Northern Circuit · Nine Days

Nine days on safari, with the children

Tarangire, Manyara, the Serengeti and the Ngorongoro Crater for families with children of six and up — a private vehicle so the day runs to their clock, one long drive instead of three, and a morning off in the middle.

Days

Nights

Parks

Ages

I · Overview

The route, and why this shape

The classic loop, rebuilt around a family’s clock. Ages six and up.

The northern circuit is the right first safari for a family for the same reason it is the right first safari for anyone: four very different parks on one road out of Arusha, nothing backtracked, and the animals in numbers that do not need patience to find. What changes when children are in the vehicle is not the route. It is the pace, and who decides it.

So this is the classic loop rebuilt around a family’s clock. A private vehicle, which means the day ends when the children are done and not when a stranger’s does. A night in Arusha at both ends, so nobody starts jet-lagged in the dark or finishes with a four-hour drive straight to a check-in desk. Two nights in Tarangire, where the elephants are close and the drives are short. An afternoon on bikes in Karatu, because six days in a seat is too many for anyone under twelve. A rest morning in the Serengeti with a pool. Camps that have family tents and staff who like children.

We keep drives under three hours where the map allows. It does not allow it on the day west into the Serengeti, and we say so on that day and offer the flight. Ages six and up; the parks set the rule, and we apply it.

Length

9 days / 8 nights

Country

Tanzania

Start / end

Arusha → Arusha

Tour type

Private family safari

Minimum age

6 years

Group size

Private — 1 to 6 guests per vehicle

Meal plan

Full board on safari; dinner and breakfast in Arusha

Best months

June – August, and December

Activity level

Easy — vehicle-based, one bike ride or village walk

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 nine

Every day opens. A night in Arusha at each end, two in Tarangire, two at Seronera, one on the rim. See every lodge and camp we use

Day

Arrival

Land, and stop

03°22′S 36°41′E

Dinner

Land, and stop

03°22′S 36°41′E

You land at Kilimanjaro International, fifty kilometres east of Arusha, and most long-haul routings put you down in the afternoon or evening. Your guide meets you at the door. The drive into town is an hour, and for a family it is the right length: long enough for the children to see their first Maasai herdsman from the window, short enough that nobody falls asleep in the vehicle and wakes up cross.

Nothing is scheduled tonight, on purpose. Family safaris go wrong on day one more than any other day, because an operator drives straight to the first park to save a night and the children arrive in the dark, overtired, at a camp they cannot see. Arusha sits at 1,400 metres and the evening is cool. Eat early, swim if the pool is still warm, and sleep.

One piece of admin before bed: repack everyone into soft bags. Hard cases do not fit under the vehicle seats, and a child who can reach their own bag in the back is a child who is not asking you for things for the next eight days.

Meals

Dinner

Travel

JRO to Arusha · 50 km · about 1 hr

Highlight

A night in Arusha before anything is asked of anyone

Meet at Kilimanjaro International

No game drive today

Repack into soft bags

Where you sleep

COMFORT

Kahawa House

★★★★☆

Arusha, garden lodge with a pool

Family rooms or two rooms adjoining, a lawn to run on after the flight, and dinner served early enough for children.

LUXURY

Legendary Lodge

★★★★★

Arusha, coffee-estate lodge

Cottages set among coffee on the edge of town, a heated pool, and enough space that a tired family is not on show.

Day

Tarangire

South to the baobabs

03°50′S 36°00′E

Breakfast · Lunch · Dinner

South to the baobabs

03°50′S 36°00′E

A late breakfast, then south-west on the Great North Road. This is the shortest transfer on the circuit and the reason Tarangire comes first: two and a half hours, most of it tarmac, and the last stretch is already game country. Children usually see their first giraffe before the park gate, which settles the question of whether the animals are really there.

You are at camp for lunch and out again at four, when the heat has gone off the day. The afternoon drive runs the river circuit close to the gate. Tarangire holds the densest elephant population in northern Tanzania, and in the dry months the herds are on the river because nothing else is running. A first sighting here is not one elephant at a distance; it is a family of twenty crossing the track at a walk, and the guide turns the engine off so everyone can hear them.

Back before the gate closes at six. Dinner, a fire, and an early night, because tomorrow is the first full day and the best hours are the early ones.

Meals

Breakfast · Lunch · Dinner

Travel

Arusha to Tarangire gate · ~120 km · about 2½ hrs

Highlight

First giraffe from the tarmac, first elephant by tea time

Short transfer

River circuit at four

Elephants and baobabs

Where you sleep

COMFORT

Mbali Mbali Tarangire River Camp

★★★★☆

Tarangire, outside the park boundary

A tented camp that takes children: family tents with two rooms under one canvas, a pool, and dinner at an hour that suits them.

LUXURY

Lemala Mpingo Ridge Lodge

★★★★★

Tarangire, on the escarpment above the river

Larger family tents with a shared deck, a pool looking over the valley, and staff who will keep an eye on the children at the fire while you finish dinner.

Day

Tarangire

A full day on the river

03°58′S 36°02′E

Breakfast · Lunch · Dinner

A full day on the river

03°58′S 36°02′E

Out early with breakfast in a box, because the two hours after sunrise are worth the rest of the day together. Then the shape of the day is yours. That is what a private vehicle buys on a family safari: if the children are done by half past ten, you go back to camp and swim; if they are watching a lion and will not leave, you stay.

The morning is the river and the swamps to the south, where the elephants are. Dry-season Tarangire puts hundreds of them on a few kilometres of riverbed, digging in the sand for water, with the calves in the middle of the group. This is the day most children remember first when asked about the trip, and it is why Tarangire gets two nights rather than an afternoon.

The baobabs are the other lesson. The big ones on the river circuit are older than a thousand years, and the scars at elephant height are where the herds have stripped bark for moisture in bad years. Back for lunch, a rest, and a short drive at four if there is appetite for it. There is no rule that says you have to go out twice.

Meals

Breakfast · Lunch · Dinner

Travel

Full day in the park · no transfer

Highlight

The elephant day, and the first day that runs to the children’s clock

Elephant herds on the river

Back for lunch and the pool

Optional afternoon drive

Where you sleep

COMFORT

Mbali Mbali Tarangire River Camp

★★★★☆

Tarangire, outside the park boundary

Second night at the same camp. No packing, and the children already know where everything is.

LUXURY

Lemala Mpingo Ridge Lodge

★★★★★

Tarangire, on the escarpment above the river

Second night. The advantage of staying put is a slow lunch and an afternoon at the pool between drives.

Day

Transfer

Manyara forest, then up to Karatu

03°23′S 35°49′E

Breakfast · Lunch · Dinner

Manyara forest, then up to Karatu

03°23′S 35°49′E

North out of Tarangire after breakfast, ninety minutes to Lake Manyara, and into the park for a morning rather than a day. Manyara is small and completely unlike Tarangire: the road goes in under closed groundwater forest, with blue monkeys overhead and baboon troops on the track that are among the largest in Africa. Children who have already tired of looking for things in long grass like it, because the animals are close and busy. The hippo pool at the northern end is reliable. The tree-climbing lions are the park’s marketing and you probably will not see them.

Lunch, then the short climb up the Rift wall to Karatu at 1,900 metres. There is a viewpoint at the top where everyone stops. It is cooler up here, and it is the first evening on the trip when a jumper is needed.

The afternoon is deliberately not a game drive. Karatu is farming country, and a bike ride along the tracks between the fields, or a walk through a village to see how bananas and coffee are grown, is an hour on legs rather than in a seat. Bikes come in children’s sizes; the lodge arranges either, and either is included.

Meals

Breakfast · Lunch · Dinner

Travel

Tarangire to Manyara ~1½ hrs · Manyara to Karatu ~45 min

Highlight

Baboons in the forest, then an afternoon out of the vehicle

Groundwater forest and baboons

Rift wall viewpoint

Bike ride or village walk

Where you sleep

COMFORT

Tloma Lodge

★★★★☆

Karatu, farm lodge in the highlands

A working farm with family rooms, a lawn, and staff used to children asking where the milk comes from. The bike ride leaves from the gate.

LUXURY

Gibb's Farm

★★★★★

Karatu, coffee-estate lodge

Family cottages among the coffee, a pool, and a walk through the plantation that ends with the beans being roasted.

Day

Transfer

West to the Serengeti

02°26′S 34°49′E

Breakfast · Lunch · Dinner

West to the Serengeti

02°26′S 34°49′E

This is the one day on the route that cannot honestly be kept under three hours. Seronera is roughly 200 kilometres from Karatu across the Ngorongoro Conservation Area and the road is dirt for most of it: five to six hours with stops. We build the day around that rather than pretend otherwise. You leave early, the rim viewpoint is the first stop, and Olduvai Gorge is the second, where the small museum puts two-million-year-old footprints in front of a child rather than in a book.

Past Naabi Hill gate the land simply opens, and the last two hours are a game drive whether anyone calls them one. Between December and March the short-grass plains here hold the migration and its calves, and you may not reach camp on schedule, which is a good problem.

The alternative, for families who would rather not, is to fly. A light aircraft leaves from the Manyara airstrip below Karatu and is over Seronera in about an hour, with the vehicle and guide waiting at the other end. It costs more and it misses Olduvai; it also turns a long day into a short one. Tell us which you want when you book.

Meals

Breakfast · Lunch · Dinner

Travel

Karatu to Seronera by road ~5–6 hrs · or fly from Lake Manyara airstrip, about 1 hour

Highlight

Olduvai Gorge on the way, then the plains open

Longest day on the route

Olduvai Gorge

Flight option

Where you sleep

COMFORT

Kubu Kubu Tented Lodge

★★★★☆

Central Serengeti, Seronera valley

A tented camp inside the park that takes families: two-room tents, a pool, and a guide who does the evening’s animal count with the children.

LUXURY

Lemala Ewanjan Tented Camp

★★★★★

Central Serengeti, Seronera valley

Larger family tents set apart from the main camp, a pool with a view over the plain, and dinner brought to the tent if the children are asleep.

Day

Serengeti

A slow morning, then the cats

02°26′S 34°49′E

Breakfast · Lunch · Dinner

A slow morning, then the cats

02°26′S 34°49′E

Nobody is woken. This is the rest morning, and it is the single most useful thing on a family itinerary and the first thing cut when an operator wants the page to look full. Five days in, the children are short of sleep and the adults are shorter. Breakfast whenever, the pool, and the camp itself, which sits inside the park and has animals walking through it. A morning spent watching a giraffe from a sun lounger is not a wasted morning.

Out at three, with the heat going off, into the Seronera valley. The river here holds water all year, and the fig and sausage trees along it are the most dependable leopard habitat in Tanzania. Leopard cannot be promised; lion can nearly be, because the resident prides live on the kopjes and do not go anywhere. Cheetah hunt the open ground south of the river in the late afternoon.

Back at dusk. If the children are keen, a dawn drive tomorrow replaces this afternoon, and the rest day moves. It is your vehicle. The point is that there is one day here where nothing is compulsory.

Meals

Breakfast · Lunch · Dinner

Travel

No transfer · afternoon game drive

Highlight

The rest day, and the drive everyone has been waiting for

Rest morning at the pool

Afternoon drive at three

Lion on the kopjes

Where you sleep

COMFORT

Kubu Kubu Tented Lodge

★★★★☆

Central Serengeti, Seronera valley

Second night. The value of two nights here is the morning off and the evening drive from inside the park.

LUXURY

Lemala Ewanjan Tented Camp

★★★★★

Central Serengeti, Seronera valley

Second night, with the option of a bush breakfast set out in the grass if the family is up for it.

Day

Transfer

East again, and up to the rim

03°14′S 35°29′E

Breakfast · Lunch · Dinner

East again, and up to the rim

03°14′S 35°29′E

Out early with a game drive built into the first two hours, so the return is not simply a road. The route back past Naabi in low light is often better than the route in, and the children have by now learnt to spot for themselves, which changes how the vehicle feels. This is the second long day. Lunch is on the road and you are climbing to the rim by mid-afternoon; four to five hours in total with the drive, and the second half is the same road you came in on.

The rim sits at 2,300 metres and it is properly cold after dark, colder than anywhere on the trip. Fleeces, hats, and the blankets the lodge leaves out. The first sight of the crater from the top is the one moment on the circuit that outperforms the photographs: a bowl nineteen kilometres across with its own weather, often with cloud pouring over the far wall while the floor stays clear.

You sleep on the rim tonight rather than down in Karatu. It costs more, and it puts the family at the descent road at first light rather than an hour behind the vehicles that stayed below. For a crater day, that hour is the difference.

Meals

Breakfast · Lunch · Dinner

Travel

Seronera to the Ngorongoro rim · ~4–5 hrs with a game drive built in

Highlight

A drive out through the early light, then the crater from above

Morning game drive out

Rim at 2,300 m — cold

Crater viewpoint

Where you sleep

COMFORT

Pakulala Safari Camp

★★★★☆

Ngorongoro Conservation Area, on the rim

Family rooms on the rim with a fire lit in the evening. A short descent in the morning rather than a drive up from Karatu.

LUXURY

Entamanu Ngorongoro

★★★★★

Ngorongoro Conservation Area, on the rim

Rim-facing family suites with the crater floor below the window, blankets and hot-water bottles on the beds.

Day

Ngorongoro

Down into the crater, then back to town

03°10′S 35°35′E

Breakfast · Lunch · Dinner

Down into the crater, then back to town

03°10′S 35°35′E

You descend at first light, six hundred metres in a few kilometres, onto the floor before the cloud has lifted. The crater floor is 260 square kilometres holding roughly twenty-five thousand large animals, and because the walls are steep they largely stay. For children this is the easiest game viewing of the trip: everything is close, nothing is hidden in long grass, and lion here walk past the wheel without looking up.

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 the binoculars and manage the expectation. The rest is buffalo, hyena, the old bull elephants with the heaviest ivory in East Africa, and flamingo on Lake Magadi. Lunch is at the hippo pool, eaten inside the vehicle, because the kites take sandwiches out of hands.

Vehicles are limited to six hours on the floor, so you are up the ascent road by early afternoon and on the tarmac east. Arusha is three and a half to four hours from the rim, which is the last long sit of the trip, and you arrive with the pool still warm and the children asleep in the back.

Meals

Breakfast · Lunch · Dinner

Travel

600 m descent · morning on the floor · rim to Arusha ~3½–4 hrs

Highlight

Rhino, lion at the wheel, and a pool by evening

Black rhino

Six-hour limit on the floor

Back to Arusha

Where you sleep

COMFORT

Kahawa House

★★★★☆

Arusha, garden lodge with a pool

Same lodge as the first night if you liked it. The children know the pool, which after eight days is worth more than novelty.

LUXURY

Legendary Lodge

★★★★★

Arusha, coffee-estate lodge

The last night somewhere with a proper bath, a heated pool, and a late breakfast the next morning.

Day

Departure

A day room, a pool, and the flight

03°22′S 36°41′E

Breakfast · Lunch

A day room, a pool, and the flight

03°22′S 36°41′E

Most flights out of Kilimanjaro leave in the evening, which is why this day exists. You keep the room until late afternoon, and the day belongs to the pool, the garden, and packing without anyone shouting. A late checkout is arranged in advance rather than hoped for on the morning.

If the family has an appetite for one more thing, Arusha has it within twenty minutes: the Cultural Heritage Centre for the carving and the tanzanite, the market for a last kanga or two, or a walk on the lower slopes of Meru. None of it is compulsory, and after eight days most families choose the pool.

Your guide collects you for the hour to Kilimanjaro International, timed to your flight. If you are going on to Zanzibar instead, the flight leaves from either Arusha airport or JRO and takes under two hours; the shape of that extension is below.

Meals

Breakfast · Lunch

Travel

Arusha to JRO · 50 km · about 1 hr

Highlight

Nobody is rushed to the airport

Late checkout

Pool and packing

Airport transfer

Where you sleep

Departure day — no overnight

III · Rates

What it costs, by group size

Priced per vehicle, so it gets cheaper per person as the family fills it. Choose a tier to see the table.

Comfort rates by group size, per person and group total
Group size	Rooms	Per person	Group total
2 adults + 1 child	1 family room	$5,750	$17,250
2 adults + 2 children	1 family tent or 2 rooms	$5,140	$20,560
2 adults + 3 children	2 rooms	$5,260	$26,300
4 adults + 2 children	3 rooms	$4,940	$29,640
2 families, 6 – 7 guests	3 – 4 rooms	$5,740	$11,480
8+ guests	2 vehicles	$5,140	$41,120

Child, 6 – 11 years

30% off

Sharing with two adults — child rate to confirm

Child, 12 – 15 years

15% off

Sharing or in a second room — teen rate to confirm

Single supplement

$1,220

Added when an adult does not share a room

Peak season uplift

Included in the rates above

July – August, and the festive weeks

Luxury rates by group size, per person and group total
Group size	Rooms	Per person	Group total
2 adults + 1 child	1 family room	$13,270	$39,810
2 adults + 2 children	1 family tent or 2 rooms	$11,870	$47,480
2 adults + 3 children	2 rooms	$12,470	$62,350
4 adults + 2 children	3 rooms	$11,670	$70,020
2 families, 6 – 7 guests	3 – 4 rooms	$12,470	$24,940
8+ guests	2 vehicles	$11,870	$94,960

Child, 6 – 11 years

30% off

Sharing with two adults — child rate to confirm

Child, 12 – 15 years

15% off

Sharing or in a second room — teen rate to confirm

Single supplement

$3,610

Added when an adult does not share a room

Peak season uplift

Included in the rates above

July – August, 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

All game drives in a private 4×4 with a roof hatch, for your family only
A professional guide throughout, English-speaking and used to children
All accommodation as listed — family tents or adjoining rooms where they exist
Full board on safari; dinner and breakfast on the Arusha nights
All national park and conservation area fees, including the crater service fee
The Karatu bike ride or village walk on day 4
Day room and late checkout in Arusha on day 9
Airport transfers, Kilimanjaro International, both ways
Drinking water in the vehicle throughout
A licensed, English-speaking professional guide, trained in wilderness first aid
Round-the-clock support from our Arusha office, and a first-aid kit in every vehicle

What is not

International flights to and from Tanzania
Tanzania visa — USD 50, or USD 100 for United States passports, per person including children
Travel insurance, which we ask every guest to hold
The flight from Manyara to Seronera on day 5, if you choose it
Balloon flight over the Serengeti (minimum age 7)
Drinks at the lodges, beyond what is listed
Tips for your guide and lodge staff
Personal spending and souvenirs
Anything listed under optional extras below

V · Add-ons

Worth adding, if you have the days

Priced separately. The flight on day 5 is the one most families take.

Manyara airstrip to Seronera · about 1 hr

Fly to the Serengeti on day 5

Replaces the five-to-six-hour drive across the conservation area with an hour in a light aircraft. The vehicle and guide meet you at the other end. You miss Olduvai Gorge and the drive through the plains; you gain most of a day and a family that is not tired.

USD 250 per person

Near Manyara or on the rim

A morning with a Maasai family

Not a staged boma visit. A half morning arranged through families we work with directly, where the children see a homestead, the cattle and the school, and the payment goes to the household. Can replace the Karatu bike ride on day 4.

USD 100 per person, for 2 guests

Seronera · at dawn on day 6

Balloon over the Serengeti

An hour over the plains at first light, landing to breakfast in the grass. The operators set a minimum age, usually seven, and it is a serious expense per seat. Replaces the rest morning for whoever flies.

USD 750 per person

After day 9 · 3–5 nights

Zanzibar, afterwards

The flight from Arusha or JRO takes under two hours. Three or four nights on the east coast, with a beach and a pool, is the usual shape, and after nine days on safari most children have earned it.

From USD 1,340 per person, 3 nights

VI · The ground

Where this itinerary takes you

Four parks on one road, two of them a morning’s drive apart.

Tarangire National Park

2,850 square kilometres along one permanent river. In the dry months the river concentrates the densest elephant population in northern Tanzania, close to the gate and close to the track — the best first park for a child because the animals are big and near.

Lake Manyara National Park

A narrow park between the Rift wall and a soda lake. Groundwater forest, baboon troops among the largest in Africa, a hippo pool, and flamingo when the water level allows. A morning, not a day.

Serengeti National Park

14,750 square kilometres of plain, kopje and riverine forest. The Seronera valley in the centre holds water all year and the resident lion, leopard and cheetah that go with it. Minimum age five by park rule; we apply six.

Ngorongoro Crater

The largest intact caldera in the world, 260 square kilometres of floor holding around 25,000 large animals, including the most reliable black rhino in Tanzania. Close, open and easy — the best single morning of game viewing for a child on the circuit.

The question everyone asks

How old do the children need to be?

Our minimum age on this route; the Serengeti’s is five

Serengeti National Park sets a minimum age of five for game drives, and most operators, including us, apply six. It is not arbitrary. A six-year-old can sit through a two-hour drive, understand why the vehicle has to stay quiet near a lion, and remember the trip afterwards. Five is a coin toss on all three.

The camps are the other limit. Many lodges in the Serengeti and on the crater rim set a minimum of twelve, and some of the best ones do. This itinerary uses camps that take children from six, with family tents or adjoining rooms, which is a smaller list than the full one. Balloon flights set their own minimum, usually seven; walking safaris and night drives are sixteen, so neither appears here. If your youngest is under six, tell us — it can sometimes be done in a private vehicle at family-friendly lodges, but it is a different trip and we would rather build that one than bend this one.

VII · Season

The best time to travel

School holidays, and the months we will tell you to avoid.

June to August is the long dry season and lines up with the northern summer school holidays, which is why most families come then. Game is on the rivers, the grass is short enough to see cats at a distance, the days are warm and the nights on the rim are cold. It is also the busiest time, and camps that take families fill first; book six to nine months ahead for July.

December is the other holiday month that works. The short rains have usually passed, the country is green, and the migration is on the southern plains not far from the road into the Serengeti. Christmas and New Year carry a rate uplift and need booking early.

September and October are dry and quieter than July, and if your school calendar allows a term-time trip they are the best value of the good months. January to March is calving on the southern plains and very good; it is hot on the crater floor and in Tarangire.

April and May are the long rains and we do not recommend this route for a family then. Tracks become difficult, some camps close, and a child in a vehicle in the rain for six days is not a holiday. If Easter is your only window, ask us for something shorter.

VIII · Flights

Getting there and back

Fly into Kilimanjaro International. Day 1 is a night in Arusha, so an evening landing is fine.

Fly into Kilimanjaro International (JRO). It is an hour from Arusha and the itinerary is built around it. Nairobi and Dar es Salaam both work but both add a domestic leg and most of a day, which with children is a day you will feel.

Most European routings connect through Doha, Istanbul, Amsterdam or Addis Ababa. Long-haul flights into JRO tend to land in the afternoon or evening; day 1 is a night in Arusha so that does not matter.

Coming home, day 9 is a day room in Arusha and an evening transfer to JRO, so an evening departure is the shape this trip is built for. If your flight is mid-afternoon, tell us before we book; it shortens the last day but it does not break it.

Tanzania requires a visa for most passports, for children as well as adults — USD 50, or USD 100 for United States citizens, valid up to 90 days. Apply online in advance rather than in the queue at immigration with tired children.

IX · Other costs

What else you will spend

Visas, insurance, tips and drinks — set out so there is no surprise on the ground.

Visa and entry

USD 50 per person — USD 100 for US passports

Tanzania issues a tourist visa online (eVisa) or on arrival at Kilimanjaro. Every traveller needs one, children included. Apply in advance; the arrival queue after an evening flight can be long, and it is longer with a six-year-old.

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.

Travel insurance

Typically USD 60 – 150 per person per trip

We ask every guest to travel insured, and with children it is not optional. Medical cover and evacuation are the parts that matter: the nearest hospital to the Serengeti is a flight away, not a drive.

Check the policy covers each child by name, safari activity, and any add-on you have booked. Balloon flights are excluded by some insurers.

Tips

Usual range USD 10 – 25 per adult per day

Tipping is customary in Tanzania and it is genuinely optional. The figures are what guests commonly give per adult; families usually tip as a household rather than per child, 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 so that housekeeping and kitchen are included, not only the people you see.

Drinks

USD 3 – 20 at the lodges

Drinking water in the vehicle is included throughout. Soft drinks and everything at the lodge bar are charged to your room unless the camp is explicitly all-inclusive, and most on this route are not. Children’s soft drinks add up faster than adults’ beer.

Personal spending

Entirely up to you

Souvenirs, the curio stall at Olduvai, laundry at the lodges, and whatever a child has decided they cannot live without. Cash in small US dollar notes is more useful than a card once you leave Arusha — some camps have no connection at all.

Notes dated before 2009 are refused across Tanzania. Bring newer ones.

X · Why us

Why book this with us

Your vehicle, your clock

A private 4×4 for your family only. When the children have had enough at half past ten, you go back to the pool, and nobody in the next row minds because there is no next row.

Camps that want families

The northern circuit has plenty of camps with a minimum age of twelve. We use the ones with family tents, pools, early dinners and staff who like children, and we tell you which is which.

One honest long day, not three

Drives are kept under three hours everywhere the map allows. Where it does not, on the day west into the Serengeti, we say so on the page and offer the flight rather than a smaller number.

We will tell you if your child is too young

The parks set a minimum of five and we apply six. If your youngest is under that, we will say so and build you something different rather than sell you this and hope.

XI · Questions

Frequently asked

What guests ask before booking this itinerary.

How much does a 9 day family safari in Tanzania cost?

It depends on how many of you there are, the ages of the children, the accommodation tier and the month. The table above sets out the shape; child rates for six to eleven and twelve to fifteen are 30% and 15% below the adult rate, and our adult rates for this itinerary are set out in the table above. Ask us with your dates and ages and we will quote exactly rather than give you a range.

What is the minimum age for this safari?

Six. Serengeti National Park sets five for game drives and we apply six, which is also the youngest most of the camps on this route accept. Under-sixes can sometimes be taken on a private vehicle at family-friendly lodges, but that is a different itinerary — see our family safaris page and ask.

Do the children share our room or tent?

Where the camp has family tents — two sleeping rooms under one canvas with a shared bathroom — you are in one of those. Where it does not, two adjoining rooms. Children of twelve and over usually need their own room by lodge policy, which is why there are two child rates.

How long are the drives?

Under three hours on every day except day 5, which is five to six hours by road from Karatu to Seronera with stops at the crater viewpoint and Olduvai, and day 7, which is four to five hours with a game drive built in. Day 5 can be flown instead in about an hour; the cost is about USD 250 per person. Every other transfer is two and a half hours or less.

Is there anything that is not sitting in a vehicle?

Yes. Day 4 in Karatu is an afternoon on bikes along the farm tracks or on foot through a village, and it is included. Day 6 is a rest morning at the pool. Day 9 is a day room and a pool. Walking safaris and night drives are sixteen and over by the usual rule, so they are not on this trip.

Is it safe for children?

The parks are safe in a vehicle with a guide, and the camps are fenced or staffed at night; you walk the children to the tent with an escort after dark. Malaria prophylaxis is normally advised for all of northern Tanzania, children included — speak to a travel clinic six weeks before you fly. Emergency evacuation cover is recommended in your travel insurance.

When is the best time for a family safari?

June to August for the dry season and the summer holidays, or December for the green plains and the migration in the south. September and October are quieter and cheaper if you can travel in term time. We do not recommend April or May for this route.

Can we do a balloon flight with the children?

Usually from age seven, set by the balloon operator rather than the park, and it is USD 750 per seat. It leaves before dawn on day 6 and replaces the rest morning for whoever flies. Book it months ahead for July.

Can we add Zanzibar at the end?

Yes, and for families it is the most common extension. Flights from Arusha or Kilimanjaro take under two hours; three or four nights on the east coast is the usual shape. See bush and beach. Rates are from USD 1,340 per person for three nights.

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.

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