What a Tanzania safari really costs, line by line

A nine-day fly-in safari like Soul of Tanzania quotes at $4,850 per person, based on two travellers sharing. That figure is not a black box — it is six line items added together, and every one of them is a real cost we can point to.

Park and crater fees

Tanzania's parks charge per person per day: roughly $60 for Tarangire and Manyara, $70 for the Serengeti, and a separate $70 crater service fee for Ngorongoro on top of its own park fee. Cross four protected areas over nine days and park fees alone run to several hundred dollars per person before anything else is booked.

Camp rates

A tented camp inside a national park costs more than a lodge outside one, because the camp itself pays a concession fee to operate on protected land — often $30 to $60 per person per night, folded into the room rate rather than itemised separately. Full board, laundry and game drives are usually included; drinks and spa treatments are not.

Vehicle day-rates

An extended Land Cruiser with a private guide runs at a day-rate whether you cover ten kilometres or two hundred. Fuel, maintenance, the guide's wage and the vehicle's depreciation are all inside that number — which is also why a shared departure is cheaper than a private one; the day-rate is split more ways.

Internal flights

• Manyara–Seronera: roughly 40 minutes, replacing a 6-hour drive
• Serengeti–Ngorongoro: roughly 30 minutes, replacing a 4-hour drive
• Each flight seat is priced per sector, not per hour saved

Guide wages

Our guides are salaried, not paid per trip, which is a deliberate cost built into every quote rather than a variable one. A salaried guide has no incentive to rush a sighting to make the next booking.

The honest version: about a third of the price is park and crater fees, a third is camps, and the rest splits between the vehicle, flights and guiding.

None of this is secret, and any operator quoting noticeably less than this for the same route is cutting one of these six things — usually the guide's salary or the camp's concession status. Ask which one.