Before you travel
Questions Before the Walk
Frequently Asked Questions
An elephant sets out prepared – moving with the season, keeping to the corridor, carrying little. Everything you need to know before you join the walk, answered plainly.
Planning your journey
The turning season
How do I book a stay?
Write to us and we will shape the journey around you. Tell us when you would like to come, who is travelling, and what pace suits you – Tanielle, our reservations host, replies personally.
How many nights do you recommend?
A minimum of three nights at Hatari Lodge – ideally four, so each of Arusha National Park’s three worlds has its own unhurried day. The signature Kilimanjaro Safari Circuit is six nights: four at Hatari Lodge, two at Shu’mata Camp, one unbroken walk between the two mountains.
When is the best time to come?
Whenever you come, the walk is there — only its colour and light change. June to October is cool, clear and bright, with the most reliable elephant viewing at Shu’mata. November to December washes the country green; January to March is warm, lush and quiet with newborn animals; April to May is when the land drinks deeply and the elephants take a little more finding.
What is included in a stay?
Full board, all activities, park, conservation and concession fees, and transfers between the two properties. Not included: airport and border transfers, first-aid responder, laundry, bar drinks, gratuities and personal expenses.
Are children welcome?
The calves walk in the middle of the herd, and children are welcome here in the same spirit. There is a children’s menu, and family villas that join a suite to a junior suite. Tell us their ages and we will shape the days around them.
Getting here
The memory of the way
How do we reach you?
Both properties lie within one to two hours of Kilimanjaro International Airport, Arusha, or the Kenyan border – and within a 1.5-hour drive of each other. We arrange every transfer; you simply land.
Do I need a visa?
Most nationalities do. Tanzania’s official eVisa can be applied for online before you travel – the simplest way – or obtained on arrival. We send current, nationality-specific guidance with every booking, so nothing catches you at the border.
What about travel insurance and entry fees?
Tanzania requires mandatory travel insurance (US$44 per person, bought at the airport or border), and from 2026 a Passenger Facilitation Fee of US$45 is added by your airline.
These figures are not yet confirmed – please check and reconfirm before departure. We will send current details with your booking.
What health precautions should I take?
Speak with a travel clinic or your doctor a few weeks before departure about vaccinations and malaria protection for northern Tanzania – recommendations vary by traveller and season. Evenings here call for long sleeves and repellent; we suggest a natural one. Full health guidance travels with your booking confirmation.
The stay itself
Water, food and little to carry
What makes this a regenerative safari?
Every stay is measured against one question: are we leaving the land, the people and the table more alive than we found them? You travel the elephant’s corridor between Kilimanjaro and Meru, eat from gardens grown with the communities the foods belong to, and your stay grows the work – one garden at a time.
Will we see elephants?
Elephants are seen on the Tanzanian side of Amboseli most days of the year — though never with an absolute guarantee; this is wilderness, not a zoo, and that is the point. The Amboseli population of close to 1,800 is one of the most studied in the world, and among them walk some of the greatest tuskers alive.
What will we eat?
A four-course menu at lunch and dinner, changing daily, served by the fire or on the veranda. Around 90% of what we serve is our own production – some 100 rediscovered heritage ingredients turned into roughly 200 dishes with 1,500 small farmers across 44 communities. Wondergarden mocktails are included; house and premium wines are available. Slow Food’s measure is ours: good, clean and fair.
Can you cater for dietary needs?
Yes – and more easily than most. Our kitchen cooks from scratch every day, from gardens we know plant by plant, so vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free and allergy-aware meals are shaped for you rather than substituted. Tell us when you book and the chefs take it from there.
Is the water safe to drink?
We provide safe drinking water at both the lodge and the camp – bring your own bottle and refill it freely, or buy one from us on arrival if it slips your mind. We pour no bottled imports we can avoid; every route here is planned around water, and so is your stay.
What about electricity and charging?
Clean power runs around the clock at Hatari Lodge, and the sun powers Shu’mata Camp. You can charge cameras and phones at both. Tanzania uses British-style three-pin sockets (230V) – bring a UK-type adapter.
What wildlife will we see from the lodges?
At Hatari Lodge, the long wooden deck looks over a waterhole onto a Hatari meadow mostly teaming with wildlife – buffalo, zebra and especially giraffes come within metres, warthogs on the lawns, Bushbuck flirts are daily, and waterbucks mingle around. Baboons & vervets are the show masters during the day and the bush babies at night. Only recently: herds of elephants in the far distance of the Hatari meadow finding their ways back to the waterhole. At Shu’mata, the whole Greater Amboseli ecosystem opens below the sundowner hill, with the herds moving beneath Kilimanjaro. On our hill, we welcome zebras, Gerenuks, gazelles, and giraffes. Tanzania holds more than a thousand recorded bird species; Donyo’s own checklists of the region’s birds, amphibians and plants are at the lodge.
How fit do I need to be?
As fit as you wish to be. Much of the best of both places is reached by open jeep; walks are graded gently and can be as short as half an hour or as long as five hours, always with our guides. Say what suits you and the days are shaped to it.
What should I pack?
Dress like an onion – in layers. June to October, first light on the steppe is genuinely cold: warm fleece, windproof layer, hat and gloves, then lighter earth-toned clothes by mid-morning. Keep to earth tones and leave bright blue and black at home – those colours attract tsetse flies. Add sun hat, sunglasses, sun lotion, natural mosquito repellent, binoculars, comfortable walking shoes – and your own water bottle, refilled freely at lodge and camp. The full packing chapter is in our Travel Handbook, sent with every booking.
Our principles
A land left richer
Can we visit an animal orphanage or pet a wild animal?
No – and gladly no. We do not promote or arrange visits to any place where wild animals are kept captive for entertainment or close contact. We offer only authentic encounters in natural habitats, where animals live as they would in the wild. If you are unsure about an activity, ask us – we will point you toward options that honour these values.
Can we visit a Maasai village?
We neither stage culture nor sell it, so you will find no commodified “boma visit” on our programme. Instead: naturalist walks led by Maasai guides on their own ground, and the agreements that let people and wildlife keep the corridor together. Respect and exchange – never culture on display.
How can we support the communities during our stay?
By staying, you already do – your visit grows the gardens, one at a time. Beyond that: walk the Slow Food gardens and take breakfast among the women farmers, and take Wondergarden’s native-food products home with you – each one carries a farmer’s name and a story.