Private safaris in Tanzania

The northern parks in a week, with light aircraft replacing the long transfer days. You trade four hours in a vehicle for forty minutes in the air and spend the difference in the park.

A short northern circuit by road, for travellers with a week rather than a fortnight. Three parks, no internal flights, and a pace we will slow down if you ask us to.

The southern parks, which hold a fraction of the northern circuit's vehicles across a far larger area. Fly in, stay put, and accept that the wildlife is harder to find and better to watch.

Five nights in the Serengeti, then three on the Zanzibar coast, with the flight between them handled for you. The classic combination, built so the second half is genuinely a rest rather than another itinerary.

The islands without the safari, for travellers who have seen the parks or who want the sea and nothing else. Marine activity is seasonal and we will tell you honestly what your month is likely to give you.

A private coastal charter between the mainland, Zanzibar and the Pemba Channel. This is a concept, not a product: no vessel is named or specified until one is contracted in writing.

Stone Town and Bagamoyo, read as the two ends of the East African slave route that they are. Guided by people who work with the museums, and written to inform rather than to entertain.

The mountain without the summit: forest edges, coffee farms, waterfalls and a scenic flight along the glaciers. Built from the start for travellers who cannot climb, rather than adapted from a trek that they cannot do.

Walking in Arusha National Park at a distance and gradient set by an individual assessment, not by a brochure grade. Nothing on this journey is described as accessible until the specific route has been walked and measured for you.

How tanzanite is found, cut, graded and exported, with licensed dealers and the paperwork explained before you buy. No mine entry is promised, because access to a working shaft is not ours to grant.

Time with Datoga and Hadzabe communities on terms the communities set, at an agreed fee that is published to you. If a community would rather not receive visitors in your week, that is the end of it and we will say so.

Two weeks that takes in the northern parks, the mountain, the heritage coast and the islands, with every sector itemised. The point of the length is the rest days: nowhere on this journey do you move two nights running.

The full northern circuit by road, with a dawn balloon flight over the central Serengeti and a bush breakfast laid out where you land. Tarangire’s elephant herds, Manyara’s forest, the plains, and the crater floor.

Four days with the highway taken out of them. Light aircraft land on bush airstrips inside the Serengeti, so game viewing starts within the hour rather than after a day in a vehicle.

The Mara River crossings in the far north, in the July-to-October window when they happen. Mobile tented camp on the riverbank, and a balloon flight that shows you the scale of it from above.

December to March, when thousands of wildebeest calves are born on the short-grass plains each day and every predator for fifty kilometres knows it. Off-road tracking is permitted in the Ndutu conservation area, which changes what you can follow.

Eight days given to people rather than only to animals: a morning out with Hadzabe hunters, Datoga blacksmiths at the forge, a Maasai homestead, then the Serengeti. Every visit on terms the community sets, at a fee published to you.

The northern circuit with a balloon flight, then a bush-to-beach flight straight to Zanzibar for Stone Town, the spice farms and the north coast. Ten days, one booking, no self-organised connections.

Tanzania’s largest national park, reached by air, with a fraction of the northern circuit’s vehicles. Big lion prides, high elephant densities, baobab country, and one of the last strongholds of the African wild dog.

Four days on and beside the Rufiji, which is the only proper boat safari in the Tanzanian portfolio. Hippo and crocodile at eye level from the water, then open-vehicle drives and a walking safari on the same ground.

Tanzania’s far west, which almost nobody reaches: forested mountains dropping straight into Lake Tanganyika, and habituated chimpanzee groups tracked on foot through the slopes. Kayaking and swimming in the afternoons.

Lake Natron, where most of East Africa’s lesser flamingos breed, under an active carbonatite volcano the Maasai call the Mountain of God. The summit trek is overnight, brutal and optional; the flamingo walks and the gorge are not.

Three days on Tarangire’s elephants and its giant baobabs, close enough to Arusha to be worth it. Night drives and walking safaris are possible here because the concessions on the park boundary allow what the park itself does not.

Four days inside one conservation area rather than four days driving between several. A full day on the crater floor, the Empakaai hike down to its flamingo lake, and highland walks with Maasai guides.

Built around light rather than around a checklist. Modified vehicles with drop-down sides and beanbag mounts, guides who position for the sun instead of for the sighting, and the patience to sit for two hours.

The half of the day most safaris miss. Private concessions permit spotlit night drives, so genets, bushbabies, aardvark and hunting leopard are on the table — and with no light pollution for a hundred kilometres, so is the sky.

The summit by the Machame or Lemosho route, then a flight straight into the Serengeti to stop moving. The climb is operated by a contracted specialist mountain operator, not by us, and we say so before you ask.

Tanzania through what it grows and eats. Bean-to-cup on a working coffee smallholding, a Swahili cooking lesson that is a lesson rather than a demonstration, and game drives in Manyara and the crater between meals.

Guided cycling through the banana plantations and irrigation furrows of Mto wa Mbu, canoeing on Lake Manyara when the water allows it, and classic game drives either side. For people who would rather not spend six days sitting down.

The Serengeti’s western corridor, where the Grumeti river runs and far fewer vehicles go, finishing on the shore of the largest lake in Africa among the granite kopjes of Mwanza.

Private vehicles, private flights, secluded camps, and a balloon chartered for the two of you rather than shared with ten strangers. Dinner where you ask for it, and nobody announcing anything to the dining room.

Twelve days through Tanzania’s least visited reserves, moving entirely by air because there is no other sensible way. Rufiji boat safaris, Ruaha’s baobabs, Katavi’s hippo pools and chimpanzees at Mahale.