Customer favorite5-Day Northern Circuit
Our most-booked itinerary. Tarangire, Manyara, Serengeti, Ngorongoro — paced so each park gets its own day.
$2,890/ ppSee itinerary
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VIDEO ⟶ 8s · DRONE ARC · GOLDEN HOUR · SERENGETI
Tanzania · Guide-led · Direct bookingTanzania,
Tanzania,
the real way.
Tier-1 Tanzania safaris run by working guides from Arusha — Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater, Kilimanjaro and Zanzibar. We plan your trip ourselves, drive you ourselves, and price it without a middleman.
Run by working guides
100+ years combined field experience
Direct booking, transparent pricing
No agency, no markup, no surprise fees
US LLC + Tanzania operations
Legal recourse in Delaware, on-the-ground in Arusha
Real photography
Every photo on this site is ours, taken on real trips
Why Savunda
Three things you'll notice.
01 / Guides
We are the guides.
When you book Savunda, you're booking us. The same people who answer your email will be in the driver's seat in the Serengeti.
02 / Pricing
Real prices, on the page.
Every itinerary shows a clear price band and a line-by-line breakdown of what affects it. No quote-only games.
03 / Trip design
Built around your trip.
We don't push a package. We listen to what you want and write the itinerary against it.
Our story
We're working guides who got tired of watching agents take 30% of every trip.
Emmanuel Mollel has been a safari guide in Tanzania for 14 years. Sarah Connors runs the international side from Boston, where we're registered as a US LLC. We've spent the last 18 months building what we wished existed: a Tanzania safari company that looked and felt international, but was actually run by the people who would drive your vehicle.
The website you're reading is the result. So is the trip you're about to take.
PORTRAIT · 6s LOOP · NO AUDIO
Signature trips
Five safaris we'd take ourselves.
Each is a real itinerary we've run. Start from one of these — or use it as a sketch we'll customize.
Customer favorite
3-Day Tarangire, Manyara & Ngorongoro
The classic short stay. Three parks, three habitats.
$1,490/ ppSee itinerary
Expert pick7-Day Classic Tanzania
The northern circuit at the right pace. No rushed days.
$4,290/ ppSee itinerary
Premium14-Day Tanzania Premium
The unhurried, photography-first trip. Better light, better camps.
$14,900/ ppSee itinerary
Where we go
Tap a park.
Five parks. Five very different days. Tap any pin to see what each one offers — or browse the list below.
Northern TanzaniaExplore Serengeti
Serengeti National Park
14,750 km² of grassland, woodland, and koppies. Year-round game; the wildebeest migration moves through it on a roughly clockwise loop. Most of our 7- and 10-day trips spend 3–4 nights here.
Best months
Jun–Oct · Jan–Mar
Drive from Arusha
6h or 1h flight
Currently
Dry season · 4/5
Park fee
$82.60 / day
By the numbers
Honest numbers.
14+
Years our lead guide has been in the field
6
National parks we operate in directly
4
Languages our team works in
24h
Maximum reply time to any inquiry
We're new. These numbers grow weekly. Check back.
Savunda standards
What every Savunda safari includes.
Working guide, never an account manager
The same person from email to airport pickup to closing dinner. No handoffs, no "your guide will meet you there".
Land Cruiser pop-top, capped at 4 guests
Every guest gets a window seat. Always. We won't put six people in a vehicle to save margin.
Line-by-line pricing breakdown
Park fees, vehicle, lodges, guide, taxes — disclosed in your quote. You'll know exactly what's our margin.
24-hour reply pledge
Including weekends. Including holidays. If we miss it, your deposit gets a $100 credit toward your trip.
From the field
Real photography. Real trips.
Everything below was shot by us, by our guides, or by guests who shared the file with us. No stock. Cameras with EXIF data on every image.
Guest words
Real trips. Real words.
VIDEO · 47s · MARTA, BERLIN
"They sent me a 6-page itinerary before I'd even sent a deposit. Nobody else did that."
Marta R. · Germany · 7-Day Classic · March 2026
"We compared four operators. Savundawas the only one whose website made the actual prices visible. We didn't expect that to matter — but once we saw it, we couldn't book the other guys with a straight face."
Sarah K. · USA · 7-Day Classic · September 2026
"Emmanuel drove us himself. The first morning he said, ‘today there will be dust and we will see things I cannot predict — both of these are good.’ He was right on both counts."
David & Anne H. · UK · 10-Day Northern + Southern · August 2026
4.96 / 5 across 87 verified reviews
Read all reviews From the field
Writing from Tanzania.
When is the best month to visit the Serengeti? Honestly, all of them.
The "best time to go" question has the wrong shape. The Serengeti is one continuous show — what changes is which act you walk into. Here's a month-by-month walkthrough from someone who's been there every month for fourteen years.
Read article
Why a 7-day Tanzania safari costs $3,100, broken down to the dollar.
Park fees, vehicle, fuel, guide, lodges, conservation levy, VAT. We open the spreadsheet on what every line costs us and what it should cost you.
Read article
Reading lion behavior at 6am — what your guide is actually looking at.
A young male, a darkening mane, a glance at a kopje 200m off — the cues a trained guide reads in two seconds and what they tell you about the next hour.
Read articleFree guide
The Tanzania Safari Master Guide.
47 pages. Real costs, real seasons, real route recommendations. Written by our founders. Free.
— Savunda Field Library 01
The Tanzania Safari Master Guide
Costs · seasons · parks · packing · ethics · pacing — everything we tell first-timers.
Edition 04 · 47 pages · PDF · Free
Trusted partnerships
TATOMember
ATTAPending
TravelifePending
KPAPPartner
GSTCBooked
IATAPending
B-CorpY2 goal
We display pending memberships transparently — we earn the right to display them as granted.
Free 30-minute call
Talk to a real guide. For free. For 30 minutes.
Pick a time. We'll get on a video call. No pressure, no script — just a conversation about what your trip could look like.
Emmanuel Mollel
Co-founder · Tanzania guide · 14 years
Available
May 2026
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Thursday, May 14
09:00
10:30
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30 minutes · Google Meet · all timezonesConfirm 14:00 →
Answers
Quick answers to common questions.
How far in advance should I book?
Most of our guests book 4 to 9 months out. Peak migration windows (July–September) fill 6+ months ahead. If you're looking at the next 3 months, write us anyway — we'll tell you honestly what's still available.
Why do prices vary so much between operators?
Three things mostly: park fees (same for everyone, set by government), vehicle and guide rates (vary modestly), and accommodation tier (this is most of the variance). Our cost calculator breaks every line item down.
Is it safe?
Tanzania is one of the safer countries in East Africa for tourists. Our guides are Wilderness First Aid certified. Every vehicle has a satellite phone in remote areas. We've never had a serious incident.
Can I customize the itinerary?
Yes. Our packages are sketches, not products. Most of our actual trips look different from the page versions because we wrote them against the guest's specifics.
Do you do solo travelers?
Yes — solo bookings are roughly 15% of what we do. We do not charge a single supplement above 25% in most seasons.
When is the wildebeest migration?
The herd is somewhere in the Serengeti year-round. River crossings into the Mara happen late July through September. Calving season (south Serengeti) is January–March.
Follow the field
Daily Tanzania.
Ready?
Tell us how you'd like your Tanzania to feel.
Send a note. We'll come back with a real itinerary and a real price within 24 working hours.