Tanzania

country:	Tanzania
trip type:	Moderate cycling holidays
departures:	2008: 8 Jul
price:	From €1590 (13 days) excluding flights. Local payment US $200. Prices are for both adults and children and there is no minimum age (please contact us to discuss your requirements). Price includes bike hire, transport, accommodation, activities and most meals

Family adventure holidays

Moderate cycling holidays

Tanzania holidays

the amazing things you'll be doing

We are a small personal travel company with a passion for getting out and exploring new and exciting destinations around the world. We have created our family adventures to include all that is special in our regular biking adventures but with reduced biking distances and extra family friendly activities added in so you and your family can truly appreciate this magnificent continent.

On our 13 day family adventure we travel through Tanzania from Dar es Salaam on the Indian Ocean coastline to Arusha, the safari capital of East Africa. Travelling far from busy roads and main tourist routes you will experience a different face of Africa - local villages and traditional tribesmen, breathtaking scenery and wildlife grazing on the plains. We travel through open savannah, desert, mountain rainforest and tropical coastline. We hike in the foothills of Mt Kilimanjaro with its snow-covered peaks and camp in the wilderness under a cloudless African sky.

We take a break from our bikes to visit Ngorongoro Crater, which hosts the largest concentration of plains game anywhere in the world and gives you the wildlife experience that East Africa is famous for. Enjoy a day hike on the foothills of Mt Kilimanjaro and visit a local school in the unspoilt Usambara Mountains. Bike through the Usambara Mountains and along the tropical Indian Ocean coastline, camp with a local Maasai family, bike and walk in Arusha National Park and so much more.

day-by-day itinerary

Day 1:	Arrive in Dar es Salaam “Haven of peace”, free day. Airport transfers can be arranged. Alternatively taxis are available outside the airport, approx $USD 20 to the beach resort where we will meet for a pre departure meeting at 5pm. NOTE - please change money on arrival at the airport for at least the first week of your trip.
Day 2:	We follow the coastal road away from Dar es Salaam and then bike through small old historic town of Bagamoyo - arriving in time to enjoy a swim in the Indian Ocean. In the afternoon visit the historic slave museum. Approx 15kms biking.
Day 3:	Departing the tropical coastline we start the day with a short ride in the cool of the morning then drive along a little used dirt road and through sleepy palm lined villages. The route retraces the historical major slave and trading route through East Africa. In the afternoon we climb away from the plains and head up into the Usambara Mountains. Approx 10kms biking.
Day 4:	Today we have an opportunity to visit a local primary school that we have had an ongoing relationship with for quite a few years. Meet the children and experience how school life in rural Tanzania really is! Or spend the day hiking with a local guide in the hills and forest.
Day 5:	Sports day with the kids from Mkuzi school. Optional hike or bike ride.
Day 6:	On our bikes we head up to a viewpoint overlooking the endless plains below, then drop down to visit Lushoto, an old German colonial town nestled high in the mountains, before continuing down to the surrounding plains. We camp at a farm style campsite (complete with tennis court and swimming pool!). Approx 20-40kms biking.
Day 7:	Heading north we drive through the huge wide open spaces of the Maasai Steppe to the foot hills of Mt Kilimanjaro. In the afternoon hike on the lower slopes of Mt Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest mountain.
Day 8:	We drive through Arusha, stopping to check out the snakes and other creatures at a nearby reptile park, to Makuyuni. An afternoon ride brings us to Mto Wa Mbu, a small town at the foot of the Rift Valley escarpment. Explore the town and visit local craft markets. Approx 20kms biking.
Day 9:	With an early start we drive into the Ngorongoro Crater, a natural Garden of Eden, and spend the day game viewing the highest concentration of plains game in Africa, returning to Arusha in the evening.
Day 10:	We take a short drive out of Arusha to the base of Mt Meru, ‘the two faced mountain’. Our biking takes us around the lower slopes of Mt Meru, through lush forest and into Arusha National Park. This is one of the few parks in East Africa that we can ride through on our bikes and experience the wildlife from the saddle. Take an afternoon walk in the park with a ranger and experience the wildlife up close and personal! Approx 35kms biking.
Day 11:	With a combination of driving and riding we make our way around the foothills of Mt Kilimanjaro on little used dirt roads and 4x4 tracks before heading out into the wide open spaces of Tanzania to camp at our “special spot” and enjoy the hospitality of a local Maasai family. Approx 20-40kms biking.
Day 12:	A relaxed morning gives us the chance to visit a Maasai manyatta (village), and experience their traditional culture and lifestyle. We continue biking through the wide open plains and scrub lands all the while keeping an eye open for giraffe, zebra and gazelle. In the afternoon a short transfer gets us to Arusha and a final evening meal together in true African style. Approx 35kms biking.
Day 13:	If you are flying out today we can arrange a transfer to the airport or help you plan sight seeing in Tanzania.

how this holiday makes a difference

It is important to us that when we travel to different parts of our amazing planet that our exchange is always a mutual one and that we make a positive contribution to people and places that we visit along the way.

These days ‘responsible travel' and ‘sustainability' are hot topics. Responsible travel is not about donating large sums of money to charity (at least not without thoroughly researching the long-term intentions or effects of the charity). We believe responsible travel is about taking time to think about how our actions can benefit or how they impact the people, communities, economies, environments and eco-systems we visit, and then use this to make a difference (or sometimes more appropriately - how we can NOT make a difference). We are constantly considering our actions and how we and the people who travel with us can improve our impact on the places we visit.

Here are just some of the ways that we ‘make a difference’:

Social integration with the local people is a central part of our trips. Simply travelling by bike is a great start – a great way for our bikers and local people to meet and start a conversation. We camp with a Maasai family, paying them to stay there. This gives our bikers and our hosts alike a unique opportunity to take the time to learn about each other’s cultures.
We have a relationship with a Primary School in the Usambara Mountains. Our main goal of the visit is the fantastic social and cultural exchange experienced by both the school pupils and our bikers. Over the past years money donated by our bikers has been used to employ local carpenters to build more than 100 much needed school desks for the school.
We always buy locally grown food and shop in small local markets; we support local businesses by staying in locally owned campsites and using local operators for our safaris.
Educate our bikers – about the effects of buying products that come from endangered species, or products that are destructive to wildlife or the environment (ivory and endangered hardwoods for example).
Waste/rubbish management – when we travel we should treat our surrounding as we would treat our home (or better!). We do our best to avoid ‘single use packaging’ only using reusable or recyclable packaging. We recycle what can be, and manage any rubbish in the best possible way e.g. in Africa – all of our organic waste is feed to local domestic pigs and goats, and we always leave our campsites as we find them (or better!).
We avoid campfires to help prevent deforestation. (Three are some places where wood is purpose grown and replanted for fire wood - for the occasional campfire – but it is important to carefully check the source of firewood).
We have an environmentally conscious office – to avoid paper waste we aim to use as much computer technology as possible in our office. And when we do print we use paper from recycled sources!
We are currently working on a project where we calculate the environmental cost of each of our biker’s air travel to East Africa. We then transfer this cost into trees and plant the trees in a local reforestation project during our biking journey. In addition to this for every trip we lead we will plant sufficient trees to offset the CO2 emissions of our support vehicle. We plan to initiate this project in 2008.

Tourism can be good and bad for destinations & local people.

We carefully screen every holiday against our criteria for responsible travel.

'Look behind the brochure' to find how each holiday makes a difference (see left).

We don't claim to be perfect - there is no global accreditation - but we've led the way since 2001 and screened 1000's of holidays.

We invite every traveller to write a review about their experiences and responsible tourism.

This valuable feedback is sent to the people who run the holidays. We keep a very close eye on it and take off holidays that don't live up to our standards.