Follow the Migration in Tanzania

We booked our 10-day safari in Tanzania and Kenya through Discover Africa, and it exceeded every expectation. From our first conversation through the end of our journey, everything was exceptionally well organized, allowing us to focus entirely on enjoying the experience.

A special thank you to Bianca, who helped us design our itinerary. She was knowledgeable, responsive, and incredibly patient throughout the planning process. We had a lot of questions, compared multiple itinerary options, and made several adjustments along the way. Bianca always provided thoughtful recommendations, explained the tradeoffs, and never made us feel rushed. Her expertise was invaluable in building an itinerary that perfectly matched what we were looking for.

Every transfer, flight, and accommodation was seamlessly coordinated. We never had to worry about logistics, and everything ran exactly as planned.

The itinerary itself was phenomenal. We experienced Cape Town, Victoria Falls, Tanzania, and Kenya, culminating in an unforgettable safari where we witnessed the Great Migration, saw the Big Five, and had incredible wildlife encounters throughout. The accommodations Discover Africa selected were all excellent, each offering something unique while consistently delivering outstanding hospitality and service.

What impressed us most was that Discover Africa didn’t simply book hotels and flights. They helped craft an experience. The pacing of the trip, the choice of camps, and the routing between destinations all came together to create a vacation we’ll remember for the rest of our lives.

If you’re planning an African safari and want a company that genuinely listens to your preferences and takes the stress out of organizing a complex itinerary, I highly recommend Discover Africa. Thank you to Bianca and the entire team for helping us create the trip of a lifetime.

Our private family safari to Tanzania couldn’t be better! Dev in the home office was super well-organised and answered all our questions promptly and accurately. The safari was very well organised. Frank was the best driver/guide we could ever hope for: personable, knowledgeable and possessing a seemingly superhuman ability to spot all types of game while carefully driving the safari vehicle. All the lodges we stayed at on our safari were each, in their own way, special.

It was downright amazing to be driving all day in the African bush and then drive up to a beautiful luxury lodge at the end of a long game drive. Each one was unique in its own way. All of us will long remember the outdoor shower at Lahia Tented Camp overlooking the Great Migration just below us, as just one example. We viewed tens of thousands of large African mammals. In short, I highly recommend our private, luxury 13-day Tanzania Family Safari.

My early July eight-day safari was supposed to capture the Mara River crossings but the herds failed to cooperate and had only just reached the river on the last day. Nonetheless the safari was a fabulous success. We flew from Zanzibar directly to Lake Manyara to minimize drive times and spend more days on game drives.

Antoinette put our trip together: the lake, Ngorongoro Crater, the Central Serengeti and the Northern Serengeti. Our guide delivered the goods. Penuel Tango had a vast knowledge of both the animals and the lay of the land along with a fully equipped and fully working vehicle that made the daily game drives easy and fun.

Not only did he know where to find the prized critters, he could spot them from far away when all we could see were grass and trees. Lions, leopards, cheetahs, jackals, rhinos, elephants, buffalo, and the great herds were all open to us on every drive. He knew the stories of lion prides in the area. Our goal was to see as many animals as we could and we did. We were up close and personal with lions, cheetahs and leopards on every drive. He was patient made waiting for action a priority and in being so we were often had “private” viewings of the big cats.

The huge herds of the Northern Serengeti were a wonder to see and experience up close as they made their way north and Penuel knew all about them, their habits and life cycles.

Overnight lodging was the lesser part of each day but Antoinette arranged great camps with good food and accommodations that all had very attentive and friendly staff. Boxed lunches provided for game drives were sufficient and varied. July is peak season for safaris and we saw and learned about the experiences of others. Not all were perfect. Not all were well planned. Broken vehicles and bad guides happen. With Discover Africa we didn’t have any troubles anytime during the adventure. The planning time Antoinette spent with me up front paid off mightily. Zoom calls with her topped trying to do things only by email.

Everything happened right on time and without any hitches. Flights were smooth and effortless, accommodations seamless, Guide interactions perfect. Excellent work all around.

My wife and I scheduled our honeymoon through Discover Africa just by finding them through a simple Google search. A client of theirs called us right away and then over the next several weeks helped us figure out what package of travel we wanted.

We ended up going on a safari in Tanzania for 10 days while the wildebeest were migrating and then 5 days on Zanzibar to relax. We scheduled all of this in 2019, and when the pandemic hit Discover Africa was kind enough to allow us to simply reschedule to 2021. Once we finally did get to go on our safari we were with a guide almost the entire first 5 days of the trip, which was AWESOME.

A guide was there to immediately meet us after getting of the final airplane’s stairs to walk us through the Tanzania customs and Covid protocols. A guide was then there to drive us to the first hotel and was super informative and great to talk to after a long plane ride. We then met with our actual safari tour guide that night to walk us through what would be happening starting the next morning since we were getting up early to check out OH, and The African Tulip hotel was amazing and they treated us to a surprise, private honeymoon dinner by the pool as with our own little fire pit.

The next morning we went to Lake Manyara with our guide and were blown away right away with all the animals we saw. 5- 10 minutes in we saw a group of giraffes followed up almost immediately by 2 elephants crossing the road only a car’s length behind us. Absolutely surreal. The rest of the day was full of different types of gazelle, babboon, huge baobab trees, water buffalo, dik-diks, and others I’m forgetting. We saw several elephants very close to the car which was awesome. We ate a prepared lunch for us on the top of the overlook of the Lake. Nothing fantastic about the food but they were all designed to be “safe” food choices for everyone’s diet and sensitivities. The safari took up the entire day and we were exhausted and happy as the tour guide took us to our next hotel where we had our own little condominium room. This next place as well put flowers on the bed and treated us special for our honeymoon.

The next morning we had the same tour guide (who had 17 years experience by the way) and went to Ngorongoro Conservation. He drove us up the jungly, misty, crater outer mountain and stopped to look over the massive bowl. Then we descended into the crater and immediately saw zebra, tons of wildebeest, and a RHINO (from a distance). Again a day full of tons of HERDS of gazelle, ostrich, zebra, wildebeest and LIONS laying on the very side of the road, without a care in the world about us getting up close. We ate lunch by this body of water and even it had a herd of hippos popping their heads up out of the water looking at us eat our sandwiches! Again another exhausting, exciting day with elephants as well. Our tour guide took us back to the same hotel that night.

The next morning our tour guide took us to the airport and walked us through the little bit of security that they had to get on a small plane to head to the Serengeti. The plane was small but never felt unsafe. Once we arrived in the Serengeti we were given some tea and were immediately whisked off onto our next safari. There were a heard of hippos basically AT THE AIRPORT. Then we drove off and had lunch with a group of 20+ elephants and baby elephants drinking in the Mara river. Then we were abruptly told to hold onto our lunches to go see the RIVER CROSSING of wildebeest going nuts on the Mara and dodging crocodiles. The day was full of eagles, wildebeest, zebra, giraffe, a duo of MALE LIONS, and much more. The night was at a beautiful, huge tent with our own tent with a shower and double vanity mirror and huge bed. We fell asleep to the sound of wildebeest “moos” and hyena yelps.

The next morning we woke up at 4AM for a morning HOT AIR BALLOON ride. It was around $300 a person but so worth it. The safari car ride can be very bumpy so it was nice to see the Serengeti from a higher vantage point with a smooth voyage. We got the balloon up just as high basically to be above the trees and look down on the herds of animals from above. We also got maybe 15 feet from the center of the Mara river as we hovered directly down the center of it. We even got to see a LEOPARD from above! We landed smoothly and had mimosas to celebrate and were taken off to a hot breakfast in a place surrounded by trees. We got to meet other people safariing from all over the world and the staff everywhere was always so nice.

We then went off to Zanzibar for the last 5 days which was such a different pace than constantly safariing that it was a little hard to pump the adrenaline. The beach was nice but hard to relax with a pretty steady flow of people trying to sell you things or get you to go on excursions with them. We did go diving with DOLPHINS which was probably $120 and was absolutely worth it. We also went scuba diving briefly. Zanzibar was mostly for relaxing, which we definitely did, but looking back on it we wished we had spent more time safarring and maybe only two days on the beach.

All in all,everything with Discover Africa was fantastic. We would highly recommend to anyone willing to travel there.

Booked safari adventure in Kenya at main Governor’s Camp and in Uganda at the Silverback Lodge. Both experiences were outstanding and exceeded expectations. Also booked the hot air balloon safari and it was breathtaking to include seeing the sun rise as we began our journey over the Maasai Mara.

All bush plane connections/flights were on time and a nice addition to our adventure. Gorilla Trekking was beyond compare and while quite strenuous, well worth the effort. Walking sticks and porters made the journey much easier!

All accommodations were superb and the food was outstanding! Breakfast in the bush and happy hour cocktails all added to the experience in the wild observing a wide variety of animals up close.

Our trip was arranged by Carel Verhoef at discoverafrica.com and was perfectly organised.

We flew into the Masai Mara from Nairobi and all flight connections and transfers were arranged for us and went like clockwork. Carel was also very generous with his advice having lived in East Africa for some years – he is a mine of useful information.

My wife and I have had this trip to see the wildebeest migration on our bucket list for some time and we decided to go this year to coincide with our wedding anniversary. For that reason we were looking for something special yet reasonably priced and Carel helped us find Mara Ngenche. What a spectacularly good choice that was.

We stayed for 5 nights the camp and were extremely well looked after. The staff are fantastic. Our waiter, Steve, learnt what food we liked and didn’t like and was always on hand with a glass of wine and also taught us some Swahili! The Masai guards who escorted us to & from our tent especially Musanga, Karbolo & Lindeni were always on hand, very polite and interesting. Almost everyone speaks excellent English.

The game drive vehicle that we used was completely open at the top and sides and was very comfortable. We had some fabulous sightings with Joseph, our very experienced driver/guide. He was excellent at anticipating the animal’s movements to ensure good photos. In one afternoon we saw the Big 5 and on another occasion 4½, as we could only see the leopard’s tail that time.

The position of the camp on the confluence of two rivers was so relaxing and we often sat on the deck watching the 30 or so hippos all day, even though they didn’t move very much. Breakfasts and lunches were served under the trees beside the river. Dinner, served in the restaurant, was four courses and was beautifully prepared and presented.

Overall, it was a fantastic trip and the staff at Mara Ngenche made it more than special. When it came time to leave, my wife cried because she didn’t want to go. Of all the holidays we’ve had over the years, this has been our most memorable.