6 Day Northern Parks Safari: Tarangire, Serengeti & Ngorongoro – Where Silence Roars

Detailed Itinerary

Day 1 – Arusha to Tarangire: Giants of the South

The first thing you notice isn’t the animals. It’s the trees. Baobabs rise like petrified lungs from the golden earth—trunks fat with memory, branches scraggly like old hands reaching. They’ve seen things. They’ve held shade for lions and elephants, weathered lightning, stood through droughts and floods. And here you are, driving beneath them in quiet awe.

Welcome to Tarangire.

Your guide from Serengeti Lion Safaris picks you up early in Arusha. The ride to Tarangire is smooth at first—paved roads, small towns, maize fields. Then the terrain starts to crackle with promise. Termite mounds. Dry riverbeds. Dusty tracks leading nowhere but into the wild.

Tarangire National Park is where the elephants rule. Not just a few scattered herds—but dozens. Hundreds. You’ll see them dusting themselves in cinnamon-colored soil, nudging calves between legs the size of tree trunks. They walk slow, like time’s on their side. And you realize—it is.

You’ll see zebra herds trailing lines to the river, ostriches pacing in the heat haze, and maybe a lioness dozing beneath a sausage tree, tail flicking with lazy menace.

Lunch is a picnic near the Tarangire River, where water means life—and that means everybody shows up.

By evening, you’ll head to your lodge near the park boundary. The sun sinks low. The baobabs burn orange. And as the light goes out, the stars arrive.

Accommodation:
Camping: Zion Campsite
Budget: Tarangire Safari Lodge (Budget Rooms)
Standard: Sangaiwe Tented Lodge
Luxury: Tarangire Sopa Lodge

Day 2 – Tarangire to Serengeti: Into the Wild Veins

You pack early, coffee steaming in the cool air. Today’s a journey. From Tarangire, you cut northward, passing Lake Manyara in the distance and winding your way through the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. The land gets greener. Hills rise. Maasai herders walk beside cattle, tall and unbothered, wrapped in crimson shukas like living brushstrokes on the land.

At the Ngorongoro Crater rim, you stop. You step out. You look down. And you don’t speak. Not because you’re told to—but because something about it makes you want to whisper.

Then you continue. Down and down. The road eventually stretches, flattens, and opens wide.

You’ve arrived in the Serengeti.

This isn’t just a park. It’s a living, breathing system. A place where hooves cut ancient paths into the soil and predators lie in wait, not out of malice but because that’s what survival means here. The Serengeti doesn’t need theatrics. It is what it is—honest, harsh, and breathtaking.

You’ll enjoy a late afternoon game drive. Wildebeest gallop. Gazelles dart. A pride of lions lounges beneath a thorn tree, cubs wrestling like schoolchildren. There’s no rush. You’re on their time now.

Accommodation:
Camping: Seronera Campsite
Budget: Into Wild Africa
Standard: Serengeti Heritage Tented Camp
Luxury: Kubu Kubu Tented Lodge

Day 3 – Serengeti: Sunrise, Stalks & Stillness

The Serengeti at dawn is not a place. It’s a feeling.

You leave camp early, breath fogging the window glass. The first rays of sunlight catch the dewy grass. Out in the field, a silhouette moves—slow, deliberate. A lioness. Her eyes lock with yours for a moment, and that’s enough. You don’t need to speak. You just… watch.

Your full-day game drive takes you through changing zones—riverbanks, kopjes (rocky outcrops), open plains. The rhythm is slow but constant. Hyenas trail in the wake of vultures. Leopards nap in acacia branches. Elephants dust themselves, trumpeting just once—enough to remind you this is not a quiet neighborhood.

Lunch is under a tree. There’s a breeze. There’s silence. You don’t touch your phone.

Accommodation:
Camping: Seronera Campsite
Budget: Into Wild Africa
Standard: Serengeti Heritage Tented Camp
Luxury: Kubu Kubu Tented Lodge

Day 4 – Serengeti: The Hunt Continues

You’ve been here a few days now. But it still hits different.

Today you either explore deeper into central Serengeti or follow the herds north or south depending on the season. Your guide listens to the radio chatter, reads the road, follows tracks in the dust.

You may witness a chase. Or a still moment more powerful than action—like a cheetah perched on a rock, watching the world below. Every photo you take today means something. But it’s the moments you don’t capture that linger.

The Serengeti teaches patience. And presence.

By evening, you’re back at camp. The fire’s lit. Your shoes are dusty. And your mind is somewhere still out there, wandering.

Accommodation:
Camping: Seronera Campsite
Budget: Into Wild Africa
Standard: Serengeti Heritage Tented Camp
Luxury: Kubu Kubu Tented Lodge

Day 5 – Serengeti to Ngorongoro: Into the Crater

You leave the Serengeti with a glance over your shoulder. It doesn’t say goodbye. It doesn’t need to.

The road back tracks east. By midday, you reach the Ngorongoro Crater again—but this time, you go in.

Descending into the crater is like entering a dream someone else has been having for a thousand years. The wildlife is concentrated, like an ecosystem on overdrive. Lions in the grass. Rhinos—if you’re lucky—grazing at a distance. Flamingos pink across the lake. Hyenas trotting with purpose.

You picnic beside a hippo pool. The air is thick with bird calls, the occasional snort from the water.

By afternoon, you climb out and drive to your lodge in Karatu, the green hills soft and calming after the wild edges of the crater floor.

Accommodation:
Camping: Panorama Campsite
Budget: Eileen’s Tree Inn
Standard: Country Lodge Karatu
Luxury: The Retreat at Ngorongoro

Day 6 – Return to Arusha: What You Carry Home

You drive back to Arusha in the morning, past fields and villages and waving children. The journey ends. But something stays with you.

Maybe it’s the stillness of a lion’s eyes. The chaos of a wildebeest herd. The sound of silence in the crater. Or maybe it’s something quieter—a shift inside you, a weight you didn’t know you were missing now firmly in place.

You’ll carry it home. And you’ll never look at the world quite the same.

Accommodation:
Camping: N/A
Budget: Drop-off at Arusha hotel
Standard: Drop-off at Arusha hotel
Luxury: Drop-off at Arusha Coffee Lodge or airport if flying out