6-Day Family Safari Luxury Expedition

Met at Kilimanjaro International and driven to Gran Meliá Arusha, where check-in happens in the room and the children can be in the pool within twenty minutes of arriving. Dinner is a family affair, and the kitchen is entirely used to accommodating children who want food at six rather than eight.

Starting somewhere this comfortable is not indulgence when travelling with children. It is strategy. Everyone arrives off a long flight tired and out of sorts, and a large room, a good pool and a proper meal does more for the rest of the week than any amount of itinerary planning.

A short drive south to Tarangire and straight into game drives among the elephant herds, which are the largest in northern Tanzania and reliably the highlight for younger travellers. You settle into Nimali Tarangire in the afternoon, with time for a swim before dinner.

Nimali is a small tented camp with a pool and a great deal of space, which matters enormously with children. The tents are proper rooms under canvas rather than anything you would pitch yourself, and being able to break up a day of game viewing with an hour in the water keeps everyone in a good mood.

West through the Ngorongoro Highlands with a stop at a Maasai boma, where the visit is built around an interactive beadwork lesson rather than a photo opportunity, children take to it immediately and generally come away with something they made. Then the descent onto the Serengeti and into Lemala Nanyukie.

Nanyukie is unfenced, with giraffe and zebra moving through the grounds during the day, which is a permanent source of excitement. The tents are enormous, which is exactly what a family needs after a long driving day, and the staff are notably good with children.

A full day of game viewing built around a Junior Ranger session, where your guide teaches track identification, working out from prints in the dust what walked past and when. A private bush lunch is set up under a shade tree, a considerably better proposition than a lunchbox in a hot vehicle.

Giving children a job transforms a game drive. Once they are looking for tracks rather than waiting to be shown a lion, they stop asking how long is left and start noticing things. Several parents report that the eight-year-old spotted the leopard before anyone else did, which is not entirely a coincidence.

A leisurely morning game drive with no need to rush anywhere, then the transfer east and up into the Ngorongoro highlands, gaining altitude as plains turn to farmland and then to forest. You check into Neptune Ngorongoro Luxury Lodge in the afternoon.

The rim at 2,300 metres is properly cold in the evening, which after days of heat is a novelty in itself: fires get lit, and rooms have their own fireplaces. The forest around the lodge is used by buffalo and elephant, so the walk to dinner comes with an escort, which children find far more exciting than alarming.

An early descent into the crater for a half-day game drive, the set piece of the whole trip. The Big Five are all present on the floor and the density means something is visible almost constantly. A private picnic is laid on by the hippo pool before you climb out and drive back to Arusha for your flight.

The crater is the right place to finish with a family. There is no waiting, no long stretches of empty grass, and no need to explain why the animals are not cooperating. Everything is there, close and in the open, and it sends everyone home with the version of Africa they were hoping for.