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Places of Africa Safaris

A Maasai homestead
Northern Circuit · Six Days

Manyara, Lake Eyasi and the Crater

A full day in the groundwater forest, a dawn with the Hadzabe on their terms, and the crater at the end — six days that leave the Serengeti out so that nothing else is rushed.
6
Days
5
Nights
2
Parks
1
Cultural night
I · Overview

The route, and why this shape

Two parks and a night at Lake Eyasi, in a loop west of Arusha. No Serengeti, on purpose.
This is a short loop west of Arusha that does two parks properly and puts a night at Lake Eyasi between them. It leaves the Serengeti out. Six days cannot reach Seronera and come back without spending two of them on the road, and the thing this trip is built around — a dawn with the Hadzabe — does not survive being squeezed into a day trip from Karatu.
Lake Manyara gets a full day and a night, which almost no itinerary gives it. Most vehicles are through the park in ninety minutes on the way to the crater; you get the afternoon on the quiet southern circuit and the option of a night drive, which the park permits and the Serengeti and crater do not. Then down off the plateau to Eyasi, hot and dry and a thousand metres lower, for an afternoon at a Datoga forge and a morning walking with Hadzabe hunters at the hour they actually hunt.
The crater comes last, from the rim, on the fifth morning. The honest trade is that you will not see the plains or the migration. What you will see is a forest, a soda lake, a caldera with rhino on the floor, and two peoples whose visits are arranged with them rather than sold about them, with the fees paid to the community in front of you.
Length
6 days / 5 nights
Country
Tanzania
Start / end
Arusha → Arusha
Tour type
Private safari, wildlife and culture
Group size
Private — 1 to 6 guests per vehicle
Meal plan
Full board on safari
Best months
June – October
Activity level
Easy to moderate — one early walking morning
Vehicle
Toyota Land Cruiser 4×4 with a pop-up roof, a window seat for every guest, charging points and a cool box
II · The days

Day by day, all six

Every day opens. A full day at Manyara, a dawn at Eyasi, the crater from the rim. See every lodge and camp we use
Day
01
A Maasai homestead
Arrival

Landing, and a night in Arusha

03°22′S 36°41′E
Dinner
A Maasai homestead
Landing, and a night in Arusha
03°22′S 36°41′E
You land at Kilimanjaro International, fifty kilometres east of Arusha, and your guide meets you at the door. The drive in takes about an hour, through coffee shambas and the lower slopes of Mount Meru, and if it is late afternoon you will see Kilimanjaro behind you on the right for the first twenty minutes, weather allowing.
Nothing is scheduled tonight. Arusha sits at 1,400 metres, which is enough to make the first evening feel longer than it is, and the trip ahead has two early starts that matter — the Manyara dawn and the Hadzabe morning — so this is the night to catch up on the aircraft. Eat early and repack into a soft bag; hard cases do not fit under the bench seats of the vehicle.
One piece of admin is worth doing tonight rather than on the road. The community payments at Lake Eyasi are made in cash, directly, on the day, and your guide will tell you the exact amounts so that you can change money now. It removes the one awkward conversation of the week before it happens.
Meals
Dinner
Travel
JRO to Arusha · 50 km, about 1 hour
Highlight
Nothing scheduled, on purpose
Meet at Kilimanjaro International
Arusha at 1,400 m
No game drive today
Where you sleep
Kahawa House: Two-storey main building with terrace and swimming pool in the gardens
COMFORT

Kahawa House

★★★★☆
Arusha, garden lodge on the edge of town
Quiet, en-suite, bed and breakfast, and ten minutes from the road west so that day 2 does not start with traffic.
Legendary Lodge: Bedroom with wooden four-poster bed and white sheer curtains, hardwood floors
LUXURY

Legendary Lodge

★★★★★
Arusha, coffee-estate lodge
Rooms set among old coffee, a proper dinner, and a garden to sit in with the first cold drink of the trip.
Flamingos in the shallows below an acacia by a lake
Groundwater forest, hippo pool, and the lake
03°23′S 35°49′E
West out of Arusha on tarmac, two hours or so to the gate at Mto wa Mbu, and into the park under closed canopy. Lake Manyara is a narrow strip pressed between the Rift wall and a soda lake, and its northern end is groundwater forest fed by springs at the foot of the escarpment — fig, mahogany and wild date palm, blue monkeys in the canopy and some of the largest baboon troops in Africa on the track.
The forest opens onto floodplain and then the lake. The hippo pool at the Simba River mouth is reliable. Flamingo are not — their numbers swing with the water level, so some months there is a pink line across the shallows and some months there is nothing, and we will not tell you which until nearer the time. The tree-climbing lions are the park’s marketing and you may well not see them. Elephant, buffalo and giraffe you will.
Most vehicles are through this park before lunch on their way to the crater. You are not, and that is the reason for the night here: the afternoon on the southern hot-springs circuit is quiet, and Manyara is one of the few parks where a night drive is permitted. Genet, civet, porcupine and the lions when they are actually moving. It is an optional extra, and it is worth it.
Meals
Breakfast · Lunch · Dinner
Travel
Arusha to Manyara gate · about 120 km, then a full day in the park
Highlight
A full day in a park most itineraries give ninety minutes
Groundwater forest
Night drive permitted
Flamingo not promised
Where you sleep
Kirurumu Manyara Lodge: View from inside a tent across its veranda to the Rift Valley escarpment and Lake Manyara plains
COMFORT

Kirurumu Manyara Lodge

★★★★☆
Lake Manyara, on the escarpment above the park
Tented, en-suite, full board, with the lake below the terrace. Close enough to the gate for the night drive to end in bed rather than on a road.
&Beyond Lake Manyara Tree Lodge: Stilted treehouse guest suite
LUXURY

&Beyond Lake Manyara Tree Lodge

★★★★★
Lake Manyara, inside the park boundary
Rooms in the forest itself, so the baboons are outside the window at first light and the drive to the hippo pool is ten minutes.
A Maasai homestead
Down off the plateau to Lake Eyasi
03°32′S 35°24′E
Up the Rift wall after breakfast — the switchbacks with the lake behind you, and a viewpoint at the top that everyone stops at — through Karatu at 1,900 metres, and then off the tarmac and down the other side. Lake Eyasi sits in a hot, dry basin at the southern foot of the Ngorongoro highlands, about a thousand metres lower than Karatu, and the last stretch is gravel and dust. It feels a long way from the crater, and it is meant to.
The afternoon is with a Datoga family. The Datoga are pastoralists and smiths, and the forge is the thing to see: scrap metal — old nails, bits of vehicle — melted in a charcoal pit fed by hand-pumped bellows and beaten into arrowheads, knives, spear points and the brass bangles the women wear. The arrowheads go to the Hadzabe, who have traded with the Datoga for them for generations. You will see that trade tomorrow morning from the other side.
This is not a performance and it is not free. The visit is arranged with the family, at their convenience, and the fee goes to them directly rather than through an intermediary — the amount is stated up front, and it is not included in the safari rate because it belongs to the community, not to us. Ask before you photograph anyone. If someone says no, that is the end of it.
Meals
Breakfast · Lunch · Dinner
Travel
Karatu to Lake Eyasi · about 60 km, 1½ hours on gravel · tarmac to Karatu, then gravel
Highlight
An afternoon at a Datoga forge
Datoga smiths
Fee paid to the family
Ask before photographing
Where you sleep
Kisima Ngeda Camp, Tanzania
COMFORT

Kisima Ngeda Camp

★★★★☆
Lake Eyasi, near the Mang’ola settlements
Simple bandas or tents under fig and palm at the lake edge. Hot down here; the rooms are built for shade rather than views.
Lake Eyasi Safari Lodge: The lodge
LUXURY

Lake Eyasi Safari Lodge

★★★★★
Lake Eyasi, on the slope above the lake
The only step up available in this basin: larger rooms, a pool, and a terrace looking west over the soda flats at sunset.
Flamingos in the shallows below an acacia by a lake
A dawn with the Hadzabe, then up to the crater rim
03°14′S 35°29′E
You are up before light. The Hadzabe hunt at dawn, and the whole point of sleeping at Eyasi rather than driving down from Karatu is that you can be at the camp when they leave rather than two hours after. There are only around a thousand Hadzabe, they speak a click language related to nothing else in Tanzania, and they are among the last people in Africa living by hunting and gathering rather than farming or herding.
What happens is up to them. Usually the men go out with bows and the Datoga-made arrows you saw yesterday, and you follow at their pace, which is fast; usually something is shot — birds, a hyrax, a dik-dik — and cooked on a fire on the spot. Some mornings nothing is. The women dig tubers and collect baobab fruit and honey when it is in season. A local interpreter walks with you, because your guide does not speak Hadzane and neither do you.
The fee for the morning is set with the community and paid to them in cash, on the day, in front of you. Photographs are with consent, and consent is asked, not assumed. Then up out of the basin and climbing all afternoon to the Ngorongoro rim at 2,300 metres, a different climate: a fleece for the evening and the crater floor below the terrace under cloud.
Meals
Breakfast · Lunch · Dinner
Travel
Lake Eyasi to the Ngorongoro rim · about 100 km, 2½–3 hours · Eyasi to the Ngorongoro rim, 2,300 m
Highlight
The morning the trip is built around
Hadzabe at first light
Community fee paid on the day
Crater rim by evening
Where you sleep
Pakulala Safari Camp: Tent interior with two queen beds, patterned throws and bedside lanterns
COMFORT

Pakulala Safari Camp

★★★★☆
Ngorongoro Conservation Area, on the rim
On the rim, which puts you at the descent gate at six rather than an hour behind the vehicles that slept in Karatu. Cold at night; blankets are supplied.
Entamanu Ngorongoro: Main lounge: guests by the fireplace
LUXURY

Entamanu Ngorongoro

★★★★★
Ngorongoro Conservation Area, on the rim
Rim-facing rooms with the caldera in the window, fires lit in the evening, and hot-water bottles in the beds.
A black rhino with buffalo on green grass
Down into the crater, then Karatu
03°10′S 35°35′E
Down at first light. The descent road drops six hundred metres in a few kilometres and you are on the floor before the cloud has lifted, which is the point — the first hour after it clears is the best viewing of the day, and by ten there will be a great many vehicles down there with you. The crater is a collapsed caldera about nineteen kilometres across, and because the walls are steep most of the animals inside it never leave.
That is why it holds the density it does, roughly twenty-five thousand large animals on 260 square kilometres, and why it is the most reliable place in Tanzania to see black rhino. There are only a few dozen and they are usually distant, so bring binoculars and manage the expectation. Lion here barely look up at a vehicle.
Vehicles must be off the floor within six hours, so lunch is at the Ngoitokitok hippo pool and you climb the ascent road in the early afternoon. Then down the highlands road to Karatu, forty minutes away at 1,900 metres among the coffee farms. The night in Karatu is what makes tomorrow a morning rather than a race to the airport; if your flight is late evening and you would rather drive straight through, say so and we will re-shape day 6.
Meals
Breakfast · Lunch · Dinner
Travel
600 m descent · half day on the floor · Karatu by late afternoon
Highlight
Black rhino on the Lerai flats, if the morning is kind
Black rhino
Six-hour limit on the floor
Karatu overnight
Where you sleep
Tloma Lodge: Swimming pool with umbrellas and loungers, lodge buildings and coffee farm behind
COMFORT

Tloma Lodge

★★★★☆
Karatu, coffee-farm lodge
Cottages among the coffee, a garden, hot showers and a fire in the evening. A gentler last night than the rim.
Gibb's Farm: Farm cottage bedroom with twin beds, stone wall, eucalyptus floors and hand-crafted furniture
LUXURY

Gibb's Farm

★★★★★
Karatu, highlands estate
Larger rooms with verandas over the farm, a pool for the afternoon, and a dining room rather than a mess tent.
Dhows moored off a white-sand beach on Zanzibar
Karatu to Arusha, and out
03°22′S 36°41′E
No early start today. Breakfast at a normal hour on the farm, then the road back down the Rift wall — Manyara below you on the right this time — across the floor and east to Arusha. It is about four hours to Kilimanjaro International with a stop, on tarmac the whole way.
If you have time in Arusha there is a coffee-farm tour or the Cultural Heritage Centre on the western edge of town, which is a large curio hall and gallery and a fair place to spend the last of the dollars you changed on day 1. Or there is lunch, and nothing.
We drop you at Kilimanjaro International or at a hotel in Arusha if you are staying on. Flights to Zanzibar leave from both Arusha airport and JRO and take under two hours, if the beach is next.
Meals
Breakfast
Travel
Karatu to JRO · about 190 km, roughly 4 hours
Highlight
A slow breakfast, then the road east
No early start
Rift wall viewpoint
Onward to Zanzibar possible
Where you sleep
Departure day — no overnight
III · Rates

What it costs, by group size

A safari gets cheaper per person as the vehicle fills. Choose a tier to see the table.
Comfort rates by group size, per person and group total
Group sizeRoomsPer personGroup total
1 guest1 room$4,980$4,980
2 guests1 room$3,340$6,680
3 guests2 rooms$3,250$9,750
4 guests2 rooms$2,860$11,440
5 guests3 rooms$2,900$14,500
6+ guests3 rooms$2,700$16,200
Single supplement
$690
Added when a guest does not share a room
Child, 3 – 11 years
30% off
Sharing with two adults
Peak season uplift
Included in the rates above
July – October, and the festive weeks
All figures in US dollars, per person sharing unless stated. Valid for travel until 30 June 2027. Park fees, guiding, vehicle, accommodation and full board are included — see what is and is not covered below.
IV · Included

What is in the price, and what is not

Stated in full, both ways.

What is included

What is not

V · Add-ons

Worth adding, if you have the days

Priced separately and arranged on request. The Manyara night drive is the one most guests add.
A safari tent at night
Day 2 · after dark

Night drive at Lake Manyara

Manyara is one of a handful of Tanzanian parks licensed for night drives. Open vehicle, filtered spotlight, a ranger on board. Genet, civet, porcupine, and lion on the move rather than asleep. Permit fee is charged by the park on top of the daily fee.
USD 180 per person
A guest scanning the plains with binoculars from a safari vehicle
Between days 3 and 4

A second night at Lake Eyasi

A second morning makes the first one less of a single throw of the dice: if the hunt is short or the weather is wrong on day 4 you have another. It also gives the afternoon to the lake itself and the Mang’ola onion farms.
USD 1,000 per person, for 2 guests
An elephant beside a baobab in Tarangire
Adds 2 nights · 8 days total

Tarangire, before Manyara

The natural extension. Tarangire is on the same road, its dry-season elephant concentration is the densest in the north, and two nights there turn this into a three-park loop without adding a long transfer.
USD 1,820 per person, for 2 guests
Dhows moored off a white-sand beach on Zanzibar
After day 6 · 3–5 nights

Zanzibar, afterwards

Flights leave Arusha and Kilimanjaro daily and take under two hours. Three nights on the east coast or in Stone Town, added to the end rather than squeezed into the middle.
From USD 1,340 per person, 3 nights
VI · The ground

Where this itinerary takes you

Two parks and one lake basin outside any park, on the floor and rim of the Great Rift Valley.
Flamingos in the shallows below an acacia by a lake

Lake Manyara National Park

A narrow park between the Rift wall and a shallow soda lake, most of it water. The northern end is groundwater forest fed by springs at the foot of the escarpment; the southern end is hot springs and floodplain. Night drives are permitted, which sets it apart from the crater and the Serengeti.
A Maasai homestead

Lake Eyasi

A seasonal soda lake in a hot basin south-west of the Ngorongoro highlands, outside any park. Home to the Hadzabe, one of the last hunter-gatherer peoples in Africa, and the Datoga, pastoralists and smiths who have traded arrowheads with them for generations. Visits are arranged with both communities on their terms.
Wildebeest in the Ngorongoro Crater

Ngorongoro Crater

The largest intact volcanic caldera in the world and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Around 25,000 large animals on 260 square kilometres of crater floor, including the most reliable black rhino in Tanzania. Six hours on the floor by regulation.
The question everyone asks

Is the Hadzabe visit staged?

~1,000
Hadzabe still living by hunting and gathering, near Lake Eyasi
It is the question people are right to ask, because plenty of versions of it are. A group in costume at a roadside camp, a hunt that happens at ten in the morning for the vehicle’s convenience, a fee that goes to a middleman in Karatu. We do not do that version, and the shape of this itinerary is the proof: you sleep at Eyasi so that you can be with the hunters at the hour they actually go out, not the hour that suits a day trip.
What we can promise is the arrangement — the visit is agreed with the community, the fee is disclosed before you go and paid to them directly in front of you, a Hadzabe interpreter walks with you, and photographs are taken with consent or not at all. What we cannot promise is what happens. Some mornings the hunt is long and something is taken; some mornings it is short and nothing is. That is the difference between a visit and a show, and it is the version worth paying for.
VII · Season

The best time to travel

Including the months we will tell you to avoid.
June to October is the dry season and the right time for this route. Game at Manyara concentrates at the springs and the lake edge, the crater floor is firm and clear, and the Eyasi basin is dry underfoot for the walking morning. It is also the busiest window on the crater road, which is why this itinerary descends at first light from the rim rather than mid-morning from Karatu.
January to March also works. It is hot at Eyasi — the basin is low and there is little shade — but the Hadzabe hunt regardless, the highlands are green, and there are fewer vehicles on the crater floor than in August. Flamingo at Manyara are more likely after rain, though never promised.
November brings the short rains, usually brief afternoon storms. The gravel road down to Eyasi can be slow after a storm and the walking morning may be muddy, but the trip runs, rates are lower, and the light is good.
April and May are the long rains and we will say plainly that the Eyasi leg does not work well then: the road down is at its worst, the basin floods in places and the hunting morning is often called off. If those are the only weeks you have, we would rather build you a Manyara-and-crater trip without Eyasi than sell you this one.
VIII · Flights

Getting there and back

Fly into Kilimanjaro International. Day 6 needs an afternoon or evening departure.
Fly into Kilimanjaro International (JRO). It is about an hour from Arusha and it is the airport this itinerary is built around. Nairobi and Dar es Salaam both work but both add a day.
Day 1 assumes an afternoon or evening arrival, which is when most long-haul routings via Doha, Istanbul, Amsterdam or Addis land. If you arrive in the morning there is time for lunch in Arusha and nothing else needs to change.
Coming home, day 6 is a four-hour drive from Karatu to JRO with no game drive in it, so an afternoon or evening departure works comfortably. A morning flight does not; tell us and we will move the last night to Arusha instead.
Tanzania requires a visa for most passports — USD 50, or USD 100 for United States citizens, valid up to 90 days. Apply online in advance rather than on arrival.
IX · Other costs

What else you will spend

Visas, insurance, community fees, tips and drinks — set out so there is no surprise on the ground.
Tanzania issues a tourist visa online (eVisa) or on arrival at Kilimanjaro. Applying in advance is faster and avoids the queue at immigration, which after an evening arrival can be long.
A yellow fever certificate is required only if you are arriving from a country where yellow fever is endemic. Coming directly from Europe or North America, it is not.
We ask every guest to travel insured. Medical cover and evacuation are the parts that matter — Lake Eyasi is two hours on gravel from the nearest town with a clinic.
Check that your policy covers walking activity, since the Hadzabe morning is on foot, and any night drive you add.
The Datoga and Hadzabe visits carry a fee that goes to the families and the community directly, not to us. It is not in the safari rate because it is not ours to charge. We tell you the amount before you travel and your guide confirms it the night before, and you hand it over yourself.
Bring it in small US dollar notes or Tanzanian shillings; there is no cash machine at Eyasi.
Tipping is customary in Tanzania and it is genuinely optional. The figures below are what guests commonly give, not what is expected of you, and no one will treat you differently for giving less.
Guide tips are usually handled at the end of the trip; lodge staff tips go into a shared box at reception. The Eyasi interpreter is usually tipped separately on the morning.
Drinking water in the vehicle is included throughout. Everything at the lodge bar is charged to your room. Cash in small US dollar notes is more useful than a card once you leave Arusha; notes dated before 2009 are refused across Tanzania.
X · Why us

Why book this with us

01

Arusha-based, and Tanzanian-owned

We are not a booking agent forwarding you to an operator. The vehicles, the guides and the office are ours, in Arusha, which is why the Eyasi arrangements are made by people who go there.
02

A night at Eyasi, not a day trip

The Hadzabe hunt at dawn. A vehicle leaving Karatu at seven arrives when it is over. Sleeping in the basin is the only way to be there for the real thing, and it is the reason this is six days rather than five.
03

Fees to the community, in front of you

The visits are agreed with the families, the fee is disclosed before you travel, and you pay it to them yourself. Nothing passes through an intermediary and nothing is staged for the vehicle.
04

We will tell you not to come in April

The road down to Eyasi is at its worst in the long rains and the hunting morning is often called off. We would rather move your dates or drop the leg than take money for it.
XI · Questions

Frequently asked

What guests ask before booking this itinerary.
The rate depends on your group size and which accommodation tier you choose, and it moves with the season. The table above sets out the per-person price for every group size from one to six. Our rates for this itinerary are set out in the table above — ask us and we will quote for your exact dates. The Lake Eyasi community fees are on top and are paid by you directly; the amount is about USD 25 – 60 per person.
It is arranged with the community, at the hour they hunt, with the fee disclosed in advance and paid to them directly, an interpreter from the community walking with you, and photographs only with consent. That is the standard we hold every cultural visit to, and it is set out on our cultural activities page. We also recommend reading a morning with the Hadzabe before you decide.
Because six days cannot reach Seronera and come back without spending two of them driving, and because the Eyasi night would be the first thing cut to make room. If you have eight or more days, we would add Tarangire before Manyara rather than the Serengeti; if you want the plains, that is a different trip and we will build it.
We cannot promise it. Flamingo numbers at Manyara swing with the water level, and some months there are thousands and some months none. The groundwater forest, the hippo pool, elephant, buffalo and the baboon troops are reliable; the birds and the tree-climbing lions are not. See our Lake Manyara page.
Manyara is one of a handful of parks in Tanzania licensed for night drives; the Serengeti and the crater are not. You go out after dark in an open vehicle with a filtered spotlight and a ranger, for two to three hours. It is the only way on this route to see the nocturnal animals and lion actually moving. The park charges a permit fee on top of the daily fee — about USD 59 per person — and the usual minimum age is 16.
You walk with the hunters for two to three hours over rough, thorny ground, and they move quickly. Anyone comfortable walking that long in heat will manage; closed shoes, long trousers and water are essential. If walking is difficult, tell us, and we will arrange a shorter visit at the camp instead.
It is a private safari, so it can be. The Eyasi morning is long and on foot, and the night drive at Manyara is normally 16 and over. Children of around ten and up tend to get a great deal out of the Hadzabe and Datoga days; younger ones find the walking hard. Tell us the ages and we will say plainly. Child rates are 30% below the adult rate for children sharing with two adults.
June to October. Dry ground at Eyasi for the walking morning, concentrated game at Manyara and a firm crater floor. January to March also works and is quieter, though hot in the basin. We do not recommend April or May for the Eyasi leg.
Yes. This is a private safari and the route is a starting point. Adding a second night at Eyasi, putting Tarangire in front, or dropping the Karatu night to drive straight to the airport on day 5 are all normal requests. Our Ngorongoro page has more on how the crater day works.
XII · Your trip

Request your personalised safari proposal

Tell us how you like to travel and we will put together a personalised proposal for this route — dates, camps and a firm price per person. No payment is required at this stage.

No payment is required at this stage. We reply by email and WhatsApp within one working day.

Manyara, Lake Eyasi and the Crater

6
Days
5
Nights
2
Parks
1
Cultural night
Starts
Arusha, Tanzania
Ends
Arusha, Tanzania
Departures
Daily — a private safari on the dates you choose
Availability
Open all year, subject to lodge space
From
from$2,700/pp
Per person, sharing
Private safari · no booking fee · we reply within one working day
from $2,700 / person
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