Gosheni Safaris Brought Our Dream Trip To Life - My wife and I booked an eight day luxury safari with Gosheni after about a week of researching the various safari companies and lodging options on Tripadvisor and Google, including getting quotes from four safari operators. All four were very responsive, but Norah at Gosheni was both the fastest and easiest to work with as I wanted to hand pick the lodging options, and she also beat Abercrombie & Kent and Sikeleli Travel by a good margin on cost. Our trip was set up running Northwest to Southeast through 4 National Parks (Norah advised us to skip Lake Manyara given that they'd seen less wildlife there on recent visits) and had us flying out of Arusha to Kogatende airport on the morning of Day 2 and then working our way back to Arusha over the next week via LandCruiser. As a note for other first timers, an eight day safari is really only seven days in the parks, as you use most of day one just getting into town and getting briefed. Norah was also kind enough to store our larger bags in her office since we were coming from a longer trip and needed somewhere to leave luggage in order to meet the weight requirements for the small plane to Kogatende. I would say you could run this trip in either direction (Southeast to Northwest or vis versa) but it might almost be better to run it in reverse, as we were a bit spoiled by all the wildlife in the Northern Serengeti and then there were fewer new animals to get excited about as we proceeded south given how much exposure we'd already had. One other thing that's worth saying out loud, we knew we'd spend a lot of time on game drives, but it's one thing to consider abstractly and another thing to spend back to back 10+ hours days in a Landcruiser. Fortunately ours was well maintained and James is an excellent driver, but there's only so much time I can personally spend sitting or standing in a car before I'm dying to get out and stretch, which isn't always possible given the amount of wildlife around. There's a few options for Landcruiser configurations BTW, ours had four seats in the back and the pop top option, which I'd recommend over the fully open convertible LandCruisers as it gives great viewing visibility when you pull up to something, but is also much more comfortable when you want the option to fully seal the vehicle due to cold or dust when you're driving between locations. It's worth asking your tour operator about the specifics of the vehicle you'll basically be living in so you can plan appropriately, ours was perfect given it was just myself, my wife, and James. Bring comfortable clothes and layers for all the sitting around, it can get surprisingly cold and you will want sun/fly protection but you don't need really need hiking shoes and rugged outerwear most of the time. Having the option to change/swap shoes and ditch jackets helps a lot when you're in the SUV, and if you're used to being active take every chance you can to book walking safaris or picnics as being in the car all the time did wear on us as the days went on. Lodging started with a night at the Gran Melia Arusha, which was great, followed by two nights each at the Olakira Migration Camp and the Lemala Nanyuki Tented Lodge. Both of these locations were phenomenal, with a lot of attention to detail evident in the service, food, and camp setups themselves. Lemala Nanyuki was by far the nicest place we stayed during the trip, although they do have some advantages over Olakira as that camp actually moves around every couple months and Nanyuki is a fixed location with more infrastructure, so Nanyuki had hot water in the shower and Olakira did not. From there we went to the Melia Ngorongoro Lodge, which was nice enough but not in the same league as the rest of our options and if I were to redo this trip I think we'd try the &Beyond Ngorongoro Lodge. Our safari finished with the Tarangire Tree Top Lodge, which was both a really cool concept and had a watering hole setup right in front of the deck/pool for amazing wildlife viewing at sunset. We only spent one night each at the Melia Ngorongoro and Tarangire Tree Tops, and it would have been nicer to spend at least two at Tree Tops, plus since we were moving each day it meant more time in the car those days and if I could do that again I would have broken up some of the back to back single nights. As for the parks themselves, Ngorongoro was our favorite, we went on an amazing walking safari with Sammy our ranger guide from NCAA (who's dad was born in the crater before the government relocated everyone out of it), and the park itself had a huge variety of wildlife across multiple ecosystems (desert, river/lakefront, jungle) all within the crater. The Northern Serengeti was a close second given the vast amount of critters in the area, and we saw a Wildebeest crossing complete with a couple of Crocodile's picking off unlucky stragglers, as well as fresh Leopard and Lion kills where they were feeding. The Central Serengeti felt a bit empty and dry, suffering a bit by comparison to it's northern neighbor, but we did see a ton of big cats there. The pictures attached of the Lion cubs and two Cheetahs are both from the Central Serengeti, and we had an awesome time driving around one evening trying to find a Cheetah James had been told about by another guide only to have it pop up out of the tall grass a few feet away from the car, I'm not sure who was more surprised. By the time we got to Tarangire we'd seen all of the Big 5, Small 5, Ugly 5 etc and weren't stopping and watching every time we saw a Lion at that point, but the Baobab trees were cool up close and James still managed to find a few more Discovery Channel gems including Hyenas circling a pair of male Lions who'd just brought down a Cape Buffalo. Saving the best for last, this trip would not have been even close to what we experienced without our driver, James. He pushed us to wake up early on Day 3 to make sure we got a Wildebeest river crossing in before we left the Northern Serengiti, has both a great knowledge base and relationships with the other guides to always find the best animals in all of the National Parks we went through, and the uncanny ability to spot big cats in trees so far away that I couldn't even see them with binoculars. He was always cheerful every morning, even when we were running late/my wife or I was hungover, and we never had any mechanical issues or got stuck anywhere even in the roughest terrain, which we did see happen to others quite frequently. I'm pretty OCD and the thing I noticed most (besides the amazing wildlife viewing) was that he was constantly cleaning up and improving the car every night after what already was a long work day. It would show up the next morning with freshly cleaned windows and folded blankets even we had gotten rained on the night before, and he would also save some of his lunch for the local Maasai kids and have surprise snacks available for us.

Trip of a lifetime - We went from Northern Serengeti, Central Serengeti, Ngorogoro Crater, and tarangire Park. It was an amazing 8 days. Our guide was James +CLH. He was amazing. He was able to spot all the animals we wanted to see and more. He had a great eye and could spot a leopard in a tree from 100 meters away. He was also knowledgeable on different aspects of African animals and ways of life there. He escorted us everywhere and made our trip easy and wonderful not to mention after several hours of driving a day he always managed to clean the car each night while my husband and I passed out from exhaustion. Thank you to Norah and the Gosheni team for creating and planning the perfect honeymoon for us and thank you James for executing on it.

Door to a new world - The overall trip was great, feels like being in another world. Impressed by the own way of working that Tanzania has which balanced human, wild life and nature. Our guide Ombeni is super knowledgeable, professional and with his own personal touch of humour. You can tell that he is passionated about his profession and the nature surrounding us. Would highly recommend him!

A magical journey. - My daughter and I went to Tanzania this time to watch the Great Migration of Animals. We were struck by the Maasai people, who are blessed with so much wildlife and take nothing from the natural environment and still maintain a primitive way of life. They are the ones who present the world with a harmonious picture of all things living side by side. On this trip to Africa, I was grateful to meet a professional outdoor guide. I would like to pay special tribute to my little brother Calvin kileo, an outdoor guide who graduated with an undergraduate degree in zoology, is multilingual, is exceptionally friendly, patient and intelligent, is a young man with connotations and vulture vision, and loves his work. He drove calmly and steadily, making our journey particularly smooth and surprising. He was always able to capture wildlife in the first place, bring my daughter and I the joy of searching for wildlife, and accurately judge the names of animals. He also explained the habits of these animals and the environment they lived in, corresponding with each other graphically, giving us a deeper understanding and appreciation that this trip was not necessary. Finally, I would also like to thank this Gosheni Trips Agency for the design of 8 nights and 9 days of travel products, the sense of experience is extremely strong, along the way the airport transfer service is in place, the hotel accommodation is rich, the service is also enjoyed, wife, hot bath, drinking hot water, Chinese food and so on, make us especially happy and happy, enjoy different kinds of travel fun, very enjoyable, comfortable, worth sharing and Recommendations 👍👍👍👍

Once in a lifetime Experience with Fidelis - We had Fidelis as our tour guide he was amazing!! Knowledgeable, friendly, always eager to answer our many questions, and an absolute expert as navigating Tanzania and knowing where all the animals are. He showed us Cheetahs, lions, leopards, elephants and so many more, plus we even caught the river crossing of the wildebeests. He set up lunches for us, kept us on schedule and dealing with an issues like a true expert. The hotel experience was incredible. This entire trip is something we will remember for the rest lives and I 100% recommend Fidelis if you have a chance to book him as your tour guide

best Safari tour - Our guide is Zadock; he is so nice and experienced! He is truly the best safari expert. We haven’t finished our trip yet; it’s our 6th day. Besides common animals like wildebeest, buffalo, zebra, giraffe, elephant, and antelope, we have also seen many lions, lions mating, 7 lion cubs, 4 leopards (2 very close up), 2 cheetahs, 2 small crossings, and 1 serval. We are looking forward to seeing rhinoceros in the next few days. Thanks a lot to our excellent guide, Zadock!

Amazing guided Safari - An amazing experience! The circuit was great and also the camps. Our guide Ombeni was fantastic! very professional and warmeful. Jambo, jambo!

Great safari and great food! :) - The safari was a definite worthwhile experience, within a very safe and well organized trip. Ombeni guided us throughout this journey and I could not recommend a better guide! He is very experienced, with lots of knowledge about each location and its animals. Ombeni always treated us, the environment and the animals with lots of respect and kindness, maximizing our experience while respecting mother nature. More than a guide, he made sure to be a friend! Overall, 10/10 experience that I would recommend to anyone interested

Amazing Tanzania Safari - We had an amazing week long safari organized by Gosheni Safaris, who were awesome to work with. Our guide William was outstanding, since he always tracked down the game we wanted to see. He made sure we also saw the wildebeest migration and river crossing. Would highly recommend.

Ombeni simply Nr 1 - Ombeni Uronu, our guide is simple the number one. He has the ability to make you feel every time safe and he has a huge knowledge of the culture and the wild animal life. If you travel to Tanzania choose Gosheni, and the guide must be Ombeni. Thanks a lot Stefano Winteler