The north for its icons, the south for its space, the west for its forests.
Four very different stretches of Swahili coast. Most give it four nights; we would argue for six.
Route choice decides your summit odds far more than fitness does.
A Tanzanian team, based in Arusha, guiding the trips we sell.
The questions we answer every week, written down properly once.
4 guidesThe Great MigrationWhere the herds are month by month, river crossings, calving and the Grumeti.
6 guidesKilimanjaroChoosing a route, altitude, summit night, porters and when to climb.
4 guidesZanzibar & the coastHow many nights, Pemba or Zanzibar, Mafia’s whale sharks and Stone Town.
Any itinerary can be shaped around the way you actually want to travel.
Eight of them, and not one is a countdown clock.
For the days either side of a climb, or a first taste of Tanzania before the long safari begins. All from Arusha or Moshi.
A balloon lifts off the Serengeti at first light, drifts wherever the morning air is going for about sixty minutes, and puts you down somewhere in the grass for breakfast. It is the most expensive hour of most safaris. Here is exactly what it is, so you can decide on purpose.
Balloon flights are sold with a photograph of a basket at sunrise and very little else. These are the three facts that actually decide whether it belongs in your trip, and we would rather you had them now than at a quarter to five in the morning.
The flight is about sixty minutes. The commitment is closer to five hours, from a wake-up in the dark to getting back to camp mid-morning. That is one of your game-viewing mornings spent, and in a three-night stay that matters.
A balloon goes where the air goes. The pilot changes height to catch a different wind and that is the entire extent of the steering. Two flights on consecutive mornings from the same field can be completely different experiences, and both are what you paid for.
Wind cancels flights, and the call is made at the launch site rather than the night before. You are refunded, but you are rarely flown the next day because that morning is already sold. Book it early in your stay, never on the last morning.
Times are approximate and shift with the month and the launch site, but the shape never changes. It starts in the cold and ends with a table set in the grass.
There is no gentle version of this. Someone comes to the tent in the dark with tea or coffee and that is your breakfast until half past seven, because nobody wants a full stomach in a basket.
Dress for cold. The plains sit at around 1,500 metres and the hour before dawn runs to about 10 °C, and you will be standing around in it. Layers you can shed by nine, closed shoes, and a hat that goes in a pocket rather than one that blows off.
Thirty to sixty minutes depending on where you are staying, in the dark, on the same tracks you have been driving in daylight. Take a blanket if the vehicle is open-sided.
This drive is quietly one of the better parts of the morning. Headlights pick up what the day never shows you — hyena walking home, a genet crossing, nightjars sitting on the warm track and lifting at the last second.
Bring a torch, not a phoneYou arrive to a nylon envelope lying flat on the grass and two industrial fans pushing cold air into it. It looks like nothing. Then the pilot fires the burners into the mouth of it, the whole thing swells and rolls upright, and the basket comes up on its side and settles.
This takes about twenty minutes and it is the loudest and most photogenic part of the day. Watch it rather than filming all of it. Then you climb into the basket over a wall that comes to roughly chest height — there is a foothold cut into it, and a hand from the crew.
There is no moment of leaving. The burner goes quiet, the ground drops half a metre, then five, then fifty, and the noise of the crew fades below you. Because you are travelling inside the air rather than through it, there is no wind, no rush, nothing to hold on to for.
It is the stillest thing most people ever do outdoors. Sunrise comes up on the horizon roughly as you clear the trees.
The moment everyone books this forA balloon cannot be aimed. The pilot controls one thing — height — and finds different wind directions at different altitudes to nudge the track one way or the other. Where you actually go is decided by the air that morning.
Which is why we say plainly: some mornings you drift the length of a river with hippo below you and giraffe running underneath, and some mornings you cross open grass and see very little. Both are the same product and the same price. That is the deal you are taking.
The pilot picks a clearing the chase vehicles can reach, brings you down over the last few minutes, and asks you to take the brace position you were shown before take-off — back to the direction of travel, knees bent, hold the rope handles.
Most landings are upright and undramatic. Some put the basket onto its side and drag it a few metres before it stops. That is not a fault and it is not an emergency; it is simply how a balloon with no brakes comes to rest in a breeze.
While the crew packs the envelope, a table is set on the spot the basket stopped — a proper cooked breakfast in the open, sparkling wine if you want it at eight in the morning, and a certificate with your pilot’s signature that you will keep for longer than you expect.
It is a genuinely lovely half hour, and it is the part people describe afterwards more often than the flight.
Your driver meets you at the landing site or at an agreed point on the road, and you game-drive back rather than transferring straight in. You are usually in camp by mid-morning.
Plan a slow rest of the day. You have been up since a quarter to five and the afternoon drive still has to happen.
The argument for a balloon is not that you see more animals. It is that you finally see the shape of the place — where the water runs, why the herds are standing where they are standing, how far the grass actually goes.
Low and slow over a river or a treeline. This is where you look down onto hippo, into the tops of the fig trees, and see your own shadow crossing the grass with the herd scattering around it.
The working height for most of the flight. Individual animals are still clearly animals. Whole herds fit in one view instead of one frame at a time.
Where the country starts to explain itself. You see why the game is where it is — the drainage lines, the kopjes, the line where short grass turns to long.
Used to find a different wind, or to cross something. Rarely for long. The plains go abstract and the horizon curves away. Beautiful, and the point at which animals become dots.
Balloon operations in Tanzania are licensed to specific areas and specific seasons. Not every park has one, and the biggest misconception we correct is about the Crater.
The central Serengeti operation, and the one that runs every day of the year. Launches from the Seronera area over open grass, the river line and the kopjes. If a balloon flight is described to you with no location attached, this is the one being sold.
The southern short-grass plains, and only in the months the herds are down there calving and the seasonal camps are open. When it is running it is arguably the best flight in Tanzania, because there is genuinely something enormous underneath you.
The quieter alternative, over baobabs and the Tarangire river in the dry months when the elephant are concentrated along it. A smaller operation than the Serengeti one, which is rather the point.
A short season tied to the migration moving up the corridor towards the Grumeti. Fewer balloons, fewer people, and a landscape of long grass and riverine forest rather than open plain. Ask early — the window is narrow and it fills.
There are no balloon flights over the Ngorongoro Crater, and none over Kilimanjaro or Zanzibar either. If an itinerary offers you a “crater balloon”, it means a Serengeti flight on a different day — ask which, and check how far you would have to drive for it.
We are not going to print a figure on a page that will be out of date by next season. What we can do is show you where the money actually goes, because once you see it the number stops looking arbitrary.
A balloon flight carries a per-passenger fee to the park authority on top of your normal park entry. It is charged per person per flight, and it is the same whether you are up for forty minutes or seventy.
Propane does not come from the Serengeti. It is trucked hundreds of kilometres from Arusha, and one balloon burns a serious quantity of it in an hour of holding a five-storey envelope full of hot air.
A pilot, an inflation crew, chase vehicles that have to find you wherever the wind decides to put you, a recovery team for the envelope, and a breakfast team who set a table in a field. All of that for one hour.
A balloon flies at dawn and then it is done for the day. There is no second sitting and no way to spread the cost of the morning over more passengers.
We do not set it. The balloon companies do, per person, and they move it seasonally. What we will do is put it on your itinerary as its own line rather than folding it into a package total, so you can see exactly what the flight adds and take it straight back out if you would rather have the night in a better camp.
Per hour, it is the most expensive thing most people do on a safari. That is not an argument against it. It is an argument for deciding on purpose rather than being upsold at the last minute.
We sell this. We would still rather you skipped it than spent the money in the wrong place, because a trip you enjoyed is worth more to us than one line on an invoice.
The landing is the part to think about. You will be shown a brace position before take-off and asked to take it on the way down. Most landings are upright. Some tip the basket onto its side and drag it a few metres before it stops, which is not a fault — a balloon has no brakes. If you have a bad back, a recent hip or knee replacement, or a neck injury, tell us and we will talk it through properly rather than waving it away.
Operators set conditions, and they enforce them. There is a minimum age, generally around seven and higher with some companies. Pregnancy is not accepted. You will be asked for your weight at booking — that is basket balance and total lift, not a judgement, and it is the same question every passenger gets. And you climb in and out over a wall at roughly chest height, with a foothold and a hand from the crew but no steps.
About an hour. Operators quote roughly sixty minutes and the pilot will stretch or shorten it a little depending on wind and where there is a safe place to land. The whole morning, from the wake-up call to being back in camp, is closer to five hours.
Usually not. Almost everyone who dislikes ladders, balconies and glass floors is fine in a balloon, because there is nothing to fall past, no vibration, no engine and nothing moving underneath you. What does startle people is the burner — it is sudden and genuinely loud, and it fires directly above your head.
No. A balloon has no steering of any kind. The pilot changes altitude to find winds blowing in different directions and uses those to influence the track, but the route is set by the air that morning. Nobody can promise you the river, or the herds, or a particular view.
It depends entirely on the operator and the size of the balloon. The large baskets are divided into compartments holding four to six passengers each with the pilot in the centre; smaller balloons carry considerably fewer. Tell us if that matters to you and we will tell you which operation is which before you book.
You see more country. Herds, elephant, giraffe and hippo read beautifully from the air and you will finally understand how the landscape fits together. Close, detailed sightings of predators are a ground activity, and always will be.
No. Neither permits balloon flights, and neither ever has. Any itinerary suggesting otherwise is describing a Serengeti flight, and you should ask exactly which day and which launch site it means.
Flights are called off for wind, and occasionally for heavy rain, and the decision is made at the launch site — sometimes after the envelope is already half inflated. You are refunded. You are not usually rebooked for the following morning, because that morning is already sold. This is precisely why we put the flight on your first full day in the park rather than your last.
Tell us which park you are in and how many nights you have there, and we will tell you whether the flight fits — and which morning gives you a second chance if the wind takes the first one. If it does not fit, we will say so.
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