Luxury Tanzania Safaris

Driving safaris and game drives can lead you into multiple encounters with Tanzania’s fractious beasts, hot air balloon safaris allow you to glide silently above the action, while walking safaris put you at eye level. Buffaloes that glance, quickly, suddenly, from the tall grass; distant crocodiles that flop into lazy waters; or the strange nests of the hamerkop bird, decorated with old bones. Most importantly for any luxury Tanzania safari, the country is part of the route covered by the Great Migration – that once yearly, mass movement of zebra, buffalo, and gazelle. Heart-thumping, jaw-dropping. You don’t want to miss out.

Luxury vacations to Tanzania are – yes – all about the animal life. But the country’s natural scenery cannot go unmentioned. The Ngorongoro conservation area, a World Heritage Site in the Crater Highlands of Tanzania, features the massive, wild, and animal-filled caldera of Ngorongoro Crater. The name stems from the sound made by the cowbell (ngoro ngoro) used by Maasai pastoralists. The crater widens the eyes – in great, sloping waves of sharp green and blue-tinged mountains that rear in the expansive distance. A little to the north, on the Kenyan border, is the stately massif of Mount Kilimanjaro – snow-slaked, and holding up the vast East African sky.

Some 50 km off the coast of mainland Tanzania, the island cluster of the Zanzibar archipelago arouses in the mind images of spice, coral reefs, and white sand beaches. Their beauty belies the island’s storied past – once a land grab of Portuguese and British colonialism. Today, while turtles and lionfish paddle over the reefs, locals still talk of the spirits that slip between the shadows of the trees. It is a beautiful, breath-slowing location, but it has a history – and a sense of place – that reaches far back in time. Luckily, a popular local cocktail is the dawas – ‘magic potion.’ Put another way, there’s something restorative, something healing, during any luxury honeymoon spent in beautiful Zanzibar.