Tanzania Self-Drive Safari Tours: Northern Circuit from Arusha

Tanzania’s northern circuit is the most celebrated self-drive safari route in East Africa and the destination that defines the global image of the African safari. The Serengeti plains, Ngorongoro Crater, Tarangire’s ancient baobabs and massive elephant herds, and Lake Manyara’s tree-climbing lions and flamingo form a circuit from Arusha that represents the most concentrated and most diverse wildlife experience in Africa: a single connected route through four distinct ecosystems each offering wildlife encounters of a quality and scale not reproduced anywhere else on the continent. The wildebeest migration through the Serengeti, the volcanic caldera of Ngorongoro with its extraordinary predator density, and the Tarangire elephant population — which reaches its highest dry-season concentrations around ancient baobab trees on the Tarangire River — are individually among the most extraordinary wildlife spectacles on earth. Combined in a 7 to 12 day northern circuit from Arusha, they produce a circuit that most visitors rank as the most rewarding travel experience of their lives. This page provides an overview of the Tanzania northern circuit structure and links to the individual park guides.

The Serengeti: The World’s Greatest Wildlife Migration

The Serengeti National Park covers 14,750 square kilometres of open grassland, kopje-dotted plains, acacia woodland, and riverine forest in northern Tanzania, forming the southern and central section of the Mara-Serengeti ecosystem that extends north into Kenya’s Masai Mara National Reserve. The Serengeti is the site of the wildebeest migration — the movement of approximately 1.5 million wildebeest, 200,000 zebra, and 350,000 Thomson’s and Grant’s gazelle in a continuous annual circuit following the rainfall and the fresh grass growth across the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem. The migration has no fixed start or end: it is a perpetual movement, with different sections of the herd in different parts of the ecosystem at any given time. The Serengeti provides two primary migration spectacles for visitors: the calving season in the southern Serengeti plains (approximately January to March) when approximately 400,000 wildebeest calves are born over a 3-week period on the nutrient-rich short-grass plains of the Ndutu and Lake Masek area, and the dramatic water crossings of the Grumeti and Mara rivers (approximately June to October) when the northward-moving migration must cross the crocodile-filled rivers to reach the Masai Mara’s grass. The resident wildlife of the Serengeti — the largest lion population in Africa, the resident cheetah on the Serengeti plains, the leopard population along the Seronera River and the Lobo areas, the elephant herds, the African wild dog (present in the western corridor), and the massive buffalo herds — makes the Serengeti a world-class wildlife destination in every month of the year regardless of the migration’s position in its circuit. See the Serengeti migration circuit guide for the full self-drive detail.

The Serengeti entrance gate is reached from Arusha via the Ngorongoro Conservation Area: the standard northern circuit approach drives from Arusha to Tarangire (3 hours south on the Dodoma road), then north and west to Manyara and Ngorongoro, and then continues west into the Serengeti through the Naabi Hill gate or the Ikoma gate in the north-west. The total Arusha-to-Serengeti driving distance via this standard circuit route is approximately 400 to 500 kilometres. The alternative approach from the north enters via the Kenya border at Isebania (for circuits that combine the Masai Mara with the Serengeti) or via the Lobo area in the north from the Kenya direction. Self-drive visitors who want to position themselves for the wildebeest crossings in June to October should base in the Kogatende area of the northern Serengeti, where the Mara River crossing sites are located, 3 hours of driving north from the Seronera central area of the park. See the Tanzania northern circuit complete guide for the full logistics of the Serengeti positioning strategy.

Ngorongoro Crater: The World’s Largest Intact Caldera

The Ngorongoro Crater is the most densely populated wildlife environment in Africa: a 260 square kilometre volcanic caldera 600 metres deep and 20 kilometres in diameter, whose steep walls create a self-contained ecosystem in which approximately 25,000 large mammals live in permanent residence at the highest wildlife density per square kilometre of any ecosystem on the continent. The crater is the only place in Tanzania where the critically endangered black rhino is regularly seen by visitors — the Ngorongoro caldera holds approximately 20 to 24 black rhino individuals in a predator-rich but poaching-safe environment where they have survived while being eliminated from virtually every other accessible Tanzania ecosystem. The lion pride density in the crater is the highest in the world: as many as 6 to 8 prides occupy the caldera floor, and morning game drives in the Lerai Forest area and the open hippo pools produce lion encounters at extremely close range with animals that show the habituation expected from the crater’s very high visitor frequency. The crater also holds the highest concentration of spotted hyena in the world, with the Ngorongoro hyena clan being the subject of decades of long-term research by the Berkeley Hyena Project. The Ngorongoro Conservation Area is administered by the NCAA (Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority), separate from TANAPA, and has its own crater descent permit system and vehicle fee that must be pre-arranged before the descent. See the Ngorongoro Crater drive guide and the Tanzania practical information page for the specific NCAA fee payment process and descent logistics.

Tarangire and Lake Manyara: The Circuit’s Eastern Parks

Tarangire National Park, approximately 120 kilometres south of Arusha on the Dodoma road, is Tanzania’s most underrated national park and one of the best dry-season wildlife destinations in East Africa. Tarangire is famous for two spectacles: the largest concentration of elephants in Tanzania during the dry season (June to October), when thousands of elephant converge on the Tarangire River as it becomes the only surface water source in a vast dry landscape; and the extraordinary baobab trees that dot the park’s landscape, with individual trees estimated to be 1,000 to 2,000 years old and trunks reaching 10 to 15 metres in circumference. The combination of enormous, ancient baobab trees and massive elephant herds walking between them in the late afternoon light is one of the most visually powerful and atmospherically distinctive wildlife environments in East Africa. Tarangire’s bird list of over 500 species (including the Ashy starling found only in central Tanzania, the large flocks of red-and-yellow barbet, and the stork and raptor migrations that pass through in September and October) makes it one of Tanzania’s top birding parks. Lake Manyara National Park, between Tarangire and Ngorongoro, is a compact park (325 square kilometres) famous for the tree-climbing lion — behaviour documented at Manyara that occurs in very few other locations globally — the massive hippo pool in the park’s alkaline lake, and the flamingo that congregate on the lake’s soda flats when conditions are right. See the Lake Manyara day drive guide and the Tarangire elephant trail guide for the individual park circuits, and the Tanzania car rental page for 4×4 hire from Arusha.

The Tanzania Northern Circuit Wildlife Year: Month-by-Month Guide

Tanzania’s northern circuit parks produce outstanding wildlife encounters in every month of the year, but specific months deliver experiences of exceptional rarity or scale that should be factored into circuit planning where the visitor has date flexibility. January and February are the calving season months in the southern Serengeti and Ndutu area: approximately 400,000 wildebeest calves are born in a concentrated 3 to 6 week period on the nutrient-rich short-grass plains, producing the highest predator-to-prey ratio of any period in the Serengeti calendar as lion, cheetah, leopard, hyena, and wild dog converge on the calving concentrations. The calving season is argued by many East Africa wildlife professionals to be the most dramatically productive single wildlife period in Africa: not because of the volume of animals, which is present year-round, but because of the continuous, visible life-and-death interaction between the predator community and the newborn calves. March to May (the long rains) is the lowest-demand period, with the parks less crowded but the tracks in the Serengeti and the NCA murram sections at their most challenging. June marks the beginning of the dry season and the northward movement of the migration from the central Serengeti toward the western corridor and ultimately the Mara River, with the Grumeti River crossings occurring typically in June and early July. July and August are the most popular months for the Serengeti: the migration is in the northern Serengeti and the Mara River crossings are occurring, and the dry-season road conditions are at their best. July and August also produce the driest and most productive conditions at Tarangire, when the elephant concentration at the river is at its peak. September and October continue the northern Serengeti activity as the migration returns south from Kenya, with October marking the beginning of the short rains (typically October to mid-November) that signal the return of the wildebeest mass to the southern Serengeti for the December to March residency. November and December are the shoulder period and the transition into the calving season build-up, with December in particular producing very good southern Serengeti and Ndutu wildlife as the first calves arrive and the predators concentrate. December is also considered an excellent month for the Ngorongoro Crater due to good weather conditions and a reduction in the peak-season vehicle congestion compared to July and August. All the above timing considerations apply to the Serengeti’s migration-dependent species; the Ngorongoro Crater’s resident black rhino, lion, and hyena population is available for outstanding game drives in every month of the year, and the crater is considered one of the few Africa destinations where the quality of wildlife sightings is as good in the wet season as the dry.