Arusha • Gombe Stream • Katavi • Lake Manyara • Mahale Mountains • Mikumi • Mkomazi Game Reserve • Ngorongoro Crater • Ruaha • Rubondo Island • Saadani • Selous Game Reserve • Serengeti • Tarangire • Udzungwa Mountains
Islands
Mafia • Pemba • Zanzibar
Lakes
Lake Eyasi • Lake Manyara • Lake Natron • Lake Tanganyika • Lake Victoria
Mountains & Volcanoes
Mount Meru • The Crater Highlands • The Eastern Arc Mountain Range • Monduli Mountains • Mount Hanang • Mount Kilimanjaro • Ol Donyo Lengai • Pare Mountains • Udzungwa Mountain • Uluguru Mountains • Usambara Mountains
Other characteristics
Service levels
Budget • Medium • Luxury
Accept credit cards
Visa • MasterCard • American Express
Have a safari evacuation insurance policy
Yes
Have scheduled tours that individuals or small groups can join
No
Have private, custom-tailored tours
Yes
Type of vehicles
4 Wheel Drive • In country flights
Type of accommodations
Home stay • Lodges • Hotels • Budget Camps • Mobile Camps • Permanent Tented Camps • Hostels
We used Access 2 Tanzania for a family trip with 2 grandparents, 4 grandchildren and their 4 parents. This was a memorable trip and fantastic in all ways thanks to Access 2 Tanzania.
The planning for this trip took many, many E-mails and Karen at Access 2 tanzania was
very prompt in answering all my inquiries and fulfilling all my needs regarding this trip.
Our guides, Mussa and David were extraordinary! Anyone who uses them as guides will have a fantastic experience. They are very knowledgeable, very good with children, very
willing to help in all ways, and ready to fulfill all requests that we had.
Our accommodations inMt. Meru Lodge in Arusha were wonderful. The people, the food, and the ambience were all very special. I canalso highly recommend Maramboi Tented Camp, The Ngorongoro Farmhouse, Sopa Ngorongoro Lodge, and Mapito Tented Camp.
The only place we stayed that we suggest people stay away from was KIA Lodge near the airport. The rooms weren't clean, the service was poor, and the food was quite poor.
The one splurge was at The Bilila in the Serengeti which I would strongly recommend.
Watching 30 plus elephants drinking from a pool right beneath where our swimming pool was, was very special. The food, the rooms, the atmosphere was first class and very special indeed! Their lunch service was excellent and I would strongly recommend this facility .
Visiting a local Arusha school, visiting a Masai Bomba, and taking a hike through the Chaga village all added the cultural aspects I requested.
The guides were quick to find all the animals we were looking for. Seeing a lion kill, watching baby lion cubs interacting with their Mom, having a leopard just a few feet away, seeing a White Rhino, Hippos, cheetahs, elephants, giraffes, and on and on were amazing sights to see and experience.
Our guides were always available and changed our itinerary to meet our added requests.
They drove all over to find the July Migration into Kenya. They wanted all of our experiences to be wonderful. Most important is how they handled 2 10 year olds and 2 14 year olds. The kids miss them and feel that Mussa and David will always be very special to them.
Using Access 2 Tanzania is a very personal and positive way to plan a trip to Tanzania.
Access 2 Tanzania was very easy to work with in planning our safari for nearly 1 year. After dealing with Karen I didn't even bother receiving quotes from other companies. I just felt comfortable with her in the way she handled the itinerary details. If I paid slightly more it was worth it in the service I received from her.
Our trip started out on a direct flight into JRO. We had not purchased our Visas yet and waited about 20 minutes in line to buy them. They never asked to see our Yellow Fever certificates. All of luggage made it to Arusha! Our guide Said was awaiting our arrival. He was a really great guy and we liked him immediately. We were a family of three traveling with our 15 soon to turn 16 year old. We checked into the Arumeru River Lodge outside of town. They served us a late dinner and off to sleep. The room was decent,three comfortable beds, but the mosquito netting was not right on my son's bed. It hung right on top of him and disturbed his sleep. They were able to put a loop in the next day so it hung properly around the bed instead of on top of him The property was lovely and relaxing. There was wildlife like dik diks and birds all around the property. We spent the whole next day and evening here. Said picked us up and took us to Arusha in the afternoon for some shopping. Went to the Mt. Meru Market and bought wooden bowls and carvings. We ended up at Swala Gems in the Arusha Hotel to buy a gorgeous piece of Tanzanite. It was not the cheapest per carat price, but the quality was beaufiful. Swala is a very reputable jeweler. I am awaiting my finished necklace at my local jeweler back home. My son wanted to hit an internet cafe and they were plentiful. Also changed some money into local currency. Food at Arumeru was variable. Breakfast and dinner were decent, lunch was terrible. The main reception area was lovely and we played a game of Scrabble while trying the local beers. Safari beer was our favorite. Our last morning they made a mistake and woke us up at 7;30am to pick up luggage, we weren't leaving until 11:00 am.
The next day leaving Arusha our guide Said took us to a local barbeque restaurant. Quite a fun and interesting experience. We headed out to the main paved road on our way to Taranguire National Park. We got a flat tire on the way. Our guide with the help of passerbys was able to change the tire. Taranguire was filled with elephants and many other animals. We were amazed at the shear quantity of wildlife. We arrived in the evening to the Maramboi Tented Camp. It was a large tent on a wood platform with a balcony looking over the Rift Valley and Lake Manyara. We had 3 comfortable beds. Large bathroom area with good shower pressure. Really well run camp with very good food, and Said was allowed to dine with us. Offered free wifi and internet. The next morning we left early and did a morning game drive. Fantastic. Around 1pm we did some shopping at local Maasai market. Wooden bowls,carving and beaded bowl that they were making right there. Really fun bargaining. Had a scheduled bush walk at 4:30pm. The guide never showed so they sent us out with a bartender. Not exactly what we expected. He did his best, but clearly this was not his job. We walked amongst zebra, wildebeast, giraffe, warthogs,flamingos, storks and pelicans to the shore of Lake Manyara. This was very safe and truly did not need a guide here, only to give info which we really didn't receive anyway under the circumstances.
Left Maramboi early with a boxed lunch (very good) on the way to our bike ride down the Rift Escarpment through the village into the Rift Valley. My husband got a flat tire in the first few minutes. The equipment was not in good condition. His brakes overheated the tire. They tried for a long time to repair the tube which had been patched already several times. My brakes did not work well either. It was a steep incline and you needed reliable brakes. After thinking we'd just skip this activity they brought us 2 different bikes that made it the rest of the trip. Once getting into the Mesquito Village the roads were rough and unpaved. We saw local people, the kids ran out to say hallo. We saw many animals including a huge hippo pool. Our bike guide was very knowledgable about the area. We ate our box lunches under banana trees in the village. It was getting pretty hot after riding a couple hours. We decided to head back. We went to a real local Maasai market and bought a blanket for $5, no need to bargain, the price was so low. We went on to check into the Ngorongoro Farmhouse.
The room at the Farmhouse was huge and probably our nicest. Great water pressure and no shortage of hot water. The grounds here were very beautiful. A good walk to our unit with 3 separate beds. We had our laundry done for $58. The first night they ran out of food and did not refill. People were not happy. This only happened the one night and I'm not sure what the reason was. They had a lovely deck outside the dining area where they had local music performances and appetizers. We enjoyed a game of Scrabble in this lovely setting. Left Farmhouse next morning for a scheduled canoe trip on Lake Manyara. The water was super shallow and it was kind of a boring canoe excursion. My guide spent a lot of time talking on his cell phone. Really wouldn't recommend this activity here. We took a picnic box lunch in Manyara National Park. Still no lions, but saw hippos. Did a little shopping on the way back to the Farmhouse. Bought a huge painting for $60. Ting ting is the style it's like 9 paintings in one. Just had it restretched and hung it yesterday! Also bought t-shirts at the Shirt Shack. $15/shirt, better deals back in Arusha, but nice shirts. Shopped a little more the next morning bought mask,candle holder and another blanket. On the way to the Ngorongoro Crater a huge elephant crossed the road on the rim right in front of our car. Spent several hours in the crater and saw honeymooning lions.
Checked into the Sopa Ngorongoro and it was a very nice room 3 beds. Hot water only available from 5 - 8 am and pm. Not a problem at all. The food was sit down service for lunch and dinner. Breakfast was buffet. The food was very good and nice choices. It got quite cold here in the evenings. There was a cape buffalo right outside, we had a guard escort us to our rooms. This was a very nice place to stay. Big area to take photos of the sun setting over the crater. Nice bar area to enjoy a beverage. Internet did not work well here. The next morning we went into the crater at 6:30am. Saw cheetahs, lions. hippos, elephants, and ostriches were the highlight. Only animal not seen was the rhino. We took our guide to find a geocache for those of you familiar, there are hidden caches around Tanzania, we found a few. Said really enjoyed this activity. At 2:00pm we left for the Olmati Crater to do a hike with an armed ranger. It was moderately strenuous, mainly because of the altitude. We climbed 650 vertical feet. It was about a 45 minute hike up. The view was beautiful. My husband and the ranger went to the waterfall which was very steep down and up. My son and I sat with Said and enjoyed the view before heading down.
The next morning we heading out for the long drive to the Serena Serengeti. Saw hippos, lions and a leopard in a tree. Had lunch at the Serengeti Medium Camp. Nice lunch, but the tents here were not great and I was very glad we weren't staying here. We had a problem with the starter on our vehicle. Said borrowed another vehicle so we could check into our hotel while he got ours fixed. There were fires all over the place and it was very smoky. Our room for the 1 night was average chain hotel size. They fit 3 beds in, but it was not big. There was a fan and a hair dryer. The shower pressure was good, but the shower was not clean. We played Scrabble in the nice bar area with appetizers. Dinner was nice a buffet with lots of choices.
Left the Serena early the next morning to head out for the western Serengeti. Arrived at the Kensington Serengeti at about 5:30pm. It was a tough ride, I had some stomach pain and rest rooms were not plentiful. I took the Cipro my travel clinic prescribed and within 12 hours I was feeling better (might have gotten better anyways, but who knows?) we saw a big pride of lions, tons of zebras, tons of wildebeasts, a jackal eating a gazelle and vultures eating something. Arrived just in time for a short warm shower. Our shower head was broken and would fall off and hit you in the head. The toilet leaked dirty toilet water all over the commode area (yuck). They put a bucket under the leak to catch the water. Did fix the shower head the next day. Zipper to the tent trapped us in and we had to climb on all fours to get out of tent. Lots of bugs and safari ants. A spider the size of a mouse was in the bathroom according to my husband. 2 beds in this location. Beds were comfortable, but the tent was not great. They have a campfire at night before dinner to visit with the few other guests. All the other people there were on a Kensington Tour, we obviously were not. Food here was no choice and limited quantity. Food was edible, but not good. The next morning was my son's 16th birthday. I woke up early and the staff helped me put up a banner and some crepe paper to decorate the dining tent. They also made a special cake for him that night for dinner. Turned off the lights and brought it in all lit up and sang to him. This was very nice and greatly appreciated. On our game drive we saw honeymooning lions mate over and over. Saw lots of wildebeasts, zebras and even crocodiles. There was little water in the river so no killing at the crossing. Crossed the river on a swinging foot bridge with a natural tree swing on the other side. Very fun. Got very hot in the Serengeti in the afternoon. The flies were terrible. Luckily it cools down at night for sleeping. We had a break in the afternoon to hangout and play Scrabble in the tent for relaxing, unfortunately some workers drove up making lots of noise and playing loud music ruined our quiet time. The roads are so dusty and rough that our pop up on the vehicle broke the last full day. Said was able to rig it up with some rubber strips and it was fine, but would need to be fixed along with a permanent fix for the starter problem we had earlier. We heard lions roaring in the middle of the night not far from the tents. Pretty cool.
Next morning we did a short game drive on the way to the Grumeti Airstrip. Said goodbye to Said and flew on to the Seronera Airstrip it was a rough flight. We picked up some more passengers and flew at a higher altitude so it was less turbulence into Arusha. Our plane swerved on the runway as we landed. 2 flat tires! Planes landing behind us had to go over us inorder to land. Pretty scary. By the way they did not weigh or car how much luggage we had. Don't know if this is normal, but it was our situation. We arrived early and waited or another guide to arrive to take us back to the Arumeru River Lodge for a day room. The guide was Mussa, a very nice guy. He took us back to the Mt.Meru Market for some last minute purchases. We showered and relaxed at the Arumeru. They gave us an early dinner before we headed back to JRO to catch our return flight home.
A catering truck hit our plane in Amsterdam. We were 11 1/2 hours delayed which caused crew time limit issues. Ended up diverting our flight to JFK and we had to go through customs there instead of Minneapolis our final destination. My son got food poisoning at the McDonalds in Amsterdam (we think) and was violently ill on the flight back for a couple hours. A real living nightmare. Once he could hold down a Benedryl is helps with nausea and make him drowsy. He made it home feeling much better, but not a pleasant situation for any of us. Flight home was not the best, but glad to finally make it home.
Tanzania was amazing and thanks to Access 2 Tanzania we had a wonderful experience. Highly recommend them.
My wife and I (in our early 60s) took a safari trip to Tanzania in February of this year. We booked the trip with Access 2 Tanzania and Mussa was our driver/guide. We were delighted with both the tour company and the guide. We didn't encounter any problems on the trip, and everything went according to plan. Karen at Access 2 Tanzania promptly answered all our questions and her suggested changes to my first cut at an itinerary were excellent. You can learn a great deal about a person when you are with him/her for such a concentrated period of time, and we were most impressed not only by Mussa's sense of responsibility to us, to his employers and to the land itself (not to mention to his family), but also his integrity, good humour, driving ability and general knowledge. We enjoyed Mussa's sense of humour, his extensive knowledge of the land, the animals, and to our immense enjoyment, the birds. If you weren't a birder before going on a trip with Mussa, you automatically became one on the journey. We spent the first day (Saturday) in Arusha after arriving at JRO from AMS the previous evening (two nights at the Arumeru River Lodge). The next day (Sunday), we drove from Arusha to Tarangire NP, followed by one night at the Kirurumu Tented Lodge. On Monday, we visited Lake Manyara NP before driving in the late afternoon to the Ngorongoro Crater for two nights at the Sopa Lodge. We spent Tuesday in the Crater itself. On Wednesday, we drove from the Ngorongoro Crater to the Olakira Tented Camp in the Lake Ndutu area, with stops at Olduvai Gorge and the Shifting Sands. . We spent two nights at Olakira, and on Thursday, we spent the day driving around the Lake Ndutu area. On Friday, we drove to the Moru Kopjes area in the Central Serengeti for two nights at the Dunia Tented Camp. On Saturday, we spent the day "exploring" the Central Serengeti (Seronera River, etc.). On Sunday, Mussa dropped us off at the Seronera airstrip for a flight back to Arusha, and in the evening we took the KLM flight back to AMS.
The itinerary was perfect for our purposes. It wasn't too rushed, and spending two nights at each location (except for the one night at the Kirurumu Tented Lodge) meant that we weren't living out of a suitcase case, but it also allowed us to see a variety of different landscapes. We were fortunate to see all the "big name" animals (leopard, rhino, lion, cheetah, etc.), although we wouldn't have been disappointed if we had missed out on any of them. If the animals won't come out and perform for the humans, there is nothing that the guide can do about it. The Migration was concentrated in the general area of Lake Ndutu, so lots of wildebeest with their calves, given that it was the calving season. We deliberately chose a range of different accommodation, and selected the Olakira and Dunia camps to get the "true" African experience (without too much hardship). We were delighted with both camps, although we thought the Dunia was more up-market than the Olakira even though the camp layouts and types of tents were the same. The camp chefs worked miracles in the food department. Except for one day, we took picnic lunches rather than go back to the camp/lodge for lunch, which was a good decision because eating on the fly meant that the day was more productive in terms of animal/bird viewing. We encountered heavy thunderstorms in the Serengeti/Lake Ndutu areas, which was an interesting experience. The tracks quickly became waterlogged, and we would have become hopelessly stuck without a 4x4. We decided to each have own pair of binoculars (8x36 Bushnell Excursion EX for me and 8x28 Vortex Diamondback for my wife) and camera (Panasonic FZ28 for me and Panasonic TZ5 for my wife). These were good decisions because we could each "do our own thing" about what we wanted to see through the binoculars and photographs to take. Although the purists may carp, our choice of binoculars/cameras meant that we weren't overburdened with equipment, and the zoom lenses on the Panasonics allowed us to get some great photographs of distant animals/birds. We were in Arusha on a Saturday on the way in and on a Sunday on the way out. We had intended to stock up on wood carvings and other mementos on each of these days, but our suspicions were realized when we discovered that most of the tourist shops are closed on Saturday afternoons and Sundays. So if anybody wants to "hit the shops" in Arusha, try and avoid these times. We had a wonderful trip and, when asked, we are hard pressed to come up with anything that we would have changed. About the only thing that we would have done was to have brought a small flash light, which would have helped us get around the Kirurumu Tented Lodge during the brief electricity blackouts and to walk between the sleeping tent and the dining tent at the Olakira/Dunia camps at night (although the camp staff guided us with torches, an extra torch would have helped).
Just returned from a two weeks plus trip to the music festival Sauti Za Busara in Zanzibar and eleven days on safari. Access2Tanzania was superb -- especially when weather canceled my flight out and I had to delete the first two days of the trip and add three on at the end.
Our guide, Beatus, was superb. Knowledgeable, an excellent driver, and fun to be with. We found cheetah (killing wildebeest), lions, leopards, and seven of the rhinos in the Crater. He also turned out to be an experienced birder, which added greatly to the trip when mammals weren't around.
I cannot recommend Access2Tanzania too highly. They know Tanzania, they know how to work with you to meet your desires, and they come through in the pinch. See
http://picasaweb.google.com/117755821389497820273/Movies?feat=email#
for the movies......
We have just returned from our wonderful 3 weeks in Tanzania and can highly recommend Access2Tanzania. They worked with us to design our custom safari and it unfolded exactly as we envisioned it with very few minor glitches, all due to outside factors. Our guide was very knowledgeable and flexible, he asked every day "What do you want to see?" We would come up with a far-fetched request and he would fulfill it! We saw lions lazing and hunting; cheetahs lazing and bringing down Thompson's gazelle; leopards snoozing in trees; rhino and calf from afar and then close up. Hippos, giraffes, serval cat, bat-eared foxes and hyenas. Baboons, Warthogs, cranes, bustards, hornbills, ostriches, fish eagles. Herds of elephants stuffing thorn bushes in their mouths; vast herds of wildebeest and zebra to the horizon in all directions. And best of all, the beautiful exotic birds of the Serengeti which are an unexpected delight amid the larger wildlife. Our guide spoke excellent English and was so patient with all our questions.
We stayed in lodges, not tented camps, so we enjoyed luxury and excellent food at the end of each dusty day bumping over rutted tracks. Meeting people from all over the world and comparing photos and stories makes each day such fun. A visit to Oldupai Gorge fulfilled a lifetime fascination with the work of the Leakeys in the Rift Valley.
We recuperated on the white sand beaches of Zanzibar's east coast, then headed to Stone Town and Dar es Salaam for culture and people watching, shopping for fabrics and carvings. Access2tanzania provided guides, transfers by boat, airplane and autos, always on time, always informative polite and with genuine smiles. They choose the best guides and affiliates and we can't say enough good things about this outfit. As we are American it felt good having an American agent to smooth the path. We are also pleased to support their work educating Tanzanian youth and would like to visit the project in future. This is not our last trip to Africa and they will all be with Access2Tanzania.
