Ngorongoro Crater

The Ngorongoro Crater is a breathtakingly beautiful setting and the best place in Tanzania to see the Big Five. it is one of the most beautiful natural wildlife safari sites in the world and an exceptional place to interact with people from the Maasai tribe.

The Ngorongoro Crater and surrounding highlands together form one of Africa's most beautiful regions.

Stunning location of breath-taking diversity of wildlife, flora and fauna

Ngorongoro Crater is enormous, being about 20kms across, 600 meters deep and 300 sq kms in area. Nothing really prepares you for the breath-taking spectacle of the world's largest un-flooded and unbroken volcano crater but reading about it beforehand will help you appreciate it even more. Some degree of luck is required to see all, or any, of The Big Five but this is the best place in Tanzania to try. Guides are knowledgeable, accommodating and work hard to ensure every party gets the very most out of the trip. This isn't a particularly remote location, however, and the crater floor can be busy with other vehicles so don't expect to be alone for the entire visit. Remember to take binoculars and a spare battery for your camera, you will need it!

The view of the Crater as you reach the summit is jaw dropping! Take some time here to suck it all in!
The Crater is a concentrated area and is arguably your best opportunity to see the Big Five in one Day, although the Leopard is pretty illusive and we never seen one here (We did however see four in the Serengeti).
We missed out on seeing Flamingo but this was because it was the wrong time of year.
For me the Ngorongoro Crater and Serengeti were must visit destinations.
Get there!

Not only can you see the big five in one place but there is so much more!!

Arriving at the gates of the Ngorongoro Crater Reserve is almost like a scene of Jurassic Park. Our guides and their vehicles were amazing. They were very knowledgeable on all wildlife and history of the Ngorongoro crater. We saw a Leopard in the first 5 mins of the drive which was very lucky. When you get the view point up high on the crater, you can actually take in and appreciate how amazing this place is. We started our drive down into the crater and began our checklist with Lions with cubs, Zebra, Buffalo, Hyena, Giraffe, Gazelle and Hippopotamus. Not bad within the first hour. Later on we edged towards the lake and saw more Hippo and saw Elephants, Flamingo, Wildebeest and Rhinos. Thinking that it couldn't get any better, we spotted a Cheetah. Most amazing day in Africa. Not a day we will soon forget.

Camping on the rim of the crater overlooking the "downstairs" of the park is quite special. The lack of rhinos is a sad truth of man's influence in the region

Astonishingly beautiful

Ngorongoro has been my favorite national park from our trip, where we also visited Serengeti, Tarangire and Manyara. The crater has a special climate, it is nevertheless on about 2,000 metres above sea level and there have always been some clouds on the crater rim, which made a great atmosphere. Compared to other national parks the crater seems so manageable - you kind of feel, that you can comprehend the whole place. But it nevertheless offers an amazing amount of wildlife and nature: jungle, lakes, a forrest, steppe etc. We've seen huge elephants, lots and lots of gnu's, gazelles and zebras, pumbas, ostriches, hyaenas, hippos, lots of lions, and also some rhinos. We spend our night at the Ngorongoro Sopa Lodge, which is an amazing place, with an outstanding view over the crater. But the street to get there is awful, it took us forever on this wild road.

Very scenic National park

The Ngorongoro Crater convinces with its unique and very special landscape. The variety of animals within the crater is large, though there cannot be found every animal (no giraffes, almost no elephant, ). But seeing the animals in such a special, kind of surreal landscape is absolutely worth a trip. I wouldn't want to miss it. Of course due to the area enclosed by the crater rims, you will see many other visitors and won't have the feeling of beeing alone in this area like it might be at the wide plains of Serengeti. But we had no impression, that the crater would be too crowded. We can highly recommend a visit at this very special and beautiful place.

Excellent but crowded

The Ngorongoro Crater offers both amazing experiences and large crowds due to its smaller size. It's one of the best places in Tanzania to see rhinos, and in general the wildlife is very accustomed to vehicles so you can get a close view of interesting behavior. On the downside, everyone makes it a stop on their safari, so it can get quite busy. We had a rhino near the road on our trip, and I counted at least 35 vehicles jockeying for position to see it. Certainly not a feeling of being out in the wilderness!

its the world heritage

You have to be in Ngorongoro on the right day to experience all the wildlife that prospers there. Sometimes you can be just unlucky. But the crater is an amazing sight - it is so vast that you cannot see it all properly in one go. It is worth going but be prepared to have an "off" day.