Serengeti and Ngorongoro in 4 days, with simple, comfortable camps chosen for how close they sit to the wildlife. 3 nights on safari, priced on request.
Serengeti - Ngorongoro
About this safari
The route opens in Serengeti — endless plains and the engine of the Great Migration — and works through 1 further destination over 4 days. It stays within Tanzania; the final proposal will confirm transfer times and the balance between travel and game viewing. Accommodation is at the budget standard: value camps and simple lodges chosen for position rather than polish. This is the practical way to see the route: the same parks, the same guiding and the same game drives, with the savings taken on accommodation rather than on time in the field. Like every safari in this catalogue, it is priced on request rather than sold at a published rate, because park fees, permits, group size and available accommodation all change the figure.
Day by day
Written out in full before you book, so you can see exactly how the days are paced and where each night is spent.
Day 1
This planning outline starts in Arusha and continues towards the first park; the meeting point and timing are confirmed in the final proposal. The road to the Serengeti climbs the Ngorongoro highlands and crosses the conservation area before descending onto the plains, and the moment of arrival is hard to mistake — the country simply opens, grass running unbroken to a horizon with nothing on it. The Maasai name, siringet, means the place where the land runs on forever, and it is a straightforwardly accurate description. The Serengeti's scale means different sectors feel like different parks. The central Seronera valley is reliable year-round for resident predators; the western corridor follows the Grumeti River through denser country; the north is hillier and holds the Mara River crossings in season; and the southern short-grass plains empty and fill with the herds. Where you drive depends entirely on the month. A practical camp is suggested for this night, with the confirmed property and services stated in the quotation.
Overnight: Serengeti
Day 2
The Serengeti's scale means different sectors feel like different parks. The central Seronera valley is reliable year-round for resident predators; the western corridor follows the Grumeti River through denser country; the north is hillier and holds the Mara River crossings in season; and the southern short-grass plains empty and fill with the herds. Where you drive depends entirely on the month. A full day in the Serengeti means covering distance, and that is no hardship. Between sightings the plains themselves hold attention — grass moving in wind, kopjes standing out of it, and the sense of space that no other park in East Africa quite matches. Your guide will usually pack lunch and stay out through the middle of the day, when many vehicles return to camp and the tracks empty. This planning outline places the night at a value property near the route. Availability and the final choice are confirmed before booking.
Overnight: Serengeti
Day 3
This travel day carries the route onward, the road climbs steeply out of the Rift Valley into the Ngorongoro highlands, through forest thick with wild olive and strung with lichen, and the air turns cold and damp. Then the trees break at the rim, and the crater is simply there below — twenty kilometres across, six hundred metres down, with its own weather moving across the floor. It is a genuinely arresting first view. Ngorongoro is the most dependable place in East Africa to see black rhino, though they are usually out on the open floor at some distance and best appreciated through binoculars or a long lens. Around them the floor carries wildebeest, zebra, eland and both Grant's and Thomson's gazelle in permanent residence, with flamingo working the soda shallows of Lake Magadi. The suggested standard is simple and location-led. The quotation will name the property and specify what the stay includes.
Overnight: Ngorongoro
Day 4
If this optional activity is included in your written quotation, you drop onto the crater floor early, descending six hundred metres down a steep track from cold, misty rim to warm open grassland in about twenty minutes. The permit allows roughly six hours below, and your guide will use them on the open plain where the lion prides and the great herds are, the Lerai fever tree forest for elephant, and the soda shallows of Lake Magadi where flamingo gather. Black rhino are what most people are hoping for, and the crater offers the best odds in East Africa. The final road section is planned towards Arusha. Citrus will confirm the exact end point and time.
Safari ends
Where you stay
Owner-approved budget property names are shown only where they apply to the route. Every other stop is described by its accommodation standard, with the exact property confirmed in your written quotation.
Recommended standard by stop
Serengeti: Practical budget camp or lodge · Ngorongoro: Practical budget camp or lodge
Your written quotation will allocate the nights and confirm each available property before booking.
These are planning examples, not confirmed inclusions for this package. Your written quotation will confirm exactly what is included.
The quotation will identify every separate cost before you confirm.
Before you ask
The catalogue sets the route and travel standard, but it does not publish a fixed price or a contracted inclusion list. Citrus will prepare a written quotation for your dates, party and rooming, showing the exact transfers, activities, accommodation, meals, fees and permits before you confirm.
No. Accommodation is proposed for your dates and confirmed in the written quotation before a booking is made. Where an approved budget property is named, it remains subject to availability and written confirmation.
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Tell us your dates and who is travelling, and we will come back with availability, honest advice on timing and a written quotation for this route.