Tanzania in April is the only month of the year when both of our seasonal camps are shut, and they are shut for opposite reasons. One comes down at the end of March because the herds have finished the grass on the southern plains it was built for. The other does not open until 1 June because the herds are nowhere near the river crossings it was built for. Three of our five properties stay open all month.
That gap is also what makes April cheap. Our low season is 1 March to 30 June. TANAPA charges its low conservation fee for the Serengeti from 15 March to 15 May. April is the only complete calendar month of the year that falls inside both.
Going on safari in Tanzania in April
April is the wettest month of the Tanzanian year and the cheapest month to be in the Serengeti. Those are the same fact. The rain empties the parks, the camps drop their rates, and the park authority drops its fee, all in the same four weeks.
You get a green country with very few vehicles in it. You give up easy wildlife. The grass is long, there is water everywhere, and the animals no longer have to walk to a waterhole where you can wait for them. You will drive further for each animal you see.
A Tanzania safari in April suits you if you have been before, or if you care more about photographs and birds than about ticking off a list. It’s a difficult month for a first safari on fixed dates. Our guide to the best time to visit Tanzania sets April against the other eleven.
Weather in Tanzania in April
The long rains are at their heaviest. The Tanzania Meteorological Authority calls this season Masika and puts it at March to May, with rainfall increasing through April. TMA recorded 213.1 mm nationally in April 2025, which was 115.3 percent of the 1991 to 2020 average.
Rain does not fall all day. It arrives as an afternoon or overnight storm, usually heavy, and then it clears. Roughly half the days in the month see one. Your morning drive is rarely affected, because the storms build through the heat of the afternoon and most of them have gone by dark.
The country also does not rain evenly. In April 2025 TMA recorded Kilimanjaro, Tanga and Manyara at 125 to 175 percent of average, while parts of the Central Region came in below normal in the same month. Where you are matters as much as when you go.
Why the north and the south get different Aprils
Search for advice on April and you will get three different answers, all of them correct. They are describing different halves of the country.
TMA splits Tanzania into two rainfall types. The bimodal areas get two rainy seasons a year, a short one around November and December and the long Masika rains from March to May. Those areas are Arusha, Manyara and Kilimanjaro, the coast from Tanga down through Dar es Salaam, Unguja and Pemba and Mafia, the Lake Victoria basin, and northern Kigoma. The whole northern circuit is in that list, and so is Zanzibar.
The rest of the country is unimodal. It gets one long wet season that starts in November and is already winding down by April. So April is the peak of the rains in the Serengeti and the tail of them in the south. Advice written about Ruaha does not transfer to Ngorongoro.
Temperature in Tanzania in April
Warm on the plains, cool at altitude, and humidity is the part that decides how any of it feels. Two places at the same temperature feel nothing alike once the air is wet.
On the plains an April afternoon is hot and close, and it stays close after the storm has gone through. Nothing dries. A shirt you rinsed at lunchtime is still damp at dinner, which is why an extra change of clothes matters more this month than any other item on the packing list.
On the crater rim the same day is cool and the cloud comes down to meet you, so the fleece you packed for dawn gets worn until mid-morning. The descent road can be slippery after a night of rain, which is the one place an early start earns you more in April than anywhere else on the route. Karatu is between the two and it is where you sleep comfortably. Zanzibar is the hottest and the wettest of everywhere we send anyone.
TMA put the national mean temperature for 2025 at 23.9°C (75°F), half a degree above the 1991 to 2020 average, with April’s minimum temperatures 0.7°C above average. If you want station records rather than description, the Tanzania Meteorological Authority publishes them.
Long grass and standing water
By April the grass on the plains is at its tallest of the year and the pans and depressions are full. Flowers come up on ground that was bare in February.
Both of those things work against you. A lion in short grass is visible from a kilometer away. The same lion in April grass is visible when you are 50 meters from it. Water everywhere means the animals stop concentrating, because every one of them can drink where it grazes.
The wooded country carries more tsetse flies now than in the dry months, which matters in parts of Tarangire and on the western side of the crater highlands. Long sleeves and long trousers in dull colors handle it. Avoid black and dark blue, which attract them.
Where the wildebeest herds are in April
In the central Serengeti, scattered, moving north and west. Calving finished on the southern short grass plains in February and the first half of March. By April the herds have broken into groups and spread out over a large area, on their way toward the Western Corridor, which the leading groups reach at the end of May.
They move because the grass on the southern plains is finished, not because of a date on a calendar. Isolated storms pull groups in different directions, so in any given week of April one column may be near Seronera and another a long way west of it. There is no single place to stand.
Our guide to where the herds are through the year gives the full twelve months, and the calving that happens on the southern plains before any of this starts is a December to March story.
Why April is the hardest month to find the herds
Three things happen at once. The animals disperse instead of massing. The rain scatters them further, because grazing is good in more places than usual. And the grass is tall enough to hide a moving column until you are close to it.
That means April is a poor month to book if the migration is the only reason you’re coming. Nobody can promise you a river crossing in April, because the herds are nowhere near the rivers. Nobody can promise you a plain full of animals either, because they are spread across a third of the ecosystem.
It’s a good month if the migration is not the point. Resident game does not move. The lions, leopards and cheetahs that live in one part of the Serengeti are in that part of the Serengeti all twelve months, rain or no rain.
The month the resident animals carry the trip
This is the honest center of Tanzania in April. The herds are scattered across a third of the ecosystem and nobody can put you in front of them, so the animals that do not move are the reason the week works. In most months they are the supporting cast. In April they are the trip.
The cats. Soit Le Motonyi in the central eastern Serengeti has probably the highest density of cheetah in the whole park, with resident lion and leopard there in every month of the year. The kopjes give all three dry high ground to lie on when everything around them is wet, which makes them easier to find in April rather than harder. On the crater floor there are 60 to 70 lions in prides. Leopard wants cover, so the acacia woodland and the riverine bush in Tarangire are where to look.
The animals tall grass cannot hide. This is the practical way to think about April. Giraffe are the obvious one and they are across the circuit, absent only from the crater floor, where the steep walls and short grass do not suit them. Elephant are the other, in herds on the Lake Burunge corridor in Tarangire and on the crater floor, and a herd moving through waist-high grass is visible from further away than a single lion lying in it. Buffalo work the same way, by size and by number. Black rhino is the one nobody can promise, in April or in any month, and the crater is where your chance is, helped by the fact that the floor is short grass when everywhere else is not.
Where water helps instead of hurting. Standing water is what spreads the plains game out in April, and it is also what fills the Lake Manyara forest, where hippo, olive baboon and blue monkey are on a short circuit of drivable track along with the tree climbing lions the park is known for. Zebra, gazelle, impala and dik dik are across the plains and the woodland and you will see them without trying. Tarangire is the one park on our routes where African wild dogs turn up, rarely enough that nobody should plan around them.
What April adds that the dry months do not. Every one of those animals is standing in green country with storm light behind it, and the young of most species are on the ground. The Soit Le Motonyi page covers the area an April week is built on.
The three camps open in Tanzania in April
Three of our properties are open every month of the year, April included. Mawe Tented Camp is at Soit Le Motonyi in the central eastern Serengeti, Baobab Tented Camp is inside Tarangire on the Lake Burunge corridor, and Karatu Tented Lodge is on the Rift Valley escarpment.
The two that are closed are the seasonal ones. Gnu Ndutu Camp is open from late December until 31 March, because it is built for the calving herds and comes down when they leave. Gnu Mara River Camp is open from 1 June to 15 November, because it is built for the crossings and there are no crossings until June.
For your route that means one thing in practice. Your Serengeti nights in April are at Soit Le Motonyi rather than at Ndutu. That is the part of the park where lions, leopards and cheetahs are resident regardless of where the migration has gone. In a month when the herds are hard to find, a camp with its own cats is worth more than a camp near where the herds were.
Why April is the cheapest month in the Serengeti
Three things make up what you pay. The camp rate, the game drive, and the park fees. The camp rate is full board and covers your tent and your meals. The game drive covers the vehicle, the fuel and the guide. Park fees are collected by the park authorities and are never inside either of the other two.
| What you pay for | Peak season figure | April figure | What it covers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Accommodation, central Serengeti | $280 per person per night | $195 per person per night | Full board, two people sharing |
| Accommodation, inside Tarangire | $256 per person per night | $194 per person per night | Full board, two people sharing |
| Accommodation, Karatu | $144 per person per night | $118 per person per night | Full board, two people sharing |
| Game drive | From $300 per vehicle per day | From $300 per vehicle per day | Private 4×4, guide and fuel |
| Serengeti conservation fee | $70 per adult per day | $60 per adult per day | Before 18 percent VAT |
| Ngorongoro entry | $70.80 per adult | $70.80 per adult | One entry within 24 hours |
Our guide to what a Tanzania safari costs covers the general picture across the year.
Low season rates start on 1 March and hold until 30 June
Our low season is 1 March to 30 June, so the whole of April is inside it at every property we run. In the central Serengeti that’s $195 per person per night against $280 in peak season. Inside Tarangire it’s $194 against $256. In Karatu it’s $118 against $144.
All three figures are per person per night for a double or twin, full board, and they cover your tent and your meals and nothing else. The comparison figure in each pair is the peak rate, which covers 1 July to 31 October and 22 December to 5 January. The high season rate of 6 January to 28 February is lower than peak and higher than low. Park fees and game drives are separate, which is why the table above lists them separately. A rate that includes everything is not the same product as a rate that includes your bed and your dinner, and comparing the two numbers directly will mislead you.
The Serengeti conservation fee drops between 15 March and 15 May
TANAPA’s published tariff schedule puts the Serengeti low season at 15 March to 15 May. A non-resident adult pays $60 a day in that window against $70 in peak season, both before 18 percent VAT. Children aged 5 to 15 pay $10 against $20.
April is the only complete calendar month inside that window, which is why the arithmetic works out the way it does. Three nights in the Serengeti in April saves you $30 a head on fees alone, on top of $85 a night on the camp rate.
That schedule was valid to 30 June 2024 and is still the most recent one TANAPA publishes, so confirm the current figure with the park authority before you budget. Fees are paid per person for each 24 hour period, at the gate or online, and they are quoted separately from everything else on your itinerary.
Ngorongoro costs the same in April as in August
The Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority has no seasonal split. A non-resident adult pays $70.80, a child aged 5 to 16 pays $23.60, and the crater service fee is $295 per vehicle for one entry within 24 hours. Those are the figures in April and they are the same figures in August.
So a crater day is the one part of an April trip the season does not discount. If you’re building the route around price, the saving is in your Serengeti nights, not in your crater day.
Crowds in April
The northern circuit is at its emptiest. The crater floor fills between about 9am and noon in any month, and in April you can be down there at dawn with very few other vehicles. In Tarangire and at Lake Manyara you can drive most of the day without meeting another vehicle.
Availability is limited in a different way, though. Fewer camps are open, so the ones that are open can fill even in a month this empty. Book earlier than the low season would suggest.
Getting there, and how much of the week is driving
You come in through Kilimanjaro International Airport, about an hour from Arusha, and it serves the whole northern circuit. Arusha to Karatu is about two hours over 130 kilometers (81 miles) on paved road, and that stretch holds up whatever the weather does.
From Karatu it is 20 minutes to Lake Manyara, 30 minutes to the Loduare gate and about an hour down to the crater floor, an hour to Tarangire and 45 minutes to Lake Eyasi. Those are short hops, and they are the reason an April route built on two bases works better than one built on four.
Tanzania in April takes one leg off the map, and that helps you. There is no drive out to the calving plains, because the camp there closed on 31 March, so the long five hour run from Arusha is not part of an April trip at all. What replaces it is a shorter route with more time in each place, which is exactly what a month with scattered herds needs.
The variable is the ground rather than the distance. Black cotton soil holds water and turns greasy, and the tracks below the Lake Manyara escarpment are the ones that go first. That is why Manyara is a half day stop in April rather than a day you plan around. Our guides know which routes close and route around them, so a wet morning costs you a longer loop rather than a cancelled drive.
Which parks work best in Tanzania in April
We run the northern circuit. The southern and western parks are a different trip with different weather and we are not the people to sell you one.
Central and eastern Serengeti
The strongest single choice for April, and the place most of your nights should go. Soit Le Motonyi is where the southern short grass plains meet the acacia woodland, so it holds the open country animals and the ones that need cover in the same area. The underground Ngare Nanyuki River keeps pockets of permanent water in front of the camp through every month of the year.
That matters more in April than in any other month. Water everywhere else means animals can drink where they graze and stop gathering anywhere you can predict, and this is the corner of the park where they gather anyway. Mawe Tented Camp is there at $195 per person per night for a double or twin, full board.
Ngorongoro Crater
The crater floor is short grass and about 260 square kilometers (100 square miles), so the long-grass problem that affects the open Serengeti barely applies here. The Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority says the crater’s wildlife is there in every month of the year. Animals move in and out over the rim, and enough of them stay that rhino, lion, elephant and flamingo are on the floor in April as in August. Mornings are cold on the rim and the descent road can be slippery after a night of rain, so an early start earns you more here in April than anywhere else on the route.
Tarangire
Elephants pass the Lake Burunge corridor daily through the year. April is not Tarangire’s biggest month for them, because the huge dry season concentrations along the river build from June, when the water elsewhere has gone. April gives you a green park with almost nobody in it and baobabs in leaf instead.
Lake Manyara
The one northern park where April roads are a real problem. The groundwater forest floods, the tracks below the escarpment hold water, and parts of the park can be hard to reach after a heavy night. Treat it as a half-day stop rather than a day you have planned around, and check conditions before you commit to it.
What still flies, walks and drives in Tanzania in April
The wettest month of the year takes less off the list than people expect.
Balloons still fly. Over the central Serengeti and Tarangire, year round, from $599 per person for the transfer, an hour in the air and a champagne breakfast on the ground. The Ndutu launches ended in mid-March and the Western Corridor does not start until June, so the central Serengeti is the April option. Expect more cancellations than in the dry months, because the launch window needs settled air at first light, and children under seven cannot fly. Our hot air balloon page has the rest.
Walking moves uphill. The Ngorongoro highlands and Karatu take the walks from March to May, because the drainage up there is better and the plains are not. It is a fair trade in the wettest month: firmer ground underfoot, escarpment country that rewards being walked rather than driven, and a morning that does not depend on finding anything. Prices are $80 per person for a two to three hour bush walk and $180 for a half day of up to six hours, on our walking safaris page.
After dark in Tarangire. No other park on our routes allows a night drive, so this is the only chance in an April week to see what the bush does once the light goes. Two to three hours after sunset, $94.50 per person and a $59 per person activity fee to Tanzania National Parks.
A morning that does not need an animal. Lake Eyasi is 45 minutes from Karatu, and the Hadzabe leave on the hunt before sunrise while the Datoga work iron by hand. Coffee estates toward Oldeani are closer again. Heavy April rain can slow the tracks out to Eyasi, so treat it as a plan for whichever morning the weather gives you rather than a fixed date.
Birding in Tanzania in April
One of the better months. Resident species are nesting, so the males are in breeding plumage and singing, and the standing water across the plains brings in waterbirds that are not there in August. The crater lake and the Lake Manyara shoreline are both worth the stop in April for that reason.
You do not need a separate birding trip to get this. On a normal game drive in April you’ll see more species than you would on the same route in the dry season, simply because there is more water and more cover.
Climbing Kilimanjaro in April
April is the hardest month on the mountain. TMA recorded the Kilimanjaro region at 125 to 175 percent of average rainfall in April 2025, which is the wet end even for a wet month. Trails hold water, the forest section is muddy, and cloud stays on the mountain for days at a time, so the views most people climb for are often not there.
Very few people climb in April, which is the one thing in its favor. If you are set on it, go with a specialist. We are not a trekking operator and we would point you at one rather than take your booking. Kilimanjaro International Airport serves both the mountain and the northern circuit, so a climb and a safari attach to each other easily. Our team can take over the day you come down.
Zanzibar and the coast in April
Unguja, Pemba and Mafia are all in TMA’s bimodal zone, so April is their long rains too. Expect hot, humid days with an afternoon storm that clears, and evenings that are usually fine.
It is the emptiest month on the islands and the cheapest. Whether that trade is worth it depends on what you want the beach for. For swimming and diving on a fixed week it’s a gamble. For a few days of doing very little at the end of a safari, with Stone Town and the spice farms as wet-weather options, it works.
We do not own a property in Zanzibar. A beach extension after your safari is a partner hotel that we arrange for you, and we tell you which hotel before you book anything.
What is on in Tanzania in April
Two public holidays fall in April. Karume Day is on 7 April and is observed in Zanzibar. Union Day is on 26 April and marks the 1964 union of Tanganyika and the People’s Republic of Zanzibar.
Both close banks and government offices. Union Day is the one that affects travel, because the coast and the islands get busier for a long weekend around it. Easter falls in April in some years and moves, so check your dates against it if you are flying in or out around then.
What to sort before you fly
Apply for the visa online before you fly. A single entry tourist visa covers a stay of up to 90 days and the fee depends on your nationality, so take the current one from the official portal. Our post on how to obtain a tourist visa has the steps.
Malaria is present across northern Tanzania in every month, and April is the wettest of them, so there is more standing water and there are more mosquitoes than at any other point in the year. Talk to a travel clinic well before you fly rather than the week before. Whether you need a yellow fever certificate depends on the countries you pass through on the way rather than on Tanzania alone. Bring insurance that covers medical evacuation.
What to pack for Tanzania in April
A proper rain shell rather than a poncho, because the rain in April comes with wind. A dry bag or a large ziplock for your camera body and lenses, since the humidity gets into everything and the storms arrive quickly. Closed shoes you don’t mind getting muddy, and a second pair, because the first pair will not dry overnight.
A fleece or a warm layer for the crater rim at dawn and for early starts at altitude. Long sleeves and long trousers in khaki, olive or grey for the tsetse country in Tarangire. Insect repellent, and plenty of it, because standing water means mosquitoes.
Our safari packing guide covers the rest of the year.
Tanzania tours in April
An April route is built the opposite way round to a February one. February puts most of your nights in one place, because the animals are in one place. April spreads them, so the route stops chasing the herds and anchors on ground that holds game on its own. The central and eastern Serengeti has the resident cats, the crater floor has the density, and Tarangire is a green park with nobody in it.
Our 5 day trip is $2,114 per person for two people sharing and the 9 day is $5,605 on the same basis, both with a private vehicle and a guide throughout. Park fees, international flights and visas are quoted separately. The longer route is the one April rewards, and it is on our 9 day Tanzania safari page.
What nine days in April adds up to, and the one line that does not fall
On a nine day route with four Serengeti days, one crater day and a day in Tarangire, the fees come out roughly like this, per person.
| Fee | How it is charged | Per person |
|---|---|---|
| Serengeti, four days | $60 plus 18 percent VAT per 24 hours | $283.20 |
| Ngorongoro Conservation Area, one day | $70.80 per adult per 24 hours | $70.80 |
| Crater service fee | $295 per vehicle, one entry within 24 hours | $147.50 |
| Tarangire, one day | Park page figure, sources disagree | $70.00 |
That is about $571 per person on top of $5,605, so near $6,180 before flights and your visa.
Here is the part the cheap-month headline hides about Tanzania in April. Two of the three things you pay for fall in April and one of them does not. The camp rate is down $85 a night in the central Serengeti and the Serengeti fee is down $10 a day. The game drive is from $300 per vehicle per day in April exactly as it is in August, and April is the month you drive furthest for each animal you find. So the month with the lowest nightly rate is not automatically the month with the lowest cost per sighting, and a route with fewer moves in it is how you keep the two closer together.
Is April a good time to visit Tanzania?
Yes, if you know what you are buying. April gives you the emptiest parks and the lowest prices of the year, and it charges you in wildlife that is harder to find.
Photographers do well in April, because storm light and green backgrounds beat dust. So do birders. If you have been to Tanzania before and want the crater to yourself, this is the month that gives it to you. If your dates are flexible and your budget is not, nothing else in the year comes close on price.
It is the wrong month for a first safari booked around one week and fixed flights. It is also wrong if you have come specifically for the migration, because the herds are scattered and moving. And if a changed route on a wet morning would spoil the trip, wait for the dry season, because your guide will change the route on a wet morning.
If those things rule April out, the dry months from June give you the opposite trade entirely, at the opposite price.
Frequently asked questions
Three of our five properties are open through April. The two that are closed are closed because of where the herds are, not because of the rain.
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Reviewed by the Mawe Lodges reservations team, Arusha.
