Tanzania · Crater Highlands

Ngorongoro Crater and the Rift

Duration: 7 Days
From: $5,900per person

Seven days on the wall of the Rift, and two mornings on the crater floor.

Most crater itineraries give you one descent and move on. This one gives you two, on separate mornings, because the floor at six is a different place from the floor at ten and one visit only ever shows you half of it. Around those two mornings we build the rest of the highlands: the groundwater forest at Manyara, the crater lake at Empakaai, and the ridge country the Maasai still graze between them.

It is the shortest of our mainland trips and the least driving, which makes it the one we suggest to families, to travellers with a week rather than a fortnight, and to anyone who would rather see three places properly than seven in passing.

Route: Arusha · Lake Manyara · Karatu · Ngorongoro · Empakaai · Arusha
Best Months: June to October for dry roads · November to May for green highlands and birds
Group Size: Six guests maximum, private departure
Getting There: Fly into and out of Kilimanjaro (JRO) — no internal flights
Pace: Gentle — short drives, two nights in every bed, one optional walk

Where the seven days go

No internal flights and no long transfers — around eight hours of driving across the whole week.

Day 1
Arusha
Arrival, briefing
Day 2
Lake Manyara
Forest and lake shore
Day 3—4
Ngorongoro
Two mornings on the floor
Day 5
Empakaai
Crater lake, on foot
Day 6
Karatu
Highlands and farms
Day 7
Arusha
Drive out, fly home

Day by day

Every night is offered at two levels. Adventure is comfortable, mobile and close to the ground; Comfort is a permanent lodge with a pool and a wine list.

Day01

Arrival into Arusha

We meet you at the aircraft door at Kilimanjaro International — no transfer desk, no waiting — and it is forty minutes into the coffee farms outside town. The afternoon is yours. At six your guide walks the seven days over a map on the table, and the vehicle you will live in for the week is parked outside for you to claim your seat.

Meals: Dinner
On the road: 40 minutes
Elevation: 1,400 m
Highlight: Route briefing with your guide

Where you sleep

Adventure
Kigongoni Camp
Canvas rooms in the coffee, half a mile of birdsong from the road.
Comfort
Onsea House
A hillside guesthouse with the best kitchen in Arusha, and a view of Meru.

Day02

Lake Manyara National Park

Two hours west and the Rift wall arrives all at once — 600 metres of escarpment with a soda lake at the foot of it. The park is narrow and layered: groundwater forest fed by springs at the top, then acacia, then the open lake shore. The forest troop of baboons here is one of the largest studied anywhere, and the shallows hold pelican, flamingo and several hundred hippo.

Meals: All meals
On the road: 2 hours
Elevation: 960 m
Highlight: Flamingo on the shallows under the escarpment

Where you sleep

Adventure
Manyara Under Canvas
Eight tents on the escarpment lip, the lake 600 metres below.
Comfort
Lake Manyara Tree Lodge
Ten stilted rooms in the mahogany forest inside the park.

Day03

Up the Rift wall to the crater rim

A slow morning climb through Mto wa Mbu and the banana shambas, with a stop at the Maasai market if it is running that day. By early afternoon you are on the rim at 2,300 metres, high enough that you will want the fire lit and cold enough at night to need the blanket. The walk along the rim before dinner looks 600 metres straight down onto tomorrow.

Meals: All meals
On the road: 2 hours 30
Elevation: 2,300 m
Highlight: First sight of the crater floor from the rim

Where you sleep

Adventure
Rhino Lodge
Plain rooms in the forest behind the rim, elephant on the lawn at dusk.
Comfort
The Manor at Ngorongoro
A working coffee estate and manor house, forty minutes below the rim.

Day04

Two descents onto the crater floor

Down the Seneto road at six, ahead of every other vehicle in the highlands, and back down again after a long lunch on the rim. The floor is 260 square kilometres of grass, soda lake and swamp holding around 25,000 large animals inside its own walls — including the last black rhino in the region, the heaviest-maned lions in East Africa, and tuskers that never leave. Two descents in one day is the whole reason this itinerary exists.

Meals: All meals
On the road: 7 hours in park
Elevation: 1,700 m
Highlight: Black rhino on the Lerai flats

Where you sleep

Adventure
Rhino Lodge
A second night in the same bed — no packing on a crater day.
Comfort
The Manor at Ngorongoro
A second night, and a long bath afterwards.

Day05

Empakaai, on foot

Two hours north-east along the rim road into country almost nobody drives — Maasai grazing land, the Olmoti caldera, and then Empakaai, a crater with a soda lake filling half its floor. You walk down to the water with a ranger, an hour of steep forest each way, and on a clear morning Ol Doinyo Lengai stands over the far rim, the only volcano on earth that erupts cold black carbonatite lava.

Meals: All meals
On the road: 2 hours
Elevation: 2,600 m
Highlight: The walk down to the soda lake at Empakaai

Where you sleep

Adventure
Nainokanoka Fly Camp
A mobile camp on Maasai land, hot bucket showers and a fire.
Comfort
The Manor at Ngorongoro
Back to the estate for a third night, and a proper dinner.

Day06

Karatu and the highland farms

A short drive down to Karatu, the coffee and maize country between the crater and Manyara, where the Iraqw have farmed the volcanic soil for centuries. The morning is a working coffee estate from cherry to cup; the afternoon is yours, either on a mountain bike through the shambas or doing nothing at all beside a pool for the first time in a week.

Meals: All meals
On the road: 1 hour 30
Elevation: 1,500 m
Highlight: Coffee from cherry to cup, on the farm that grew it

Where you sleep

Adventure
Tloma Mountain Lodge
Cottages in a coffee plantation, log fires and a kitchen garden.
Comfort
Gibbs Farm
A 1920s coffee farm with the finest table in the northern highlands.

Day07

Back down the Rift, and home

The drive east is three and a half hours with the escarpment on your left the whole way, and there is time for the Cultural Heritage workshops on the edge of Arusha if you want a last hour out of the car. Day rooms and a shower are held for you before the evening flights out, and your guide waits with you until you are checked in.

Meals: Breakfast
On the road: 3 hours 30
Elevation: 1,400 m
Highlight: The escarpment on your left, all the way east

What's in, and what isn't

Crater and conservation-area fees are the single largest line in a highlands safari and they are already inside your price. Nothing on the included list is charged again in country.

Included

All park, crater descent and conservation-area fees for seven days
Six nights' accommodation at your chosen tier, all meals from dinner on Day 1
Two separate descents onto the crater floor, not the usual one
Private 4×4 Land Cruiser with a roof hatch, a fridge and a window seat each
One guide for the whole seven days — never a different driver each morning
Ranger fees and the guided walk down into Empakaai
Drinking water, soft drinks and house beer and wine at camp
Flying Doctors evacuation cover for the duration of the safari

Not included

International flights and Tanzanian visa
Travel and medical insurance, which we require of every guest
Premium spirits, champagne and spa treatments
Mountain bikes at Karatu, $60 per person per day
Gratuities for your guide and lodge staff

Seasonal Rates

Per person, in US dollars

Rates fall as the vehicle fills — the cost of the guide and the 4×4 is the same whether two of you travel or six.

Party size	Adventure	Comfort	Adventure	Comfort
	Low seasonApril—June · November		High seasonJuly—October · December—March
Travelling alone	8,900	11,200	11,300	14,100
Two guests	6,800	8,600	8,600	10,700
Four guests	6,100	7,700	7,700	9,600
Six guests	5,900	7,400	7,400	9,200

Rates hold for travel through 31 December 2027. Single supplement of $690 applies to the Comfort tier only.

A 20% deposit holds your dates and lodges. The balance is due 60 days before you fly, and is fully refundable until then.

What you are likely to see

Nothing here is guaranteed and we will never pretend otherwise. This is what the highlands reliably hold across a week.

Black rhino
Diceros bicornis
Perhaps thirty animals on the crater floor, guarded around the clock. Two descents doubles your chances at them.
African lion
Panthera leo
The crater prides are the most studied lions on earth and among the heaviest-maned. They are also entirely used to vehicles.
African elephant
Loxodonta africana
The crater bulls carry some of the last true big tusks in East Africa, and they live out their lives inside the walls.
Lesser flamingo
Phoeniconaias minor
Manyara, Magadi on the crater floor and the Empakaai lake all hold them, in tens of thousands after rain.
Olive baboon
Papio anubis
Manyara's forest troops run to over a hundred animals and have been studied continuously since the 1960s.
Hippopotamus
Hippopotamus amphibius
Several hundred in the Manyara shallows and a resident pod at Ngoitokitok Springs, where we stop for lunch.
Golden-winged sunbird
Drepanorhynchus reichenowi
A highland specialist you will not see down on the plains. The rim forest and Empakaai are its country.
Serval
Leptailurus serval
The crater floor grass is exactly the right height for them, and mornings are when they are up and hunting.

Things worth adding

Each of these slots into a day already on the itinerary without moving anything else. Tell us at booking, or decide over dinner the night before.

Day 5An afternoon in a Maasai boma, by invitationTwo hours$95
Day 2Night drive in the Manyara buffer zoneTwo hours, after dark$140
Day 6Mountain biking through the Karatu shambasHalf a day$60
Day 5Sunrise climb of Olmoti to the waterfallThree hours, early$130
Day 7+Four nights on Zanzibar, north coastExtends the trip$1,850

Tell us your week, and we will build the highlands around it.

Send us your dates and we will come back inside a day with the lodges still open, what the crater road is doing that month, and a price for your exact party. No deposit, no obligation, and a person on the other end.