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On Safari with Safari Tours | Tanzania in Tanzania

Beginning your safari with Safari Tours | Tanzania

You would usually expect to be collected from your hotel by your guide and support team (if joining a camping safari) at 0730 on the morning of your safari start date. Unless you have requested a private safari (most of our Tanzanian safaris are arranged on private basis, whereas our Kenyan safaris are all arranged on open-group basis) where there are safari-goers staying at different hotels this pick-up time may be deferred slightly. Those joining safaris on which there are other group members staying at different hotels who wish to have an accurate estimate of their amended pick-up time are asked to either call our Arusha office on +255 78 777 5895.

Following pick-up, transfer times to your first safari venue will vary from 40 minutes-odd for Arusha National Park, to more than 3 hours if going direct to Ngorongoro on your first day, or if doing a day trip to the crater. Our drivers know the roads intimately and tend to drive very confidently. While all are trained to drive with respect to the sensibilities of foreigner visitors, please don’t feel inhibited from letting the driver know if you feel that his driving is uncomfortably fast and you wish him to drive slower. His brief is to maximise your enjoyment of the experience and his time is yours throughout the duration of your itinerary. While he will be aiming to maximise your time within the national parks, the transfer to the national parks is beautiful also and you need never feel rushed, unless you have requested a special itinerary that is deliberately compact, we have advised you that such an itinerary is rather ‘rushed’ and you have acknowledged this but have made clear that this is acceptable to you. In this event, there are certain legs of the journey which will be time-sensitive, on which the driver is required to reach manned check-in points before certain cut-off times, as his permits for each park will have a pre-determined duration of validity. At any stage of a safari, should you feel that the pace is quicker than you expected, please discuss this with your driver and he will outline your options to amend your itinerary.

Equipment used on Safari Tours | Tanzania lightweight camping safaris

Adventurers going on lightweight camping safaris are required to themselves supply the kit listed on our recommended personal kit check list. Safari Tours | Tanzania provides the following equipment on safari:

• Lightweight Portable Sleeping tents
• Mess tents for meals (unless staying exclusively at camps which have dining areas)
• Tables and chairs.
• All necessary cutlery and ancillaries for meals and drinks.
• Custom-designed 4cm-thick foam sleeping mattresses.
• Wash basins for rudimentary personal ablutions. In addition, most camps have basic showers.
• Private portable toilets if staying in minimal environmental impact wilderness camps that have no permanent infrastructure.
• First Aid Kits.

Food on a Safari Tours | Tanzania Camping Safari

While it’s admittedly easy for a company to dig out something favourable to publish from past guests, the following comments are fairly typical and our cooks really do excel and take their work very seriously:

“Wonderful meals and we were constantly astounded at the quality of the food and the variety of the menu.”

“The food from STT was very good ...  Every lunch and dinner started with a hot soup and the meals were very tasty.”

“The quality of the food was top notch and I was never wanting from lack of food (in fact, I was provided at least twice the amount of food than I was able to consume at every meal)!”

“James and Ima were both fantastic guides, and the food prepared by Daniel was probably best we'd experienced during our time in Tanzania!”

“The equipment was great (better than many other company's equipment from what we saw).  The food was fantastic. .. Very, very nice crew.”

“The standard of food and accomodation was a lot better than we ever expected.

Catering for vegetarians on safari

We are also often asked whether we are able to cater for vegetarians. We are, and we estimate that vegetarians comprise some 10% or so of all our guests, so this is a very usual request.

We do not operate set menus and conversely, our cooks are at liberty to prepare their own favourite choices of meals, which we find encourages flare and diversity.

Dinner protocol on safari - avoiding awkwardness or misunderstanding

Guests’ preferences vary and there are no fixed customs over meals. Solo travellers will often want the guide to join them for dinner whereas honeymoon couples will usually prefer to eat alone. We ask guests to please therefore be very frank, clear and confident with your guide in expressing your own preferences, day by day, such as ‘Tonight Marco, I think Jim and I will take dinner alone’ or ‘This afternoon would you like to join us for lunch, Ayubu?’.

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