Unforgettable Safaris in Tanzania: Explore the Wild Now

Safari - Circuits

With over 30% of Tanzania’s land under protected status, there are many safari destinations to choose from. These are divided geographically into four safari circuits. Dotcom Safaris offers excursions to all spots in Tanzania – and we also offer the best of southern Kenya (such as Masai Mara). Take a peek at each of the safari circuits and then talk to our trip designers to arrive at the perfect itinerary for your desires.

Northern Circuit

Northern Circuit of Tanzania is the most popular circuit, containing some of Africa’s best safari destinations – the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater.

Dotcom Safaris is perfectly located to arrange your Northern Circuit safari. The Northern Circuit destinations have long formed the heart of our business. With years of experience in planning and leading customized safari expeditions throughout Tanzania, we at Dotcom Safaris are passionate about what we do. We are committed to providing unforgettable experiences for our guests. We offer a wide range of itineraries to suit anyone’s expectations, including luxury lodge safaris, camping safaris, fly-in safaris, authentic tribal tours, and migration safaris to the Serengeti and Masai Mara.

The Northern Circuit is the home of the classic safari experience from the endless short-grass plain of Serengeti to the dense river lying forest of Tarangire to the blended ecosystem of Ngorongoro an abundance of wildlife the perfectly capture the safari experience.

Serengeti

Covering an area of 14,763 square kilometers, the world famous Serengeti National Park is Tanzania’s oldest park.

Ngorongoro

Ngorongoro Crater was an active volcano but its cone collapsed, forming the crater that is 610 meters deep.

Tarangire

The park’s permanent water supply ensures a huge and varied animal population.

Olduvai

The site of some of the most important finds of early hominid fossils of all time The “Nutcracker Man”

Arusha Park

Only 20km from the city of Arusha, this is surpisingly not a heavily visited park. Beautiful scenery including Mt Meru and plenty of antelopes and giraffes.

Lake Manyara

In a single day, a visitor may see elephant, buffalo, zebra, hippo and the curious lions which have a habit of resting in trees.

Mkomazi

Kenya’s vast Tsavo National Park shares a border with Mkomazi, making common ground for migratory herds of elephant, oryx and zebra during the wet season

Lake Natron

In northern Tanzania, close to the Kenyan border, sits Lake Natron, a soda lake rich in minerals. Thousands of lesser flamingos breed there, despite the fact that the strikingly crimson waters are extremely alkaline.

Western Circuit

The Western Circuit is comprised of Katavi, Mahale Mountains, Gombe Stream, and Lake Tanganyika. All stunningly beautiful and definitely off the beaten path.

Western Tanzania is is relatively undiscovered by tourists and still boasts some of the largest herds of animals in Africa. Protected from large number of tourists by its remote loction, it takes five hours to reach any part of Western Tanzania. Once there the reward of beauty, wildlife, and untouched nature is unrivalled. Dotcom Safaris can arrange your most amazing experience visitng the Western Circuit.

Most people visit the western circuit to track chimpanzees in Gombe or Mahale Mountains National Park. These two chimp reserves on the shore of Lake Tanganyika offer the best chimp tracking in Africa. Getting here is expensive and time-consuming and is mostly done by chartered plane from Arusha. Instead of visiting one of the chimp reserves as an add-on to a safari in the north, you can combine it with a safari in Katavi, which is the savannah reserve in the Western Circuit and probably Tanzania’s least visited park. Not for lack of wildlife, though. This park offers excellent game viewing in the dry season with superb wilderness appeal, which will will give you an old-time safari experience.

Gombe

Tthe smallest but one of the best known of Tanzania’s National Park’s made famous for its primates and the research center

Katavi

This remote and difficult park to reach (strictly recommended for those of an adventurous spirit) lies on a high flood plain surrounding Lake Kitavi, to the south of the Mahale Mountains.

Mahale

Located at Ujiji on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, where Stanley is reputed to have met Livingstone and given the famous greeting “Dr. Livingstone, I presume”. The Mahale Mountains, like Gombe, are one of the last natural home to chimpanzees and are rich in birdlife.

Southern Circuit

The national parks of southern Tanzania have earned a reputation as the best secret of African safaris. The remote location, limited bed space, and boundless bushes ensure that the safari experience of Tanzania’s southern land remain as the true and unadultrerated variety.

A southern Tanzania safari tour takes you to the remote areas which are almost untouched and unexplored. We offer special packages starting from Zanzibar or Dar es Salaam to Nyerere National Park (formerly Selous Game Reserve), Mikumi National Park, Ruaha National Park, and Udzungwa Mountains National Park.

You can choose to start your itinerary from Dar es Salaam or Zanzibar. It is also easy to fly from Kilimanjaro Airport/Arusha Airport to Dar es Salaam or directly into the safari destinations to begin your Southern Circuit safari experience.

Mikumi

Home to, among others, the buffalo, zebra, giraffe, lion, wild dogs, python, monitor lizard, hartebeest, wildebeest, elephant hippo, impala, warthog, eland and antelope.

Ruaha

It is the northernmost example of Miombo woodland, common in central Africa, and the most southerly protected area in which Grant’s gazelle, lesser kudu and striped hyena are found.

Nyerere National Park

A large part of the famed Selous Game Reserve has now become Nyerere National Park. It is second only to the Serengeti in its concentration of wildlife.

Udzungwa

The large resident populations of Elephant, Buffalo, Lion, Leopard, Wild Dog and Sable Antelope reside primarily on the side of the mountain range which is presently inaccessible.

Serengeti Migration

The great Migration of the Serengeti is considered one of “The Ten Wonders of The Natural World”, and one of the best events in Tanzania to witness. A truly awe-inspiring spectacle of “life and death“ in an expansive ecosystem ruled by rainfall and the urge for survival amongst the herbivores of the Serengeti plains.

The journey for the key players in this circular great wildebeest migration is highly weather dependent and dynamic, it begins in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area of the southern Serengeti in Tanzania and loops in a clockwise direction through the Serengeti National Park and north towards the Masai Mara reserve in Kenya.

It is a favourite season for many of the seasoned Serengeti guides: the air during these months is full of new life and action. Predators like lions and hyenas are constantly hunting for babies, thousands and thousands of calves are born within a couple weeks of each other – a feast for the eyes of true wildlife enthusiasts.

You should know that migration is a natural phenomenon determined by the availability of grazing. The initial phase lasts from approximately January to March, when the calving season begins in what is called Ndutu, an area that straddles the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Conservation Area (but not the crater). During this time there is plenty of rain-ripened grass available for the 260,000 zebra that precede 1.7 million wildebeest and the following hundreds of thousands of other plains game, including around 470,000 gazelles.

As the rains come to the north, the lure of fresh grass drives the herds to the north. There is no natural leader of the herds but once a few decide it is time to go, many others follow. The herds fragment but can be be up to 40km long (25 miles). Some of the herds move through the Seronera (central Serengeti) while others travel further west, through the Western Corridor of the Serengeti. The Grumeti and Mbalageti Rivers with its Nile crocodiles pose a risk along the wqy, but the worst is yet to come.

Typically from early July, the herds reach northern Serengeti (Kogatende) and the Mara River. While a portion of the herds choose to remain south of the river, many risk the obstacles of lions, hyenas, and crocodiles to make the spectacular crossing. What is not commonly known is at this portion of the Mara River, both sides of the river are in the Serengeti. The Masai Mara is further to the north and less than half of the herds enter the Masai Mara.

With the beginning of the short rains, typically in October, the migration makes its way back south into the Seronera portion of the Serengeti where the official Serengeti Visitors’ Centre is located. By late December the herds have returned to their calving grounds again in Ndutu and the circle is ready to repeat.