Arusha National Park fees

AlanS

I was re-reading the various posts here about visiting Arusha National Park, which we plan to do before the start of our K&T Safari next year. I discovered an inconsistency in the costs between posts (not being critical, here), and rather than bother our experienced travels again, I decided to see if there is a website . . . . . of course there is! Here is the link to the Tanzania National Parks website and a link to the July 2013-June 2014 Fees pdf.

If you don't want to follow the links, here are the applicable fees for Arusha National Park:

Conservation fee (Entry): $45 USD per adult

Walking safaris:
Short (1-4 hrs): $20 USD per adult
Long (above 4 hours): $25 USD per adult
Edit: you may also have to pay for the walking tour guide- $20 (remember you'll have a guide and an armed escort)

Additional fees apply if you plan to camp out, bring your own car, truck, or entire film crew, or fly you own plane there.

British

Hello Alan, while I did not write down what the fees were, I feel it was more than that, although of course my husband paid. When I looked at the link you provided just now, there is a vehicle fee and guide fee, maybe we had to pay that as well, l just cannot now remember the breakdown, but people will get the gist that it is not cheap. Our two hour walk turned out to be nearer to three hours by the way, just so people realize it is not a set time. Our guide who was waiting for us back at the safari vehicle was getting a little worried but we are good walkers and the walking guide just seemed to take his time with our group.

AlanS

I was wondering about the guide fee as well. Like you said, this gives everyone an idea of the costs which aren't cheap*. Thanks for the info about the flexibility in the walking tour duration.

In view of the cost of the tour and airfare, folks worried about ATM fees, foreign exchange fees, and other such "budget dust" might want to consider doing something else. How much are they planning to spend anyway, and what kind of fees are they talking about? I'm certainly not a spend-thrift, but folks need to adjust their mindset and not think about pinching every penny when taking the trip of a lifetime.

* Talk about entry fees paid by Tauck- our guide purchased every spot on the 65 person tour of Neuschwanstein- so we would not have any outsiders in our group and could use the VOX - even though there were only 25 of us on the tour!

Sealord

AlanS wrote:

I was wondering about the guide fee as well. Like you said, this gives everyone an idea of the costs which aren't cheap*. Thanks for the info about the flexibility in the walking tour duration.

In view of the cost of the tour and airfare, folks worried about ATM fees, foreign exchange fees, and other such "budget dust" might want to consider doing something else. How much are they planning to spend anyway, and what kind of fees are they talking about? I'm certainly not a spend-thrift, but folks need to adjust their mindset and not think about pinching every penny when taking the trip of a lifetime.

* Talk about entry fees paid by Tauck- our guide purchased every spot on the 65 person tour of Neuschwanstein- so we would not have any outsiders in our group and could use the VOX - even though there were only 25 of us on the tour!

All good points. We are not 'rich', but before this trip I decided that we we do what ever we wanted and I did not care what it cost. To put things in perspective, however, I did price out a few things. If you did the Four Seasons Serengeti on your own, it is a minimum of $1450 per night for a room for two, and their game drives are $1250 for a half day drive. It makes Tauck look like a really good deal ... and I really think it was worth every nickel. I saw other outfits doing game drives in vehicles that I really did not 'admire'. All that being said, I don't expect to do more than one Tauck trip per year unless it really becomes the 'bucket list'. I do like that phrase though, all of those other things are 'budget dust' when you look at the big picture. Just the airfare was more than our normal vacation. (;-)

Drfun48

Sealord wrote:

All good points. We are not 'rich', but before this trip I decided that we we do what ever we wanted and I did not care what it cost. To put things in perspective, however, I did price out a few things. If you did the Four Seasons Serengeti on your own, it is a minimum of $1450 per night for a room for two, and their game drives are $1250 for a half day drive. It makes Tauck look like a really good deal ... and I really think it was worth every nickel. I saw other outfits doing game drives in vehicles that I really did not 'admire'. All that being said, I don't expect to do more than one Tauck trip per year unless it really becomes the 'bucket list'. I do like that phrase though, all of those other things are 'budget dust' when you look at the big picture. Just the airfare was more than our normal vacation. (;-)

You are truly omnipresent ,once again offing your wisdom to all those wise enough to listen.

Sealord

Drfun48 wrote:

You are truly omnipresent ,once again offing your wisdom to all those wise enough to listen.

DrFun ... hello again. I did not know you were here. Thanks for your comments about my daughter ... uh ... wife. I forwarded your email to her and she regained that ear to ear smile she had for our entire T&K Africa trip.