Crowned hornbill safari: In full

You will be met by your private superior guide at Kilimanjaro Airport in Arusha. In your private safari vehicle, you’ll enter the Ngorongoro Conservation Area and drive along the Crater rim before arriving at Rhino Lodge. Usually arriving in time for a light lunch, you can spend the afternoon relaxing or exploring the surrounding hills on a walk with your guide. Soak up the spectacular views and perhaps see how the traditional Maasai live in one of the villages that dot Ngorongoro's slopes. On your full day here, you'll safari into the Ngorongoro Crater. A World Heritage Site, the Crater is home to vast numbers of animals; including wildebeest, zebra, lion and rhino.

After a leisurely breakfast, continue on around the Crater rim and down on to the Serengeti's plains. Gradually you pass less and less Maasai homes, until you leave the conservation area behind and enter the Serengeti National Park. Then it's a pure big-game safari into the heart of the park, where you'll find your base for the next two nights at the Serengeti Serena. As you are travelling in a private vehicle, you can decide with your private guide how you spend your safari time here: where to explore, when to stop and how long you stay.

Decide whether you'd like an early morning or more leisurely start. You'll then drive slowly back through the Serengeti, around the Crater rim and down towards Lake Manyara National Park. In the late afternoon, explore the lodge's large herb and vegetable garden or visit the children at the nearby orphanage whilst staying at Rhotia Valley Tented Lodge.
On your full day here, you'll visit the small yet exceptionally beautiful Lake Manyara National Park and discover its diverse range of habitats. Drive through evergreen forests, across open plains and alongside a shallow alkaline lake sometimes filled with flamingos.