Tanzania
Ngorongoro Crater (Karatu)
One of the densest year-round gatherings of big game in Africa, sealed inside the walls of a single volcanic caldera you can see across in one look.
Ngorongoro Crater is a collapsed volcano in Tanzania's northern highlands, a sealed bowl about 600 m deep and nearly 20 km across whose floor of grass, swamp and soda lake holds lion, hyena, elephant, buffalo, zebra and wildebeest all year, along with one of the country's few reliably seen black rhino populations. Visitors sleep either in the lodges strung along the cold, forested rim or down the road in Karatu, a farming town of coffee estates and red earth, and descend by 4x4 at dawn for one long day on the floor.
Suggested stay
1–3 days
Language
Swahili, English
Currency
TZS
Timezone
UTC+3
Why you'll love Ngorongoro Crater (Karatu)
The bowl walls some 600 m high enclose grassland, swamp and a soda lake, so the animals stay put and one day on the floor covers the lot.
Black rhino the crater is one of the most dependable places in East Africa to see one, usually grazing at a distance on the open grass.
The rim cold, misty and forested at over 2,000 m, with the whole caldera laid out below at first light.
The highlands Karatu's coffee farms, Maasai herders on the slopes and quieter craters beyond make it more than a single drive.
Best time to visit
May-Oct
24-29° days
3.490° S, 35.568° E
UTC+3 · Africa/Dar es Salaam
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Weather & when to go to Ngorongoro Crater (Karatu)
Month by month: typical highs and lows, rainfall and rain days.
✓ Best May-Oct
Safari prime May-Oct, Dec-Mar
Activity seasons none fair good prime
Watch for Nov monsoon flooding risk
Cards tinted by calculated verdict · big number = typical daily high, small = low · hover for conditions
When to avoid Ngorongoro Crater (Karatu)
November is the record's month to avoid, when the short rains bring cloud down onto the rim and the descent roads turn slick. The wildlife is resident, so the floor delivers in any month; the real cost of the dry season is vehicles, with dozens converging on a lion or rhino sighting. Nights on the rim are cold all year.
Top things to do in Ngorongoro Crater (Karatu)
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Ngorongoro Crater floor - a full day in the caldera
safari nature wildlife 👍 PopularVehicles go down steep one-way roads at dawn and spend the day circuiting the floor: lion on the open grass, hyena around their dens, buffalo, and big mixed herds of zebra and wildebeest, with the crater walls always on the horizon. Giraffe are the famous absentee. Picnic sites are the only places you step out of the car.
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Black rhino on the crater floor - the hardest of the big five
safari nature wildlife 👍 PopularThe crater carries a small, closely guarded population of black rhino, most often seen as grey shapes on the grass between the Lerai Forest and the Munge swamp. Binoculars matter more than anywhere else on the circuit, and because vehicles must keep to the tracks, patience beats chasing.
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Ngorongoro Crater rim - the caldera from above at dawn
scenic history ⭐ Highly recommendedThe rim road looks straight across the bowl, often with cloud spilling over the western wall early in the day. A stone memorial near the rim marks the graves of Bernhard and Michael Grzimek, the father and son whose films and survey work made the case for protecting the Serengeti.
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Lake Magadi - flamingos on the crater's soda lake
nature wildlife safariThe shallow alkaline lake at the centre of the floor is fringed pink with flamingos when water levels suit them, fewer in dry years. Hyena and jackal patrol the shoreline, and the open flats around it are where most of the zebra and wildebeest graze.
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Lerai Forest - fever trees and the old bull elephants
safari nature wildlifeA pocket of yellow-barked acacia woodland on the south-western floor where the crater's elephant, mostly old bulls carrying heavy tusks, feed in the shade. It is also a good stretch for rhino moving between cover and grass, and one of the few spots for leopard on the floor.
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Ngoitokitok Springs - the hippo-pool picnic stop
nature wildlifeThe spring-fed pool on the eastern side of the floor is where most vehicles stop for lunch, with hippo grunting in the water. Eat inside the car or keep your food covered: black kites here are expert at snatching sandwiches straight out of hands.
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Olmoti Crater - a ranger-led walk to the waterfall
scenic adventureAbove the Maasai settlement of Nainokanoka, a short climb with an armed ranger reaches the shallow, grassy Olmoti crater and the falls where the Munge River begins its drop towards Ngorongoro. A rare chance to stretch your legs inside the conservation area.
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Karatu coffee farms - estate walks below the highlands
food scenicThe red volcanic slopes around Karatu grow arabica, and several farms and farm lodges run walks through the coffee bushes, the drying beds and the roasting, with vegetable gardens and forest trails climbing towards the conservation area boundary.
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Maasai bomas - a homestead visit in the conservation area
culture artsSeveral Maasai villages along the road towards the Serengeti receive visitors to walk through the thorn enclosure, step inside the low mud houses and watch the jumping dance. They are openly commercial; go in knowing that, and ask your guide which ones his clients have rated.
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Mto wa Mbu - village walks at the foot of the Rift
culture arts foodThe market town under the escarpment runs a community programme of walking and bicycle tours through banana plantations, rice paddies and craft workshops, in a place settled by people from dozens of Tanzanian groups. An easy half day before or after the crater.
Best areas to stay in Ngorongoro Crater (Karatu)
$ Budget $$ Mid-range $$$ Premium
The crater rim
Early descents $$$Cold, misty lodges above the caldera
Explore hotels in The crater rim →
Karatu
Value and comfort $$Farming town among coffee estates
Explore hotels in Karatu →
Mto wa Mbu
Budget and Manyara $Market town under the Rift escarpment
Explore hotels in Mto wa Mbu →
Live nightly prices from Booking.com, Agoda and others, centred on Ngorongoro Crater (Karatu)
Getting to & around Ngorongoro Crater (Karatu)
Getting there
Fly into Kilimanjaro International, then drive west via Arusha and Karatu to the Lodoare Gate on the crater highlands.
Flight
Kilimanjaro International Airport (JRO)
Most travellers land at Kilimanjaro, overnight in Arusha, then drive about 3 hr west on the paved road through Mto wa Mbu and Karatu to the Lodoare Gate, usually with their safari guide. Light aircraft also land at the Lake Manyara airstrip on the escarpment, about 1.5 hr from the rim.
Drive
Lodoare Gate
The paved road from Arusha via Mto wa Mbu and Karatu is the first leg of nearly every northern-circuit safari, and continues as a dirt road over the rim towards the Serengeti
Coach
Karatu
Buses and minibuses run between Arusha and Karatu through the day; from Karatu a safari vehicle is the only way into the crater
Getting around
Safari vehicle with guide
Only 4x4 vehicles may descend to the floor, and nearly everyone travels with a driver-guide arranged through a safari operator or lodge
TBC
Dala-dala and bus
Minibuses and buses run the paved road linking Mto wa Mbu and Karatu; they stop short of the gate and never enter the conservation area
TBC
On foot
Fine around Karatu and its farms; walks inside the conservation area, at Olmoti or Empakaai, need an armed ranger
Free
Day trips from Ngorongoro Crater (Karatu)
Lake Manyara National Park
Full dayRift Valley lake park
A narrow park squeezed between the Rift wall and a soda lake: groundwater forest full of baboon and blue monkey, elephant along the shore, flamingos in the shallows and lion that sometimes rest up in the trees. Greener and smaller than the crater.
Getting there
car | tour
About 45 min by 4x4 from Karatu, down the escarpment to the gate at Mto wa Mbu
Lake Eyasi
1-2 daysSoda lake and Hadzabe
A long, shallow soda lake under the Rift wall where Hadzabe hunter-gatherers still hunt with bow and arrow and Datoga smiths hammer arrowheads from scrap metal. Hunting walks start before dawn, so most people stay a night.
Getting there
car | tour
About 1.5 hr by 4x4 south-west from Karatu
Olduvai Gorge
Half dayHuman-origins fossil site
The ravine where the Leakeys found some of the oldest stone tools and hominin fossils known, with a small museum and a lookout over the exposed layers. Most people stop on the way to or from the Serengeti rather than making a separate trip.
Getting there
car | tour
About 1.5 hr by 4x4 from the rim, on the road to the Serengeti
Empakaai Crater
Full dayCrater lake hike
A smaller, steep-walled crater with a deep soda lake across half its floor. A forest path drops to the flamingo-lined shore, and from the rim the cone of Ol Doinyo Lengai stands on the horizon. Rough road, almost nobody else there.
Getting there
car | walk | tour
About 2-3 hr by 4x4 north-east from the rim via Nainokanoka, then a steep ranger-led walk
A little history of Ngorongoro Crater (Karatu)
Ngorongoro is what remains of a large volcano that collapsed into its own emptied magma chamber some two to three million years ago. It is one of a chain of volcanoes that make up the Crater Highlands, whose ash built the rich soils under the Serengeti's grass. Just to the west, Olduvai Gorge and Laetoli preserve some of the deepest records of human ancestry anywhere.
Datoga pastoralists grazed these highlands before the Maasai arrived and displaced them, probably in the nineteenth century. In 1959 the crater and its surrounding highlands were split from the Serengeti National Park as a conservation area in which Maasai herders could continue to live alongside the wildlife, a model of shared land use that remains unusual among Africa's great parks.
The Ngorongoro volcano collapses to form the caldera
Austrian explorer Oscar Baumann becomes the first European recorded in the crater
German settlers farm cattle on the crater floor until the First World War
The crater is included in the newly created Serengeti National Park
Mary Leakey finds the 'Zinj' skull at Olduvai Gorge
The Ngorongoro Conservation Area is created, separate from the Serengeti
Mary Leakey's team uncovers fossil hominin footprints in volcanic ash at Laetoli
The conservation area is inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site
The listing is extended to recognise its human-evolution record as well as its wildlife
Know before you go
Payment
Cash preferred
English
Widely spoken
Wifi
Workable
Power
Type G
230 V, 50 Hz
Dialing
+255
Monsoon flooding risk in this window; check current conditions before you go.
The months our climate read flags to avoid: the wettest, lowest-rated weather of the year.
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FAQs about Ngorongoro Crater (Karatu)
▸ When is the best time to visit Ngorongoro Crater?
May to October are the record's best months: dry, clear on the floor and cold at night on the rim. The crater's animals are resident rather than migratory, so game viewing holds up all year, and the dry-season trade-off is more vehicles at every sighting. November, in the short rains, is the month to avoid. From roughly January to March the migration calves on the Ndutu plains in the conservation area's south-west, an easy pairing.
▸ Can you stay inside the crater?
No. There is no accommodation on the crater floor, and vehicles must climb out before dark. You sleep either on the rim, inside the conservation area and close to the descent roads, or in Karatu, around half an hour below the main gate, which is why so many itineraries list Karatu as the base.
▸ How long do you need at Ngorongoro?
One full day on the floor is what most visitors do, and it covers the whole caldera. Two or three nights let you add Olmoti, Empakaai, Lake Eyasi or Lake Manyara, or simply break the long drive between Arusha and the Serengeti.
▸ Is Ngorongoro worth it if I am also going to the Serengeti?
For most people, yes. The two are different experiences: the Serengeti is about scale and movement, the crater about density and near-certainty, with a much better chance of black rhino. The crater is one of the more expensive single days on the northern circuit because of conservation fees, and it is busy, but few visitors regret the descent.
▸ How cold does it get on the rim?
Colder than most people pack for. The rim stands at around 2,300 m and is often in cloud early in the day, so evenings and dawn descents call for a fleece and a warm jacket in any month. The floor, several hundred metres lower, warms up quickly once the sun is on it.
▸ Will I see the big five in the crater?
Four are very likely: lion, elephant, buffalo and, with binoculars and some luck, black rhino. Leopard is the hard one on the open floor, though the Lerai woodland and the forested rim give a chance. Giraffe are absent altogether, an oddity guides will point out.
More in Tanzania
Arusha
Where the northern safari circuit starts, with an overlooked national park and a volcano to climb on the doorstep.
✓ best Jun-Nov, Jan-FebDar es Salaam
East Africa's great Swahili port city: fish auctions, street food, Tingatinga art and island beaches on its doorstep.
✓ best Jun-Oct, Jan-FebKilimanjaro (Moshi)
The roof of Africa, and the only 5,000-metre summit most people can simply walk up, given enough days to let the altitude catch up.
✓ best May-Mar