Tanzania
The Serengeti and its migration, the Ngorongoro crater, Kilimanjaro rising straight out of the plain, and Zanzibar's spice-scented coast at the end of it — Tanzania is the one country where the classic African safari and a proper beach holiday sit a short flight apart.
Where the safari
meets the sea
Tanzania holds more of the images people carry of Africa than any other single country. The Serengeti is here, and so is the migration of well over a million wildebeest that moves around it through the year. The Ngorongoro crater is here, a collapsed volcano whose floor is one of the densest concentrations of large animals on the continent. Kilimanjaro is here, the highest mountain in Africa, climbable without ropes by anyone fit and patient. And Zanzibar is here, an hour's flight from the mainland, with Stone Town's carved doors and a coast of white sand and dhows.
What makes that unusual for Indian travellers is how easily the pieces join. The northern safari circuit — Arusha, Tarangire, Lake Manyara, Ngorongoro and the Serengeti — runs as a single road-and-air loop, and a light aircraft takes you from a Serengeti airstrip to Zanzibar in the same afternoon. A ten-night trip can hold a full safari and a full beach holiday without a wasted day, which is not something Kenya, South Africa or Botswana offer as cleanly.
It is also a country with a long Indian thread running through it. Gujarati and Khoja merchants settled Zanzibar and the coast generations ago, Dar es Salaam and Arusha have sizeable Indian-origin communities, and the food shows it: chapati, bhajia, pilau and biryani are everyday Tanzanian dishes rather than imports. Vegetarian travellers, who often find safari countries hard work, eat well here.
When is your Tanzania?
Tanzania has two rainy seasons and two dry ones, and the wildebeest move to their own calendar. The dry season is the safe answer; the calving season is the one insiders choose.
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Tanzania visa — what you need to know
Indian passport holders need a visa for Tanzania — India is expressly excluded from the Commonwealth exemption. For tourism the visa is the Ordinary (single entry) visa, applied for through the Tanzania Immigration e-visa portal before you travel, and the Tanzania Immigration e-visa portal also lists Indian nationals as eligible for a visa on arrival. One visa covers both the mainland and Zanzibar.
the Tanzania Immigration e-visa portal states that the Ordinary Visa fee is 50 US dollars, with a validity of up to 90 days, and that it is the visa tourists apply for. the High Commission of Tanzania in New Delhi carries the same 50-dollar general rate in its text, but its own fee table for the Ordinary/Tourist visa lists Indian citizens at 100 US dollars for a multiple-entry visa valid one year, 90 days at a time, against 50 dollars single entry for non-Indian citizens. Both figures are official. Budget on the figure for the channel you use — the portal if you apply online, the fee table if you lodge at the High Commission — and confirm it at the time you apply, because visa fees change.
the Tanzania Immigration e-visa portal names India among the countries whose nationals are eligible for both the online and the on-arrival visa, and in the same breath says it is recommended to use the online platform. Treat arrival as a fallback rather than a plan: an e-visa in hand is one queue fewer after a long overnight connection, and the portal warns that applications with wrong categories or missing attachments are rejected outright.
the Tanzania Immigration e-visa portal states that visa applications will be processed within ten days, apart from the referral category, which does not include India. the High Commission of Tanzania in New Delhi states that visas lodged with it take a minimum of five working days for the regular process, with a next-day service at an extra 50 dollars and a same-day service at 100 dollars, and that cash is not accepted there. Plan against the ten days, and against longer if you are asked for an interview at the nearest Tanzanian mission — the portal says applicants may be.
A Visa Grant Notice arrives by email and can be downloaded from the portal, but the portal is explicit that it is not a final authority to enter — the immigration officer at the entry point decides, and a return ticket must be shown on arrival. Every passport holder, minors included, needs a separate application, and nothing on a submitted application can be changed afterwards, so enter your flight dates only once they are fixed.
For all Tanzania journeys we design, we prepare your complete visa documentation package — the forms, the supporting documents, the sequence of submission. Our visa specialists help travellers prepare complete applications with careful document guidance. Final visa decisions always remain with the relevant authorities.
Travel Tanzania intelligently
Tanzania is a well-run safari country and an easy one for Indian travellers. The details that matter are timing, cash and the visa paperwork.
Tanzania travel FAQ
The questions Indian travellers ask most often before booking Tanzania.
Tanzania for every kind
of traveller
The northern circuit and Zanzibar are the backbone of almost every trip. What changes is how long you give each, whether the mountain is in, and whether you go south where almost nobody else does.
Arusha to Tarangire, Lake Manyara, the Ngorongoro crater and the Serengeti — the classic Tanzanian safari, driven in a pop-top 4x4 with a guide who does this every week.
The wildebeest move around the Serengeti through the year, so where you stay depends on when you come — southern plains for calving, the north for the Mara river crossings.
The highest mountain in Africa at 5,895 metres, walked rather than climbed, through five climate zones from rainforest to glacier. Altitude, not difficulty, is what decides who summits.
Stone Town's carved doors and Indian-built merchant houses, spice farms in the interior, and beaches on the north and east coasts that are the reason most people fly in.
Nyerere National Park and Ruaha — enormous, far quieter than the north, with boat safaris on the Rufiji and walking safaris that the northern parks do not allow.
Tanzania is the safari-and-beach honeymoon done in one country: four or five nights on the northern circuit, then a light aircraft straight to a beach on Zanzibar.
Game drives are long and start early, so this suits children who can manage that. Lodges with pools, a shorter safari and a longer beach stay is the shape that works.
Tell us your dates, how many nights you have and whether the mountain is on the list, and our travel designers will place the safari where the animals will be and build the beach around it.
How far in advance
should you book Tanzania?
The good camps in the Serengeti are small and the migration months are short, so the safari drives the timeline. Zanzibar and the visa follow behind it.
June to October for the river crossings and driest skies, January to February for calving. Everything else is set by this.
Serengeti mobile camps and crater-rim lodges are the constraint. Book these before the flights if your dates are firm.
Kilimanjaro needs seven to nine days and comes first; Zanzibar takes three to five nights and comes last.
Online, once flights are fixed — the application cannot be changed after submission and is processed within ten days.
What to pack
for Tanzania
Three climates in one trip: cold dawns on the crater rim, hot dusty afternoons in the Serengeti, and humid sea air on Zanzibar. Light aircraft impose a soft-bag weight limit, so pack small.
Safari flights carry a strict luggage allowance in soft bags — no hard suitcases. Pack the safari in a duffel and leave the rest with your hotel or send it ahead to Zanzibar.