Ngorongoro Crater
A twelve-mile caldera where twenty-five thousand animals live without ever leaving it.
Duration
10 hrs – 12 hrs
Difficulty
●●○○○
Best time
Descend as soon as it opens
Open
Every day
Entry price
To confirm
Ngorongoro is the largest intact, unflooded caldera in the world: twenty kilometres across, six-hundred-metre walls, two hundred and sixty square kilometres of floor. The volcano that collapsed here must have stood as tall as Kilimanjaro.
The walls mean the wildlife barely leaves: around twenty-five thousand large mammals live there year-round, including one of Tanzania's last black rhino populations. It is also a conservation area, not a national park: the Maasai graze their cattle inside it, and that coexistence is the point of the place.
Getting there
A hundred and eighty kilometres west of Arusha, three to four hours by road. Descending into the crater requires a four-wheel drive and a licensed guide.
What the price covers
park entry, a crater descent fee and a mandatory 4x4, rates to be confirmed
What to bring
- Windbreaker
Rules on site
Entry and crater descent fees are high and charged per person and per vehicle, on top of the safari: check what your quote covers. The crater floor closes to vehicles in the mid-afternoon, and it is cold on the rim in the morning.
