3-Day Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater Safari

You'll leave Arusha after breakfast, driving west through Makuyuni and up onto the Ngorongoro Highlands, where coffee plantations give way to open grassland at over 2,000 metres. Your guide will stop at the crater rim viewpoint for a first look down into Ngorongoro before continuing on the descent to the Serengeti plains, a drive of roughly six to seven hours in total including stops.

You'll pass through Naabi Hill Gate, where the short grass plains open out and your first game viewing usually begins, with wildebeest, zebra and gazelle grazing close to the road depending on the season. You'll arrive at Serengeti Serena Safari Lodge in the late afternoon, in time to settle in before dinner, with the Kopjes and plains stretching out below the lodge terrace.

You'll set out early for a morning game drive while the plains are still cool, the best time to find lion and leopard active before they retreat into shade. Your guide will work the drainage lines and kopjes around the central Seronera area, where resident prides and good numbers of resident plains game are found throughout the year, returning to camp for a late breakfast.

After time to rest through the heat of midday, you'll head out again in the afternoon toward a different sector of the park, following river courses where elephant and giraffe often gather and, depending on the time of year, where migration herds may be moving through. You'll return to Serengeti Serena Safari Lodge as the light lowers over the plains, in time for dinner.

You'll leave the Serengeti early and drive back toward the Ngorongoro Highlands, reaching the crater rim by mid-morning. From there you'll descend the steep access road onto the crater floor, dropping around 600 metres to reach the grasslands, swamps and the soda lake at the base, an enclosed ecosystem holding one of the densest concentrations of wildlife in Africa, including good numbers of lion, and the crater remains one of the more reliable places in Tanzania to find black rhino.

Your guide will spend the late morning working the crater floor before the ascent back to the rim for a packed lunch with views over the plains. In the afternoon you'll continue the drive back to Arusha, arriving in the early evening in time for your onward flight or overnight stay.