For a honeymoon
Tanzania: scale, and what it costs
Vast in a way the Mara is not, with the easiest beach join in East Africa.
The case
Scale is the argument, and it is not a marketing word here. The Serengeti is enormous; you can drive for an hour and see the same horizon. The Ngorongoro Crater — a collapsed caldera holding a permanent, contained population — has no equivalent anywhere on earth. The southern and western parks are properly remote, with a fraction of the vehicles and genuinely good walking.
The migration spends more of the year in Tanzania than in Kenya, including the February calving in the south, which is among the great wildlife events and is far less crowded than the river crossings everybody photographs.
And Zanzibar is forty minutes by light aircraft from the Serengeti airstrips, which is the easiest bush-to-beach join in East Africa.
The caveat
It costs more than Kenya for a comparable camp, and the distances mean more internal flights, which at this level is a real line on the quote rather than a rounding error.
The Crater is also heavily visited and cannot be otherwise — it is a finite space with a road down into it. It is worth one full day and it is not a place you will have to yourself.
The Tanzanian honeymoon that works
Three or four nights in the Serengeti — southern in February, northern from July — one night at the Crater rim, then four or five in Zanzibar.
Two flights, and the second half is a different world from the first.
When to go
June to October in the north for the dry season and the crossings. January to March in the south for the calving and the best weather on Zanzibar. April and May are the long rains.
What it costs, relatively
The higher end of the five. Camp rates run above Kenyan equivalents, park fees are substantial, and the internal flying adds up. What you are buying is scale and the Crater, neither of which is available anywhere else.
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