You are met at Kilimanjaro International Airport and driven the hour or so into Arusha, the town every northern-circuit safari starts from. The rest of the day is yours to rest after the flight. Your guide joins you in the evening for the trip briefing — the route, the parks, what to keep in the vehicle, and what the game viewing is likely to be at this time of year. If your flight lands late, it is worth arriving a day early: the safari leaves in the morning.

After breakfast you leave Arusha and drive south-west to Tarangire, about two hours on tarmac. Tarangire is elephant country — the river draws large herds through the dry season, and the park's baobabs give it the most distinctive landscape on the northern circuit. You game drive the afternoon along the river circuit, where elephant, zebra, wildebeest and giraffe concentrate, and where both lion and leopard are resident. You leave the park in the late afternoon for your camp or lodge.

A long driving day, and a rewarding one. You leave Tarangire after breakfast and climb through the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, stopping at the crater viewpoint on the rim before descending onto the plains. The Serengeti gate at Naabi Hill is roughly five to six hours from Tarangire with stops; from there the rest of the way into the Seronera valley is itself a game drive. Lunch is a packed box on the road. The Seronera river valley holds resident lion and some of the park's most reliable leopard sightings.

A full day in the central Serengeti with no transfer to make. You go out at first light, when the cats are still moving and the light is at its best, return to camp for brunch and the heat of the middle of the day, then go out again through the afternoon until sunset. Seronera's kopjes and river valley hold lion prides, leopard in the sausage trees and cheetah on the open ground. If you would rather stay out all day with picnic boxes, tell your guide the evening before and he will arrange it.

You leave after breakfast and drive north, game viewing as you go — less a transfer than a slow day's game drive through changing country. The northern Serengeti is emptier, hillier and greener than the centre. Between roughly July and October it holds the migration herds along the Mara River, where the crossings happen; outside those months the north is quiet, and the quiet is its own reward — resident game, very few vehicles and long views.

You leave the Serengeti this morning, game viewing on the way out and passing Naabi Hill again, then climb back into the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. The road to the crater rim is a steady ascent through highland forest and the temperature drops noticeably as you gain height — a fleece is worth having for the evening. You arrive on the rim in the afternoon with time to settle in and watch the light move across the crater floor, some six hundred metres below.