Plan your safari
View across the floor of the Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania

Ngorongoro Crater Safaris

The Ngorongoro Crater: the Big Five inside a collapsed volcano, some of the densest game viewing in Africa.

Plan your safari Highlights

Ngorongoro is a 260-square-kilometer caldera whose floor holds some 25,000 large animals year-round, including one of East Africa’s last reliable populations of black rhino. Lion, elephant, buffalo and huge herds of zebra and wildebeest live inside walls 600 meters high.

A Ngorongoro Crater safari rewards an early start: we have you on the floor at first light, hours before the day-trip vehicles arrive, and back at your rim lodge for a late lunch. It also pairs naturally with the Serengeti and Tarangire on a classic northern-circuit safari.

View across the floor of the Ngorongoro Crater from the rim, Tanzania
The crater floor, seen from the rim: soda lake, forest and grassland

Highlights of Ngorongoro Crater

Black rhino

One of the most reliable places in East Africa to see this critically endangered species.

The crater floor at dawn

Lion on the move, hyena clans returning from the night’s hunt, and golden light on the crater walls.

Rim lodges

Sleep 2,300 meters up on the crater rim, with the whole caldera below your veranda.

Maasai highlands

Walk the Empakaai and Olmoti craters with a Maasai guide. Few visitors ever do.

Where you’ll stay in Ngorongoro Crater

Where you stay is selected privately around your journey. We recommend each camp, lodge or villa according to its location, season, guiding, privacy and suitability for the people traveling. You’ll then see the places we suggest, and why, in your itinerary.

Plan your private safari

Practical details,
in one place

Money, health, connectivity and packing work the same way on every safari we plan, so they live in one place rather than on every page.

Best time for a Ngorongoro Crater safari

Jun–Oct

Dry season: short grass and easy sightings, but the busiest months.

Nov–May

Green season. Then the crater floor turns emerald and visitor numbers drop. Game viewing stays excellent because the animals never leave.

Quieter seasons, considered

Also, in the green months rates ease at many of these camps, the plains empty of vehicles and the light turns dramatic. What each season gives, and what it trades, is set out in our Safari Planning Guide.

Planning & cost

Safari cost

Priced to your budget, and built around your camps, the season and how you like to travel. There are no fixed packages.

Crater fees

Entry to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area is US$70.80 per adult per 24 hours, while the crater service fee is US$295 per vehicle for each descent to the crater floor. Both are included in our proposals; in addition, our Tanzania park fees guide lists every current rate.

How we travel

Every journey is privately designed, with private guides and vehicles arranged where specified, the finest lodges, and a specialist on call throughout. At fly-in camps, game drives may be shared unless a private vehicle is reserved.

Ngorongoro Crater FAQs

In general, one full crater day is enough for most travelers, with two nights on the rim and the full day on the floor in between. Add a day if you want to hike the highlands or visit a Maasai community.

It can be, particularly mid-morning in high season. The answer is timing: enter at gate opening, have the floor to yourself before the day-trippers arrive, and be back at the rim for lunch. A private vehicle makes this easy.

Yes. It is one of the few places where all five are possible in a single day, though leopard is shy and elephant in the crater are mostly old bulls.

Getting to Tanzania: flights, visas and health

Correct when we wrote it. Before you travel, we check every requirement for your exact route and tell you what to apply for and when.

AirportsKilimanjaro International (JRO) for the northern circuit, Julius Nyerere, Dar es Salaam (DAR) for the south, and Zanzibar (ZNZ) for the islands. Bush flights to the camps leave from Arusha Airport (ARK) and the park airstrips.
Getting thereNo nonstop from the US: connect once through Amsterdam (KLM), Doha (Qatar), Istanbul (Turkish) or Addis Ababa (Ethiopian). Plan on 18–24 hours door to door.
Visa: US citizensUS citizens need the multiple-entry e-visa (about $100), applied for online before travel; allow two to four weeks. Apply only at the official portal: visa.immigration.go.tz.
HealthYellow fever certificate required only if you arrive from a country where the disease is present (a layover over twelve hours in one can count). Malaria prophylaxis is advised for all safari areas. Country guidance: CDC Travelers’ Health.
PassportSix months’ validity beyond your return date, with at least two blank pages. Travel insurance including medical evacuation is required on every journey we plan. Tanzania also requires one applicable mandatory inbound insurance policy (USD 44), determined by your first point of entry; see our inbound insurance guide.
Full flight guidePlan your safari

Plan your Ngorongoro safari.

A Ngorongoro Crater safari is short by design, because one full day on the floor is usually enough.

So tell us how you like to travel and start with a complimentary consultation.

Plan your safari

For official park rules, fees and opening hours, see the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority.