Safaris in Tanzania

We recommend planning at least five days, i.e. four nights, for a Tanzania safari. This lets you visit between two and three protected areas. On our popular Fascination Tanzania safari, you visit Tarangire National Park, the Serengeti and the Ngorongoro Crater in five days.

If your time and budget allow, however, we would generally recommend at least seven to ten days for a safari. That way you can spend more time on game drives with the wildlife in the national parks, instead of travelling straight from one place to the next.

On our blog we have collected further thoughts on how long a safari should last.

Many of our guests extend their Tanzania trip before or after the safari with a beach holiday on Zanzibar or a climb of Mt Kilimanjaro.

Tanzania is generally considered a safe destination for tourists in East Africa.

All our safari tours run as guided safaris. This means that an experienced safari guide drives the vehicle, both on game drives in the national parks and on the overland roads from one national park to the next.

Most of our safaris take place on the northern safari route (Northern Circuit). This region is considered a generally very safe destination in Tanzania.

Your guide will also explain some rules of conduct that you must follow on game drives for safety reasons. For example, you may only get out of the car at marked places within the national parks.

In the respective accommodations, too, you receive a briefing at check-in on how to behave in the accommodation – especially in the dark – to minimise safety risks. These basic rules are generally very easy to follow and quickly become a habit.

We have summarised in detail what makes Tanzania a safe destination on our blog.

As one of the leading providers of Tanzania safaris, we know you are in good hands with the colleagues at our subsidiary on site in Arusha. There you also have German-speaking contacts, so communication is easy.

The number of people on a Tanzania safari depends on whether you book a private trip or a group tour.

On a private safari you decide yourself who you want to travel with. That means only your partner, friends or family travel with you. As an experienced provider of Tanzania safaris, our travel experts can put together your safari entirely individually and plan it according to your wishes.

On our mini-group tours, a maximum of seven guests plus guide travel together. Our mini-group tours already go ahead as soon as two guests have registered for a travel date.

In the Toyota Land Cruiser safari vehicles, six guests have room inside, and the seventh guest sits in front next to the driver. Every guest has a window seat.

On a Tanzania safari tour you first choose between two types of accommodation: lodges (permanent accommodation) or camping.

A lodge is similar in principle to a hotel. You do not have to take care of anything and can enjoy the service and hospitality of the staff on site. Unlike a hotel, however, it is not one large building. Instead there is a main building where you will find reception, a restaurant, perhaps a pool and a viewing deck. These are all rooms shared by all guests. Your en-suite room, however, is usually in a separate smaller house, a kind of cottage.

A lodge is built from permanent structures, meaning the walls are made of stone. There is generally a good, in some cases continuous, power supply.

Similar to a lodge are the authentic tented camps. These are very common and popular on Tanzania safaris. Tented camps are not “camping”, however. Tented camps can be very luxurious. They have an en-suite bathroom and duvets. The difference to a lodge: the walls and structures are made of canvas, i.e. tent fabric. This way you enjoy being close to nature and can listen to the sounds of the wilderness at night.

On a camping trip you spend the night at public campsites in a two-person tent. You sleep on mattresses about 5 cm thick on the ground in a sleeping bag. Chairs, tables and crockery are provided. The camping crew takes care of all tasks such as pitching and taking down the tents, as well as cooking and washing up.

On a trip in the Mobile Explorer Camp you spend the night at private campsites and sleep on camp beds with proper duvets. This type of camping offers a certain level of comfort and above all absolute seclusion in the middle of nature.

On our Tanzania safaris, full board generally applies. That means breakfast, lunch and dinner are included in the price. Drinking water is also available in the safari vehicle. Other drinks, including alcoholic ones, are generally charged extra.

Breakfast usually consists of a rich buffet: from savoury to sweet, from fresh juices, bread, eggs and fried bacon to fruit, yoghurt and muesli. Overall, breakfast is similar to an English breakfast.

Lunch is served either as a packed lunch on the road or at the accommodation. This depends on how you shape your day. For example, if you are driving to the next national park or going on a full-day game drive, you get a packed lunch. These are usually simple but tasty.

Dinner is served in the restaurant area of the accommodation. You can usually choose from several options and put together a 3-course menu.

When you book your Tanzania safari with Elefant-Tours, we ask you about any allergies or special diets. This way the accommodations can cater for most things, from gluten-free to vegan.

None of our guests has gone home hungry yet. Quite the opposite!

Safaris in Tanzania are also suitable for families with children. A safari is a special holiday experience and will certainly be remembered by the whole family for a long time.

Before you decide on Tanzania as a destination, there are a few points to consider:

On a safari you spend comparatively a lot of time in the vehicle. Firstly, when you drive from one national park to the next. And secondly on the game drives themselves, which are usually the main part of a safari.

We recommend that families with children spend several nights in one place. This way you avoid some long drives between the national parks and can also spend an afternoon relaxing at your accommodation.

Some accommodations offer family rooms in which the sleeping tents are connected to each other. This way you can go from one sleeping tent to the other at night without having to go outside. A swimming pool is also very popular with families on safari.

Many accommodations in Tanzania are not fenced, so as not to distort the authentic character of the safari. Here it is especially important that parents keep an eye on their children.

If your children do not yet speak English, you can ask for a German-speaking guide when booking your safari.

In general, we recommend Tanzania safaris for families whose children already have some travel experience and a general interest in nature and animals.

The seasons in Tanzania are not divided into summer and winter. Instead people speak of the rainy season and the dry season. The dry season is generally the best time to travel for a safari.

In Tanzania the dry season runs from June to October and from January to the end of February. July and August in particular are the most popular months for a safari tour. We recommend booking early.

When it is dry, the vegetation thins out and the grass is short. This makes it easier to see the animals. In addition, many of the water holes in the national parks dry up and the animals gather at certain water sources such as rivers that carry water all year round. This also helps to find the animals more easily.

Between the end of March and the end of May it is the long rainy season in East Africa. Heavy rainfall can occur, which softens the roads and makes them difficult to pass. As prices are much cheaper at this time, many budget-minded visitors use this time to travel.

In November there is normally the short rainy season, which, depending on the year, may also fail to appear altogether.

A safari in Tanzania can easily be combined with a visit to Kenya. Many visitors extend their safari with a beach stay on the mainland or on the offshore island of Zanzibar.

On our blog we have broken down once more in detail when the best time to travel to Tanzania is.

Our Elefant-Tours team is happy to help you plan and book your trip to Tanzania: please call us or send a message to our email address.