Ultimate Tanzania: Serengeti, Selous & the Spice Islands

Four nights at Lemala Camps in the Serengeti, timed to the migration calendar.

Lemala repositions its camps seasonally across the ecosystem, from the southern plains where the herds calve between December and March, to the central Seronera corridor in the dry season, to the northern reaches near the Mara River crossings between July and October.

Wherever you are placed, dawn game drives into open savannah and evening returns through fading golden light define the rhythm. The Serengeti rewards time: four nights is enough to begin to feel its scale.

A light aircraft to the south crosses the vast interior of Tanzania to the Nyerere National Park, where Sand Rivers sits on a remote bend of the Rufiji River.

This is one of Africa’s great alternative safari destinations; a protected area larger than Switzerland, with a fraction of the visitors and an ecosystem built around water rather than open plains. Three nights here are built around guided walks through riverine forest, boat safaris past hippos and crocodiles, and the particular quality of silence that comes from being genuinely far from anywhere.

Sand River itself is one of the most architecturally distinctive camps in East Africa, open-fronted and directly above the river, designed to make the boundary between inside and outside irrelevant.

A transfer across the island brings you to Baraza Zanzibar for the final four nights.

One of the Indian Ocean coast’s most acclaimed luxury retreats, Baraza sits directly on a stretch of white sand on the southeast coast, where butler service, an award-winning spa, and some of the finest Swahili-inflected cuisine on the island define the pace.

The reef is accessible directly from the beach, the villas are generous and private, and the property is large enough to feel complete in itself yet intimate enough never to feel crowded. It is a fitting close to a journey of discovery across Tanzania.