- On a recent five-day safari in Tanzania, I visited the Serengeti, Ngorongoro, and Tarangire.
- With so much traveling, I ended up staying at three luxury lodges, each with a different flavor.
- In one, I stayed in private huts overlooking a salt lake; another had luxury tents on the edge of the Serengeti; and the third was in a converted farmhouse on a 500-acre coffee farm.
- The entire safari from African Budget Safaris cost $2,500 a person, including lodging, food, park passes, and a guide, which was a bargain considering the quality of the experience I got.
Even at their cheapest, safaris are expensive. Leave out the long flight to eastern or southern Africa and the trip will still cost a few thousand dollars a person at a minimum.
For my safari to Tanzania a few months ago, I ended up booking a trip with African Budget Safaris and Tanzania Experience. They fashioned a five-day itinerary through Tanzania's northern circuit, which includes the Serengeti, one of the most famous safari destinations in the world.
I was both ecstatic and slightly worried when they told me the price would come to $2,500 a person all-in. I'm talking food, lodging, guide, and park passes. It may sound like a lot, but when most of the safaris I was finding were $5,000 or up, the price felt suspiciously low. The last thing I wanted while on safari was to be staying in a leaky tent swarmed with bugs or eating cornmeal for dinner for days.
Thankfully, in this case, my worries were misplaced.
The tour operator booked me at lodges all run by Tanganyika Wilderness Camps, a company that runs locally owned safari lodges. While they weren't exactly the Four Seasons, they didn't need to be: Each was beautiful in its own way.
Here's what it was like to stay there.