arusha

Arrive at any time. There are no planned activities until an evening welcome meeting.

Your Welcome Moment: Welcome Moment – Meet Your Safari Director and Group

Your opportunity to meet your Safari Director and fellow travellers, and learn more about your tour. Opt to join the group for a local meal afterwards. Don’t forget to see the notice in the lobby (or ask reception) for the official time and place to meet up with the group.

• Accommodation: Outpost Lodge (or similar)

Day 2: Arusha/Mto wa Mbu

Experience the Mto wa Mbu village with a guided cultural walk and traditional lunch with a local family. Take a wildlife safari drive in Lake Manyara NP.

Travel to Mto wa Mbu village and take part in a cultural walk to learn about village life in the area. Meet the women who run the village tours and enjoy a delicious home made traditional lunch.

Spend the afternoon viewing wildlife along the main road that winds through a lush cool forests of Lake Manyara National Park, overgrown with ficus trees and covered with bromeliads.

This area is truly stunning, as the western wall of the Rift Valley escarpment provides a gorgeous backdrop. Search for the phenomenal birdlife, tree-climbing lions, elephants, giraffes, and hippos.

Your Amber for Good Moment: Mto wa Mbu Village Visit and Lunch

Take part in a cultural walk to learn about life in this East African town. Mto wa Mbu has attracted some 18,000 residents from 120 different tribes. During the two-hour tour, visit the village’s local market, go right to the farmer’s fields, see how huts are constructed, and meet artisans in their shops.

Afterwards, sit down with our new friends and enjoy a traditional lunch of meat and plantains.

This western wall of the Rift (including raptors), tree-climbing lions, elephants, zebras, hippos, baboons, and buffalos. Look up and Valley escarpment is truly stunning. It provides a backdrop for your search for the park’s phenomenal bird life see some of the more than 400 species of birds, including pink flamingos, pelicans, cormorants, and storks.

Beyond wildlife, Lake Manyara NP is home to giant fig trees, acacia woodlands, mahogany trees, and grassy flood plains. The contrasts of this area are simply breathtaking; the open plains, huge escarpment, central alkaline lake, dense woodlands, and distant volcanic peaks coming together in an area best described by Ernest Hemingway as “the loveliest I have seen in Africa.”

• Accommodation: Twiga Campsite (or similar)
• Meals included: Breakfast | Lunch

Day 3: Mto wa Mbu/Serengeti National Park

Enjoy a wildlife safari drive en route to the central Serengeti.

Drive through the Ngorongoro Conservation Area and on to Serengeti National Park. En route marvel at the sheer vastness of this territory, and spot the multitude of animal and birdlife while cruising through this acacia-accented savanna.

• Accommodation: Seronera Campsite (or similar)
• Meals included: Breakfast | Lunch | Dinner

Day 4: Serengeti National Park

Rise early for a full-day wildlife safari drive in the Serengeti. Enjoy a picnic lunch in the bush and continue the search for the “big five” while taking in the vastness of the Serengeti plains.

If you have pre-booked a Serengeti Balloon Safari, your flight will be in the morning. You will miss the morning wildlife safari drive with the group, but you will have spectacular views from above. If you have not yet pre-booked, add it to your checkout page, or ask your GCO or travel agent for assistance.

This is the reason you came to Africa. Charge your camera, grab your binoculars, and set out on safari. Your eagle-eyed driver will keep an eye out for wildlife – buffaloes, elephants, lions, wildebeests, zebras, and more. Tanzania’s Serengeti tends to be less crowded than some of Kenya’s reserves, so enjoy the scenery, the vast expanse of the grasslands, the play of light and shadow, and the up-close look at wild Africa.

Optional Activities – Serengeti Balloon Safari

Spirited aloft in a hot-air balloon, view the wildlife and terrain of the Serengeti that only the birds see. Enjoy a champagne breakfast and keep that shutter-finger good and limber—you’ll be using it plenty over the course of your hour in the air.

• Accommodation: Seronera Campsite (or similar)
• Meals included: Breakfast | Lunch | Dinner

Day 5: Serengeti National Park/Ngorongoro

Take a morning wildlife safari drive as you depart the Serengeti, then continue wildlife viewing in the Ngorongoro Crater, before getting a spectacular view of the crater from your campsite on its rim.

The rich pasture and permanent water of the Crater floor supports a resident population of more than 20,000 to 25,000 large mammals.

Please note that due to the high-altitude location of our camp, temperatures can drop at night. We recommend bringing extra layers to wear during the evening and following morning.

Head down into the crater and to all the best spots to view wildlife. Spot zebras, gazelles, buffaloes and warthogs. The swamp and forest are home to hippos, rhinos, elephants, baboons and monkeys. Keep your eyes peeled and camera ready to capture a pride of lions or a lone leopard walking along the crater floor.

• Accommodation: Simba Campsite (or similar)
• Meals included: Breakfast | Lunch | Dinner

Day 6: Ngorongoro/Arusha

Visit an authentic Maasai village and the Amber Travel-supported Clean Cookstove Project, then return to Arusha where the tour ends on arrival. Onward flights can be booked from 6pm, or extend your stay in Arusha by a night, or two.

Get a better view and take better snapshots aboard this off-road ride with a pop-up top.

Your Amber Travel Good Moment: Clean Cookstove Project Visit

Visit a Maasai village in the Monduli District and witness the benefits of the Amber Travel-supported Clean Cookstove Project. In Tanzania, 95% of people rely on cooking with wood and coal. Women and girls spend hours walking to collect wood every day (making them vulnerable to assault and unable to use their time to go to school). Indoor smoke from open-fire stoves causes cancer, emphysema, pneumonia, blindness, and burns. Take a guided tour of these villages and meet the women that have been trained as stove engineers, visit bomas (traditional homes), and observe (or get your hands dirty) by helping the Stove Team build a stove in a home. See the beneficial impact of the clean-burning stoves on the health and daily lives of the Maasai villagers, especially the women.

Departure Day

Not ready to leave? Your Safari Director can help with travel arrangements to extend your adventure.