>>> Join me on the ultimate African bucket list adventure — Great Migration Safari (with river crossing!) in September 2024!!!! This is as high up on the bucket list as it gets people — WE’RE PEAKING!! <<<

If you’d like to embark on your own safari adventure, I would love to organize a custom trip for you!! Let’s chat about bringing your dream trip to life!!!

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After our amazing adventure in Uganda featuring gorilla trekking (see my blog post here!), us remaining adventurers from my Adventurelust group headed over to more epic wildlife encounters in Tanzania.

MAFIA ISLAND

We happened to be over in East Africa, and it was whale shark season, so I couldn’t not add a Mafia Island add-on to my Epic Adventure Meet-Up after Uganda!!! Major shout-out to my biz partners Chasing Dreams Safaris for organizing the amazing itinerary for this part of the trip and also bailing us out of some major travel catastrophes with missed flights! So clutch to have a reliable partner. For any of you reading this, Chasing Dreams Safaris and I would love to organize a trip for you and promise it will be as seamless and magical as you deserve it to be! :)

Mafia was SO cool (I mean with a name like that, how could it not be badass). Compared to its more popular tourist counterpart Tanzanian island Zanzibar, Mafia is super remote, with sandy streets, local vibes, and the main draw here is of course the whale sharks.

This is an experience that did NOT disappoint! The whale sharks come SO CLOSE, and they are THE SIZE OF FREAKING BUSSES (they get up to 16 metres!!), they are the world’s largest fish and eat small plankton, they’re completely harmless, but that does not mean you don’t get a fright when you jump off the boat and come face to face with one!! Here’s a reel to get a glimpse of the experience!

We stayed at Butiama Bustani hotel which was epic jungley island vibes, and they also have 2 other beachfront locations around the island. A few of us did a dive day with Big Blu Dive Centre and it was just delightful, with beautiful coral, tons of fish and a surprise turtle at the end! I love diving so much so it was just very meditative and special to be back underwater. We also did a dhow boat cruise for sunset that turned out to be a BLAST and we had a dance party to our local legend friend Moses. 3-4 nights is perfect on this island and we were off to the next adventure!!!

SAFARI

We flew from Mafia-DAR, DAR-Arusha, and kicked off the safari portion of our Epic Adventurelust Meet-Up in partnership with Adventurelust X Chasing Dreams Safaris. The Sergenti and Ngorongoro Crater are probably the most iconic safari destinations in the world so I was sooo excited to finally check them out and see if it all lived up to the hype (spoiler alert, it did, and so much so that I have arranged an even more iconic version of this trip for Sept 2024!)

We spent a night at the beautiful Arusha Villa, a lovely hotel on a coffee estate with lots of tasteful cozy nooks to chill out. Then the next morning we were off to find us some wildlife!

TARANGIRE

Our first safari stop was Tarangire National Park, which is soo beautiful with its massive baobab trees and tons of ellies! It was a lovely first start to our safari for seeing general game like antelope, warthogs, and zebra as well. We stayed outside of the park at one of the most spectacular lodges I have ever stayed at, the 5-star Treetops Lodge by Elewana, and ohmygod this place is next level. The staff is so friendly, welcoming, attentive, the main lodge is absolutely stunning with a giant baobab tree set as the centrepiece (where hundreds of bats swarm out every night in a CRAZY plot twist), the food is unreal, main lodge is gorgeous with a sunken fire pit with s’mores ingredients, and rooms are tents on stilts looking out over the forest and the best freaking showers I’ve ever had in my life. This is an epic honeymoon or treat-yo self stop, trust me!!

NDUTU

So the migration moves throughout Tanzania before passing across the Mara River (which we will see on our 2024 trip!) into Kenya for a few months, and at the time of our trip now in early December the first herds were starting to arrive in the Ndutu area of Southern Serengeti. Coulda fooled me because I’m pretty sure EVERY WILDEBEEST ON PLANET EARTH WAS HERE, it was absolutely insane, animals for days, and you understand in a second why the Serengeti gets all its hype!! “Serengit” is a Maasai word meaning “endless plains” and they are not wrong — you can see for days and days and when it’s dotted with wildlife, it’s just beyond special.

In Ndutu we stayed at Nyikani Migration Camp, a low-footprint camp which moves with the migration, which I absolutely LOVED. Being a camp you feel very connected to nature, fully immersed, but the tents are still super luxury with comfy beds, carpets, a flushing toilet, even a hot water bottle that they put in your bed at turndown!

Ndutu is beautiful landscapes, a giant lake COVERED with flamingoes, we saw plenty of giant lions (mostly sleepy guys), some adorable lion cubs playing in a bush, watched a cheetah stalk some gazelle at sunset while enjoying some delish g+ts, and had an insane experience where an agitated leopard literally charged us — only for like 1 second but it was enough to scare the shite out of us!! Was amazing to witness iconic scenes of wildebeest silhouettes crossing the riverbed, beautiful lone trees on the horizon, you know all that Africa magic — absolutely loved it here!

CENTRAL SERENGETI

We moved onto the epicentre of the “endless plains” where our highlights were a pride of about 22 lions (including cutie cubs) feasting on a fresh zebra kill, and a magical hot air balloon flight at sunrise with Miracle Experiences, followed by brunch in the bush. Such a special feeling to be here in the Serengeti, so famous even Toto sings about it!

We spent two nights here — one at a rustic camp called Baobab Migration Camp with permanent tents on raised platforms, and one at an amazing lodge Kubu Kubu overlooking the plains with an infinity pool, included drinks and an outdoor shower (check, check, check, yup uh huh).

Tons of beautiful sightings around here: giraffes, ellies, hippos, buffalo, even two male cheetahs hunting some hartebeest (didn’t quite catch the kill!), these landscapes are so beautiful and I can’t wait to get back for more.

MAASAI BOMA

You will see Maasai tribes all along the drives to safari, with their eye-catching signature dress of vibrant red, blues, and greens, tending to their herds of cows and goats, creating the most beautiful scenes throughout the landscapes. We stopped at a boma on our way out of the Serengeti in Ngorongoro Conservation area where the tribe graciously welcomed us in, performed their tribal dance and song, shared a jumping competition, made fire, and showed us their homes. The chief took me in for a showing of one of his 4 wives’ huts and I’m pretty sure I became the 5th wife... (It’s not abnormal to have 12 wives and 26 kids). It’s quite amazing to see this culture and its traditions (like eating cows’ blood) still intact, and I could not get over how there are not fences around the wildlife parks in Tanzania so the lions can literally strut up to the boma. These people are truly so connected to the earth and the wildlife and it’s incredible to get to witness!

NGORONGORO CRATER

As the largest intact caldera in the world, Ngorongoro is super famous and totally worth a visit to Tanzania to see this natural wonder alone. We spent a cozy night at the rim of the crater at Lion’s Paw lodge by Karibu Lodges & Camps, which was complete with an electric heated blanket and magical views of the crater below.

In the morning for sunrise, after a slight ellie roadblock, we descended into the crater and this was my favourite part of the whole trip. HOLY this place is MAGICAL. There was so much to take in — the clouds were cascading over the crater rim (Table Mountain style), sun was rising, soon we were surrounded by herds of wildebeest, buffalo, zebras, found some beautiful bathing ellies, and even spotted rhinos. This place is truly a sanctuary and it is pumping with life. Check out my reel here! We enjoyed a coffee and amarula by a hippo lake and had an idyllic safari morning.

LAKE MANYARA

After leaving the glorious crater we headed off to our final stop of this amazing itinerary — Kilimamoja Lodge in Lake Manyara (reel here). This place is fit for royalty, stunningly detailed and elaborate decor, an expansive infinity pool stretching out to the view over the Great Rift Valley, and the rooms had TWO INDOOR SHOWER HEADS PLUS AN OUTDOOR SHOWER PLUS A BATH. An absolutely magnificent place to decompress after a busy safari and enjoy some pool and bath time.

I truly can’t thank my partners at Chasing Dreams Safaris enough for this incredible trip, as well as my fellow Adventurelusters for accompanying me — can’t wait to do it again next time (but plus Kilimanjaro, in dry season (easier to see), hot air balloon over the migration, and seeing the ultimate electric wildlife sighting: the Great Migration crossing the river as they fend off crocs and other predators. It has been absolutely amazing and the adventures aren’t over yet!!!

Email me to get in touch about this trip or other adventures! I would love to help bring your dream trip to life!