East Africa Year-Round Migration Safari

The Arusha Coffee Lodge is a fine way to start your East African travels: with Mount Meru in the distance, the emerald bushes studded with red beans surrounding you, and the smell of coffee in the air. Your first night on safari is spent in a welcoming Plantation Room, deep in the estate. Each room is comfortably furnished and has a romantic log fire to ward off the evening chill.

The lodge is on the outskirts of Arusha, the nearest town to all the northern Tanzanian game parks. While here, visit the Tanzanite Museum or the Maasai Market, or learn more about coffee on the estate tour. Be sure to make time for a relaxing spa treatment at Peaberries to ease into the adventure mood.

Travel through Lake Manyara National Park en route to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. Lake Manyara is renowned for its rich birdlife and tree-climbing lion population (they clamber into the branches to escape the heat and several members of a single pride can all be in the same tree at once). Your home for the next two nights is the magical Gibb’s Farm, set against the forested highlands of the Big 5-rich Ngorongoro Crater – the biggest intact and unfilled volcanic caldera in the world.

Enjoy the warm and friendly atmosphere of the original farmhouse and your charming suite, set in the heart of a working coffee plantation and dairy farm. Savour healthy, home-cooked meals featuring garden-fresh vegetables and organic fruit from the farm. Take the opportunity to unwind with a variety of treatments at the African Living Spa, featuring traditional Maasai healing techniques. 

Go on guided walks on the rim of the famous Crater and go on exhilarating game drives down into the caldera. The scenery is absolutely spectacular and the Ngorongoro is home to about 30 000 animals that are protected by the caldera and sustained by the Crater’s springs and rich grazing. It is not unusual to see all the Big 5 in a single day.

Time marches on and it is time for you to migrate to the Serengeti, where the traditional Ubuntu Mobile Camp is waiting to welcome you. Offering the feel of raw wilderness and authentic safari, it keeps comfort in mind. Ubuntu Camp moves with the Great Wildebeest Migration, always offering you the best game-viewing opportunities: from May to July, it is in the Western Corridor between the Nyakoroma Hills and the border of the Serengeti; from July to October it moves to the northern Serengeti; from December to March, the tents are pitched at the Ngorongoro Conservancy Area.

All eight tents have safari classics, such as fire-heated bucket showers. Bathrooms are en-suite, and with 20 metres or 66 feet between tents, you are guaranteed privacy while the barriers between you and the wild are kept to a minimum.

You have your own vehicle and guide, who spends 11 months of the year with the herds and passes on this intimate knowledge of their behaviour to you. Game drives are a top activity at Ubuntu Mobile Camp but during the months in the south, the best option is a guided walking safari, which can last an hour or half a day (depending on your fitness and preferences) and sometimes brings you up close to elephant, giraffe, buffalo or even far-off lion.

Close to the confluence of the Mara and Talek rivers, in one of the most game-rich areas of the Masai Mara, sits Rekero Camp, a deceptively simple eco-camp that is ideally situated for the annual Wildebeest Migration, and which is your next destination. This mobile camp is set up seasonally, from June to October, and December to March. There are nine spacious tents, each en-suite with flush toilets and showers. Each tent also has a deck with a daybed that invites you to have a quiet siesta after a morning or afternoon of adrenaline-inducing game viewing. Each also has its own personal butler to attend to your needs.

Rekero offers an in-depth and truly authentic Mara experience, and its guides share their knowledge willingly. Take a cultural tour or visit a local village to learn more about the ancient Maasai warriors who have long trod this land. There is also birding, game drives, guided walks and picnics on the menu, as well as hot-air ballooning.

At the end of your East African odyssey, you return to Arusha for your onward arrangements home.