Arusha is the gateway to Tanzania’s northern safari circuit. For centuries a trading town and watering hole for explorers, this bustling rather scruffy town still exudes a great sense of anticipation and excitement. Land Rovers laden with supplies or sprayed with the mud of a recent excursion grumble their way up the streets, and the local airport buzzes with light aircraft heading in and out of the bush. Arusha sprawls beneath the massive bulk of Mount Meru, which when not shrouded in cloud, stands like a mighty sentinel against the vivid blue sky.

Ngorongoro crater floor is fundamentally the world’s most famous wildlife amphitheater, rearing more than 3,000 feet out of the surrounding plains 180km to the north west of Arusha in the north of Tanzania. At the centre of this vast elevated highland is Ngorongoro Crater, the world’s largest unbroken ancient caldera, and surely the most dramatic section of the famous East African Great Rift Valley. A World Heritage Site and dubbed the Eighth Wonder of the World, it is a veritable microcosm of African ecology, and appears like a lost world in the middle of the forest.  

Head southwards into short grass plains bordering the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, and enjoy full day game drive with picnic en-route before heading northwards into the Mara River Region. Anticipate density of wildlife inhabiting the area, coexisting with semi-nomadic Maasai pastoralists practicing traditional livestock grazing.  

Behold globally threatened species and the annual migration of wildebeest, zebra, gazelles and other animals.