Tanzania · Tarangire and Manyara

Tarangire and the Baobab Country

Duration: 6 Days
From: $4,900per person

Six days with the elephant, in the corner of the circuit everyone drives past.

Tarangire is ninety minutes from Arusha and most itineraries give it a single night on the way to somewhere better known. That is a mistake in the dry season. From July the whole ecosystem — some 3,000 elephant among them — is pulled onto one river, and the concentration along those banks between August and October is the densest in northern Tanzania and among the densest anywhere on the continent.

We give it three nights, add two on the Manyara escarpment, and keep the driving down to under six hours across the entire week. It is the shortest and least expensive way to do the northern circuit properly, and it works for a first safari, a short window, or children old enough to sit still for a morning.

Route: Arusha · Tarangire · Silale Swamp · Lake Manyara · Arusha
Best Months: July to October, when the elephant are on the river
Group Size: Six guests maximum, private departure
Getting There: Fly into and out of Kilimanjaro (JRO) — no internal flights
Pace: Gentle — under six hours of driving all week, two beds in six nights

Where the six days go

No internal flights, no long transfers, and only one change of camp in the whole week.

Day 1
Arusha
Arrival, briefing
Day 2—3
Tarangire
River and baobabs
Day 4
Silale Swamp
Southern Tarangire
Day 5
Lake Manyara
Forest and escarpment
Day 6
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 and drive forty minutes into the coffee farms outside town. Sleep off the flight, and at six your guide walks the six days over a map on the table. The vehicle is parked outside for you to claim your seat, and on a clear evening Meru stands over the whole valley behind it.

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

Into Tarangire

Out by seven with breakfast in a box, and through the gate before the day-trip vehicles from Arusha have finished their coffee. The road follows the river, and in the dry months you do not have to look for elephant — they are standing in it, digging for water in the sand with their front feet. The baobabs along the ridge are the oldest living things you will see all week; the largest of them predate the Maasai arriving in this valley.

Meals: All meals
On the road: 2 hours
Elevation: 1,100 m
Highlight: Elephant digging for water in the river sand

Where you sleep

Adventure
Tarangire Ndovu Camp
Six tents on a bend of the river, unfenced, generator off at ten.
Comfort
Chem Chem Lodge
Private concession on the Manyara flats, plunge pool at every room.

Day03

A full day on the river

Nothing scheduled and nowhere to be. Two long drives with a picnic under a baobab between them, and time to sit at one waterhole long enough to watch the order in which things come to drink — which is the part of a safari nobody sells you and everybody remembers. Tarangire holds the lion prides that specialise in buffalo, and in the late afternoon the ridge road gives you the whole valley at once.

Meals: All meals
On the road: In the field
Elevation: 1,100 m
Highlight: A long sit at one waterhole, watching the order of things

Where you sleep

Adventure
Tarangire Ndovu Camp
A second night in the same bed — no packing on a river day.
Comfort
Chem Chem Lodge
A second night, and the plunge pool in the heat of the afternoon.

Day04

South to the Silale Swamp

Two hours further south into a part of the park that the day traffic never reaches. Silale is a black-cotton swamp that stays green when everything around it has gone the colour of straw, which makes it the last water in the ecosystem and the reason the big herds hold here into October. Lion lie up on the termite mounds around the edge because the sightlines are better from three feet up.

Meals: All meals
On the road: 2 hours
Elevation: 1,050 m
Highlight: Lion on the termite mounds at the swamp edge

Where you sleep

Adventure
Tarangire Ndovu Camp
A third night — this camp is the base for the whole park.
Comfort
Chem Chem Lodge
A third night, and dinner outside under the fig.

Day05

Lake Manyara National Park

An hour and a half 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 shore. Baboon troops of over a hundred, several hundred hippo in the shallows, and flamingo out on the water in numbers that depend entirely on how much rain fell inland.

Meals: All meals
On the road: 1 hour 30
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.

Day06

Back to Arusha, and home

A last hour on the lake shore before the gate, then two and a half hours east with the escarpment behind you. There is time for the Cultural Heritage workshops on the edge of Arusha if you want to be out of the car, and day rooms and a shower are held for you before the evening flights. Your guide waits with you until you are checked in.

Meals: Breakfast
On the road: 2 hours 30
Elevation: 1,400 m
Highlight: A last hour on the lake shore

What's in, and what isn't

Park fees are the single largest line in a Tanzanian safari and they are already inside your price. Nothing on the included list is charged again in country.

Included

All park and conservation-area fees for six days
Five nights' accommodation at your chosen tier, all meals from dinner on Day 1
Private 4×4 Land Cruiser with a roof hatch, a fridge and a window seat each
One guide for the whole six days — never a different driver each morning
Airport transfers at both ends, and day rooms in Arusha before your flight out
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
Night drive in the Tarangire buffer zone, $140 per person
Premium spirits, champagne and spa treatments
Gratuities for your guide and camp 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
	Green seasonNovember—May		Dry seasonJune—October
Travelling alone	7,400	9,200	9,300	11,600
Two guests	5,600	7,000	7,100	8,800
Four guests	5,100	6,300	6,400	7,900
Six guests	4,900	6,050	6,100	7,550

Rates hold for travel through 31 December 2027. Single supplement of $540 applies to the Comfort tier only.

A 20% deposit holds your dates and camps. 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 these two parks reliably hold in the dry months.

African elephant
Loxodonta africana
Around 3,000 in the ecosystem, and from August most of them are within sight of one river. Herds of three hundred are ordinary here.
African lion
Panthera leo
Tarangire's prides hunt buffalo, which is unusual and dangerous work, and they lie up on the termite mounds around Silale.
Fringe-eared oryx
Oryx beisa callotis
A dry-country antelope you will not find in the Serengeti at all. Tarangire is the northern circuit stronghold.
Lesser kudu
Tragelaphus imberbis
Shy, striped and easy to miss in the acacia scrub. Early mornings on the ridge road are when they show.
Lesser flamingo
Phoeniconaias minor
Manyara can hold tens of thousands on the shallows, though numbers swing hard with the rain inland.
Olive baboon
Papio anubis
Manyara's forest troops run to over a hundred animals and have been studied continuously since the 1960s.
Yellow-collared lovebird
Agapornis personatus
Endemic to this corner of Tanzania and nowhere else on earth. They come to the Tarangire waterholes in noisy flocks.
African wild dog
Lycaon pictus
A long shot and worth saying so — a handful of packs range through southern Tarangire and are seen a few times a season.

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 3Walking safari with an armed rangerThree hours, early$180
Day 2Night drive in the Tarangire buffer zoneTwo hours, after dark$140
Day 4An afternoon in a Maasai boma, by invitationTwo hours$95
Day 5Canoeing the Manyara shallows, water dependingTwo hours$110
Day 6+Four nights on Zanzibar, north coastExtends the trip$1,850

Tell us your week, and we will tell you whether the elephant will be on the river.

Send us your dates and we will come back inside a day with how the season is running, the camps still open, and a price for your exact party. No deposit, no obligation, and a person on the other end.