The Great Migration Encounter — 6-Day Serengeti Safari

Welcome to Tanzania. Your private guide meets you at Kilimanjaro International Airport and drives you to your lodge on the outskirts of Arusha, a green town in the foothills of Mount Meru.

After time to settle in and rest after your flight, your guide joins you for a safari briefing over dinner: where the migration herds are this month, what to expect on each game drive and how to get the best photographs from the vehicle.

Overnight: lodge in Arusha (Full Board)

After breakfast, drive two hours south-west across the Maasai steppe to Tarangire National Park. In the dry season this park holds some of the largest elephant gatherings in Tanzania, with herds coming down to drink in the Tarangire River beneath giant baobab trees.

Spend the day on game drives along the river and through the acacia woodland, with a picnic lunch in the park. Look for lion, leopard, giraffe, buffalo and fringe-eared oryx, and for some of the park's more than 550 bird species, including the yellow-collared lovebird.

As the light softens in the late afternoon, continue game viewing on the way to your lodge.

Overnight: lodge or tented camp in the Tarangire area (Full Board)

Leave early and climb through the Great Rift Valley and the farmland of the Karatu highlands into the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. Stop at the crater rim viewpoint for your first look into the caldera, then descend past Maasai grazing land to the Serengeti plains.

After a picnic lunch at the park gate, your guide heads towards the area where the migration herds are currently grazing, stopping for the predators that live in the central Serengeti: lion prides on the kopjes, cheetahs on the open grass and leopards in the riverine trees around Seronera.

Arrive at your tented camp in time for a sundowner as the plains turn gold.

Overnight: tented camp in the Serengeti (Full Board)

Wake before dawn for your hot-air balloon flight, included in this safari. Drift silently above the plains as the sun rises and the herds below begin to move, then land for a champagne breakfast in the bush.

The rest of the day is dedicated to the migration. Depending on the month, your guide takes you to the calving grounds in the south, the herds moving through the central and western Serengeti, or the northern river crossing points. Watch long columns of wildebeest and zebra on the move and the predators that shadow them, and take your time at each sighting with a picnic lunch in the field.

Return to camp in the late afternoon for dinner under the stars.

Overnight: tented camp in the Serengeti (Full Board)

Enjoy a final morning game drive in the Serengeti before driving east into the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. Stop at Olduvai Gorge, one of the world's most important sites for the study of human origins, on the way.

In the afternoon, descend 600 metres onto the floor of the Ngorongoro Crater. This enclosed caldera of around 260 square kilometres is home to lion, elephant, buffalo, spotted hyena, hippo and one of Tanzania's last populations of black rhino, making it one of the best places in Africa to see the Big Five in a single game drive.

Climb back up to the rim for the night at your lodge.

Overnight: lodge on the Ngorongoro Crater rim or in Karatu (Full Board)

After breakfast, visit a Maasai boma in the Ngorongoro highlands. Families welcome you into their homestead, explain how their cattle-herding way of life works alongside the wildlife, and share songs and traditional dances.

Continue through the green Karatu highlands and the Rift Valley back to Arusha for a farewell lunch, then transfer to Kilimanjaro International Airport for your onward flight, or to your hotel if you are extending your stay.

End of safari.