Daraja Travel
The sun low over an acacia treeline, three guests in red-check chairs with their backs to the camera and two staff at a white-clothed drinks table to the right
EXPERIENCES

Beyond the game drive — the things worth stopping for

Optional activities · add any of them to your itinerary

Beyond the standard game drive, Tanzania holds a good deal that is worth making time for — sometimes worth another night. These are the optional activities we are asked about most often, and the ones we are happiest to recommend. Add any of them to your itinerary whenever you like.

All ten at a glance
  1. 01Walking safari in TarangireUSD 30–50 pp (varies with party size)
  2. 02Night game drive in TarangireUSD 110–165 pp (varies with party size)
  3. 03Bush breakfast / bush dinnerUSD 40–100 pp (varies by lodge)
  4. 04SundownerUSD 50–100 pp (varies by lodge)
  5. 05Walking safari in NgorongoroUSD 30 pp
  6. 06Kilimanjaro foothill walk & Chagga coffeeUSD 50–100 pp
  7. 07Balloon safariUSD 550–600 pp
  8. 08Helicopter flight over Lake NatronQuoted on your party size
  9. 09Visiting a Maasai bomaUSD 10–55 pp (varies with party size)
  10. 10Out on the water in Zanzibar (dolphins / snorkelling / sunset cruise)USD 80–120 pp (depends on the trip, the waters and party size)
Three walkers seen from behind in waist-high golden grass, with zebra and an elephant under baobabs ahead of them
Tarangire National Park

Walking safari in Tarangire

Leave the vehicle behind and walk into Tarangire with an armed professional guide. The pace is slow, but you see far more detail than you ever do from a car — tracks, stripped bark, fresh dung, every one of them evidence of an animal that passed through, read aloud to you as you go. Your guide will also bring you face to face with wildlife, at a safe distance. People who like to get to the bottom of things, and families travelling with children, tend to love this one.

USD 30–50 pp (varies with party size)1–3 hours
Tip
Early morning or late afternoon is the most comfortable, and the animals are more active. Midday is hot — best avoided.
Good to know
Closed in April and May.
A leopard lying in the grass under a spotlight, looking back at the camera against total darkness
Tarangire National Park

Night game drive in Tarangire

Once the sun goes down, Tarangire changes its cast. The nocturnal animals you rarely see by day — leopard, serval, bushbaby — come out, and as the spotlight sweeps the grass it catches pairs of reflecting eyes. With luck you find something mid-hunt. It is a completely different experience from the daytime, and it suits anyone who has already done the day drives and wants something else.

USD 110–165 pp (varies with party size)
A long table laid with white linen and Maasai-check chair covers in open bush at dusk, ringed by lanterns and candles
Depends on the lodge

Bush breakfast / bush dinner

A meal carried out into the open. The team sets the table long before you arrive, and you eat in the middle of the plains — breakfast with the sun just up, dinner under the stars beside a fire. The food and the service are serious; what is rare is the pleasure of eating out there, between the earth and the sky.

USD 40–100 pp (varies by lodge)
Good to know
Offered by some lodges only — needs confirming in advance.
The sun low over an acacia treeline, three guests in red-check chairs with their backs to the camera and two staff at a white-clothed drinks table to the right
Depends on the lodge

Sundowner

An African sunset deserves to be taken seriously. Your guide picks high ground with a long view, sets out a small table and the drinks, and you stand with a glass in your hand while the sun sinks into the plains. Those fifteen minutes as the sky goes from gold to red to violet are, for most people, the part of the day they least want to end.

USD 50–100 pp (varies by lodge)
Good to know
Offered by some lodges only, usually with a minimum party size — needs confirming in advance.
A line of walkers on a steep green slope thick with ferns and creepers, a lake in the valley below to the left
NgorongoroIncluded as standard

Walking safari in Ngorongoro

One of our own favourites. Walking the rim of the Ngorongoro crater gives you an angle on it that no vehicle can reach; your armed guide talks through the plants and animals as you go, and close encounters with wildlife are very possible along the way. It is good enough that we build it into our standard itineraries by default.

USD 30 pp
Good to know
Needs confirming in advance.
Chagga farmsteads with tin roofs scattered across terraced fields and banana groves on a cloud-wrapped slope of Kilimanjaro
Moshi · Kilimanjaro foothills

Kilimanjaro foothill walk & Chagga coffee

If your itinerary happens to include a night in Moshi and the day is not rushed, the walk in the foothills of Kilimanjaro is well worth it. The route passes through Chagga villages, with your guide talking about their culture and daily life along the way; halfway you stop at a local home for a traditional Chagga lunch, then make coffee the old way with your own hands — roasting, grinding and brewing a cup you worked for.

USD 50–100 pp
Tip
For guests staying in Moshi with a reasonably open day.
A dark-green and cream hot-air balloon drifting low over acacia trees at dawn, its burner flame lighting the base of the envelope
Serengeti

Balloon safari

You lift off before first light and drift silently over the waking Serengeti. Below you are the herds just coming to life, and the dawn light turning the whole plain gold — an angle you will never get from inside a vehicle. A champagne bush breakfast usually follows the landing, to round the morning off.

USD 550–600 pp
Good to know
Space is tight in high season — book well ahead.
Aerial view of Lake Natron: dark red mineral flats veined with pale channels, a small helicopter on the surface and a volcano mirrored in the shallows beyond
Arusha → Lake Natron

Helicopter flight over Lake Natron

Departing Arusha, the helicopter compresses a very long drive into a piece of sightseeing — roughly an hour circling above Lake Natron, then a landing for a look at the shore itself. That water, stained red by the minerals in it, is startling from the air. It suits photographers particularly, and anyone at the top end who would rather not spend the hours on a rough road.

Quoted on your party size
Good to know
Needs confirming in advance.
A Maasai boma from above: thatched mud-roofed houses inside a ring of timber stockade, villagers in red and blue shukas gathered in the clearing at its centre
Maasai country

Visiting a Maasai boma

We do our best to take you to a Maasai village where the commercial edge is not so sharp. You can step inside their homes and see how life is run, put on the red shuka, and join in the jumping dance they are known for. It is a rare stretch of time in which you genuinely meet the people who live here.

USD 10–55 pp (varies with party size)
Three dolphins breaking clear of the deep blue Indian Ocean in a burst of spray, with a flat horizon behind them
Zanzibar

Out on the water in Zanzibar (dolphins / snorkelling / sunset cruise)

Once you reach Zanzibar the sea takes over. Your driver runs you down to the bay and a boat is chartered from there — dolphin trips work mainly around Kizimkazi and Mnemba, or you can choose snorkelling or a sunset cruise instead. Slipping into the Indian Ocean to swim alongside dolphins, or motoring slowly back into harbour in the last of the light, are the most relaxed things the island offers.

USD 80–120 pp (depends on the trip, the waters and party size)
Good to know
Zanzibar activities are not run by us: both the boats and the vehicles are operated by local partners. Our experienced local operations team does everything it can to keep the day running smoothly.

All prices above are indicative. They move with the season, the size of your party and each lodge’s own policy — your final quote is what counts.

Which ones would you like to add?

Generate your itinerary and its transparent quote first, then we will work the experiences you have chosen into it.

Get your itinerary & quote
WeChat
Your travel advisor's WeChat QR code
Your travel advisor

Want more detail on any of these experiences? Ask your travel advisor

Emailhello@darajatravel.com