Tanzanian Safari – Planning

We decided that since we’re in Africa we should go on a safari. We had a few hopes for what we’d get to see, lions would be nice, the migrating herds of wilderbeasts (no brains) and any other non-Kazakhstani/ Australian animal. However we were both very reserved as in our experience building yourself up for a great experience can sometimes result in a letdown. Believing the balloon in Goreme national park will sail through the pink canyons and finding out the balloon just goes straight up and down sometimes proves to cause you a let down even when in reality the journey, the sights and good times were ever-present.

What does going on safari actually entail, we didn’t really have any idea. As always searching on Google and trip advisor gave us few insights into other traveller’s experiences and what we might expect.  Surprisingly for all of the millions of photographs of elephants, lions and donkeys there are few good photos or descriptions of what you actually will find when you arrive. Our first step however was to select the destination for our safari.

Protea Lusaka – Not bad

Our home countries are pretty large, Kazakhstan the place most people can’t find on a map and Australia the place most people can find on a map (although the chaser did prove this wrong in America here). Africa however is a quite a whopper. Where to go?

We were based in Zambia working on a metallurgical project in the north which means we’re not too far (much closer than we would be if we were in Australia or Kazakhstan) from the Serengeti, Okavango Delta, Chobe, South Luangwa (in Zambia, There are many more but for whatever reason that’s just what came to mind). Looking through the prices and travel requirements we found out that everywhere was expensive except for the South African parks (Kruger) where you could get much better deals and self drive if you chose. We didn’t opt for South Africa mostly because we were a little concerned about travelling in the country due to its rate of crime (we were being too cautious in hindsight) and the difficulty of getting VISAs for residents of Kazakhstan. Price was definitely something which concerned us as the trip costs were in the hundreds of USD per day at a minimum, and if you wanted ‘premium’ accommodation the sky was the limit.   Therefore our decision was based more on ‘if we do this once because we won’t spend the money twice’ where would we most want to go. Our choice was the Serengeti. This is not terribly original but it seems, for whatever reason, to be the place where you should see the full complement of all the animals for the Lion King, a santa san.

Step one was complete, the next part proved more complex for us as we’re not massive detail planners. Our usual holidays involve a destination, the purchase of the lonely planet guide for the destination and a long search through Expedia and Trip Advisor to sort out where we should stay. The rest of the details we typically figure out on the plane or while we’re wandering around on the first day. This trip however couldn’t be like this as the costs were too high to make random choices and self driving/ making it up as you go along seemed to be too difficult (largely because the trip was only a couple of weeks total).  The more research we did the clearer that it became that an organised safari through Tanzania would be the best option. Sounds like something a safari operator would say but it’s what we figured based on the information we had. There are few other choices, you can self drive or hire a driver (not as part of an organised tour) and book your own accommodation, in either instance you apparently need a driver for the national parks. For us camping wouldn’t have been an issue but in hindsight the concept of having a thin plastic wall separating yourselves and a hyena is fairly scary for an Australian who’s used to camping in the bush where the worst that could happen is a cane toad accidentally running into your tent.

Self driving would’ve been good but there isn’t much good information. You have the self drive companies telling you it’s easy no problem just watch out for the police and pot holes, then you have the safari companies telling you you’d be mad to drive. We did find quite a few people questioning whether you could self drive or not on Trip advisor, truth be told I think the answer is yes now looking back. If you were to travel from Arusha to Tarangire, Ngorongoro/ Manyara there is good bitumen roads (I presume Ngorongoro to Serengeti would be the same however we didn’t take that route so we’re not sure). On the flip side having a driver means one less worry and all members in the group can spend time looking at animals, taking photos and less time worrying about where you are and where you need to go.

So that was our somewhat poor process of selecting what to do, pick something that might be from the Lion King and believe whatever the tour companies say about what you should do. We’re sure however given the choice again would choose the same but maybe take a few more hotel details down.

Kinigi Guest House

We contacted several safari companies after a relatively lengthy review of anything we could find on the internet. There seemed to be two main sources of reviews for Tanzanian companies. We found trip advisor and safaribooking to be the most useful. Mostly because they seem to have the largest number of reviews. Lonely planet was pretty handy but didn’t seem to contain as much information as the other two.  We did however notice that when we researched the safari companies there were very few if any negative reviews. This was certainly suspicious given that there are certainly a few things which we experienced in the end that would knock the trip down from a 5/5 to 4/5 (or quite a lot more). We’re not really sure why that’s the way it was but we suspect that maybe a lot of people don’t leave bad comments or maybe it’s just that in reality no matter how crappy the safari crew is or how much of a rip off it is you’re going to see some exciting stuff in the Serengeti so you’ll come back pretty stoked.

To be honest we attempted to work out the best locations to go using as many sources as possible but with all of the advice it was still difficult to evaluate. I guess this is the great quandary of travel is where to go rather than how to get there, most cases the how to get there is really more about how much money you have and less about how.

Our decisions then boiled down to three possible options. They were Bramwel Safaris (some Australians liked them and they thought Lena was Italian), Easy Travel and It started in Africa. Both Bramwel Safaris and It started in Africa were extremely fast to return responses to us, in fact within about 20 minutes of emailing It started in Africa on a Sunday night we had a response and a quote. We’d read a number of people complaining about communications with ‘It started in Africa’, being via Joao who appears to be Spanish, but he was certainly nice and very clear with the information sent through. Bramwel Safari seemed to be a little less flexible with where you could stay and as an outsider it’s a challenge to understand whether what you’re being offered is good bad or indifferent. Easy travel didn’t get back to us until about a week later so they were just about out. In the end the extra choice we appeared to get with It started in Africa ended winning out. They were quick and professional. All three ended up giving us prices of roughly $2550 USD per person. To us this was outrageous especially since with four of us travelling this added up to a decent sum of money.

Lake Natron

Before we go into details with numbers and flights I think we should point out destinations that we ended up choosing for our journey. So after extensive thinking and reading loads of information our plan looked as follows:

• Tarangire National Park (apparently the most attractive park in dry season, according to all of the tour operators)
• Ngorongoro Crater (well, coming all the way to Tanzania and not visiting the biggest caldera would be a sacrilege)
• Lake Natron (millions of pink flamingoes)
• Serengeti National Park (The Lion King)
• Lake Victoria

That’s what it looks like on the map. The Plan is in squiggle form as Google could not plot all the paths required:

Each colour indicates a day, hours for travel are rough and include a bit of site-seeing

Now back to numbers!

One thing we couldn’t find much of on the net were examples of prices for Safaris – Maybe we got ripped off but the details are below:

It Started in Africa cost as follows (2015, price is for four people) – This is the final plan

02.07.15 Lusaka to Kilimanjaro Accommodation in Arusha Planet Lodge
03.07.15 Tarangire NP Maramboi
04.07.15 Ngorongoro Rhino Lodge
05.07.15 Ngorongoro -> Lake Natron Lake Natron Camp
06.07.15 Lake Natron Lake Natron Camp
07.07.15 Lake Natron -> Serengeti Ang’ata Camp
08.07.15 Serengeti National Park Ang’ata Camp
09.07.15 Serengeti National Park Ang’ata Camp
10.07.15 Serengeti -> Mwanza

8 days safari – $170 USD per person = $5440 USD
Maramboi /Rhino Lodge / Lake Natron Tented camp = $100 USD per person per night = $1600 USD (4 nights)
Ang’ata Camps – $220 USD per person per night = $2640 USD (3 nights)
Planet Lodge – $115 USD per double room = $230 USD
Total: $9910 USD

In the course of our preparations for the trip it turned out that Rhino Lodge was fully booked out for the time we needed, so we decided to go with the Ang’ata camp Ngorongoro. So add another 120 USD per person to the total amount.

As we sort of recovered from the cost of our upcoming tour it was time to book the flights. Just to remind you, we were going on a trip with our parents, and as they were planning to come and stay in Solwezi with us after the safari trip. We came to the conclusion that meeting in Lusaka before the trip was the simplest. We haven’t included the Australian flight details as this was not required for us. Luckily (or not) there is only a handful of airlines that do flights to our chosen destinations. In general it turned out pretty well as we didn’t need to hunt around multiple airlines, just needed to find right connections among the limited options. The least problematic were the flights from Solwezi to Lusaka and back. There is a company charter, Royal Air Charters, that has daily flights, the most important is to book the seats in time. If there is no access to the charter, there is always another daily flight with Proflight Zambia.

The next leg to get from Lusaka to Arusha where are tour is to commence didn’t seem to be as straight forward. We found several options:

1. Lusaka – Dar es Salaam with FastJet. This was the most economical option, I looked at it in February when I was planning a trip with friends following pretty much the same route (unfortunately the trip didn’t work out, but memories and notes from planning remained). To get to Arusha from Dar we could catch a bus which would’ve made it pretty cheap in comparison to some other options. However, for some reason FastJet decided to change departure and arrival times on this route. Now instead of leaving in the morning, as was the case in February, the flight departs late in the evening arriving around midnight when the last bus to Arusha is long gone. Besides, the flights do not depart every day and trying to adjust to their schedule is not very convenient for us. Shame…
2. Lusaka – Kilimanjaro with Kenya Airways. With a stopover in Nairobi which is not quite on the way… But departure and arrival time is convenient and the price is bearable. Fly out during the day, arrive to Kilimanjaro in the evening, transfer to Arusha with a tour company car, there will even be enough time for dinner. This way our parents who are flying from Australia will have some rest after their whopper Brisbane-Perth-Johannesburg-Lusaka journey.
3. There were some other airlines, of course: South African Airways, Ethiopian Airlines and even Qatar Airways, but all of them do at least one stopover somewhere in SA, Ethiopia, Qatar, which is additional time spent on board of an aircraft rather than surrounded by elephants and zebras on the vast grassland of Serengeti. As well as that the price is not that appealing.
4. We also looked at the train option to get from Zambia to Tanzania or the other way. TAZARA Railway connects Kapiri Mposhi in Zambia and Dar es Salaam. Trains pass through the national park in the south of Tanzania so it could be a good option to see both the north and the south of the country in one go. It is relatively cheap even for the first class sleeper (you wouldn’t want to go in a lower class). But it takes a long time! About 48 hours, if you are lucky and the train is not late and hasn’t got derailed, which doesn’t seem to be that uncommon. Anyway, after reading through the reviews of some travellers, especially after their remarks about sanitary conditions on the train, our desire to go on a train adventure progressively faded away.

To cut a long story short we decided to go with option number 2 (Kenya Airways), which turned out to be the most convenient for us time wise. 466 USD x 4 less in our account and tickets are ours.

You might want to ask about our return flights? I think, it’s a story for a different article.

The only thing left to do in terms of planning for our adventure in Tanzania is to book accommodation in Mwanza where our safari terminates. Luckily, neither searching nor booking took long time. Thanks to Bramwel Safaris who recommended Malaika Beach Resort to us. Judging by the reviews and photos the place is pretty good. Besides, it is located right on the shore of Lake Victoria. What could be better than sitting on the balcony of a hotel room overlooking a vast lake having some rest after being in the car for so long. We booked it on our favourite Expedia.com, and it cost 158 USD per room (not per person for a change) per night.

Now the most exciting things: getting visa to Tanzania for Lena (lucky those who do not need to do it) and packing bags. We’ll probably describe these two processes separately.

And just to summarize all the above written stuff here is a plan that we more or less follow when preparing for our trips.

1. Decide on a destination
2. Find interesting places to see there
3. Choose whether we’ll organise everything ourselves or through a travel agent. (Most of the times we do it all ourselves , the only exception so far is our Trip in Tanzania)
4. Draft an itinerary
5. Book flights
6. Book accommodation
7. Get a visa if it is required (for some reason people aith a kangaroo and emu on their passports can get almost everywhere without visas and a beautiful Kazakhstan passport has to go through multiple embassies for visa stickers) – This item can be moved around depending on visa requirements of the destination country
8. Make up a detailed itinerary and plan (mostly don on the go)
9. Prepare and pack everything in suitcases / backpacks
10. Get on the plane
11. Enjoy the adventures!

Hopefully you will find something useful from this large long collection of words and numbers above. If you have any questions do not hesitate to ask, we are always happy to help fellow travellers.