Tanzania Refuses to Be One Thing: Beyond the Safari

It started with the whispers back and forth behind my back. As they moved, the necklaces and beads made a soft jingle. Two women elders conversed, trying to figure out if I “belonged.” One grabbed my hand and stared intently into my eyes before asking, “Are you one of us?”

No words were spoken, but somehow I answered yes.

The other elder removed one of her necklaces and placed it around my neck. I stood there processing what had just happened. It was in that moment that I understood something about belonging. Sometimes it is not declared. Sometimes it is extended.

We hopped around the tree as the welcome chant hummed in the background. Around me, I noticed the variations in response. Some discomfort. Some curiosity. Some uncertainty. All of it was appropriate. All of it was welcome. We were standing in the same place, participating in the same experience, yet none of us were experiencing it in quite the same way.

That is one of the things I have come to appreciate about group travel. A shared itinerary does not create a shared interpretation. We arrive with our own histories, cultures, boundaries, curiosities and assumptions.

The transition from the Maasai boma to Ngorongoro O’Ledani Mountain Lodge was sharp, and necessary. After an experience that stretched us beyond what was familiar, the lodge offered the comfort of familiarity again. The food was good, the service carried an easy warmth and there was an earthy edge that intersected with luxury in all the right places. It was quiet enough to exhale.

This was not simply where we slept between activities. It became a place to process what we had seen, recover from the movement of safari and enjoy the kind of rest that travel sometimes makes us feel guilty for needing.

As it turned out, we were going to have a little more time there than originally planned. The next day we were supposed to spend time with the Hadzabe. I knew they were hunters and gatherers. I knew that meant hunting animals. Yet somehow, in my very American mind, I had not put one particular animal on the menu.

Baboon was most certainly on theirs.

There was nothing wrong with that. This was not a performance created for tourists, nor was it a cultural practice that needed to be changed to make us more comfortable. It was their way of life. Yet understanding something intellectually and encountering the specificity of it are two different things. Learning more about what the day could include gave me pause, not because their traditions needed to accommodate us, but because I had to consider how the experience fit within the journey I was responsible for curating.

By then, I knew the women traveling with me, the pace we had already kept and the experiences we were still processing. Sitting in front of us was another option that is surprisingly easy to overlook when designing an itinerary: rest.

So I changed the itinerary.

There was no replacement excursion and no frantic attempt to fill the hours. We stayed at the lodge, slept a little longer and allowed ourselves to simply be there. Even our guide got the day to rest.

That mattered to me too. Guides are often considered in terms of what they provide to a journey: their knowledge, driving, coordination and ability to help travelers navigate an unfamiliar place. It is their job, yes, but they are still people moving through the journey alongside us. Rest did not only belong to the travelers.

What could have looked like an empty day on paper became exactly what the journey needed.

That decision reinforced something I have carried into the way I think about group travel. An itinerary may be finalized before departure, but thoughtful curation continues on the ground. Good planning creates the structure, but good leadership requires paying attention to how the journey is actually unfolding. There is a difference between deviating from a plan because something went wrong and intentionally adjusting it because you recognize an opportunity to make the experience better. In this case, doing less was not a compromise. It was the better choice.

Of course, by this point we had already traveled quite a distance together. I had the benefit of observing not only the journey as it unfolded, but the women experiencing it.

Four women from different backgrounds had somehow found ourselves moving through Tanzania as one small group: a Canadian, a Colombian, a Black American and a Polish American. We had not arrived with identical interests, comfort levels or ways of seeing the world. That was precisely what made the journey interesting.

Perhaps I should go back to how we got there.

We met at Gran Meliá Arusha over lunch on the rooftop, overlooking Mount Meru and the lush greenery surrounding us. The hotel was modern, with African cultural aesthetics woven throughout the design, giving us our first taste of the intersections we would continue to encounter throughout Tanzania.

Man, was the food good.

We were off to a great start, laughing and getting acquainted. I happened to know two of the women from different chapters of my nursing career, but even those relationships held surprises. Joanne had recently retired and wanted to do something fun. Somewhere in the conversation, we realized that years earlier she had actually been one of my preceptors when I first started working in the ICU. We had both completely forgotten.

There was something amusing about realizing that the woman who had once helped guide me through an unfamiliar environment was now sitting across from me in Tanzania as I prepared to guide her through one.

There was no manufactured “sisterhood,” no expectation that because this was a women’s journey everyone needed to instantly become best friends. We were simply four women sitting around a table in Arusha, bringing different backgrounds, personalities and life experiences with us, about to discover what traveling together would look like.

At that point, none of us knew exactly how those differences would show up along the way.

Before we left Arusha for the Serengeti, there was one addition I had made to our itinerary only a few weeks before arriving in Tanzania.

Through conversations with Amanda, my local partner, I learned that she had been quietly supporting orphanages within her community. I wanted to understand more about the work she was already connected to and, while we were there, find a way to participate and contribute. So I asked if we could add a visit.

It was not part of the original itinerary. It also wasn't about arriving with an idea of what this community needed from us. Amanda already had the relationships. The work existed before we arrived and would continue after we left. We were simply being invited into something already in motion.

Before we left Arusha for the Serengeti, there was one addition I had made to our itinerary only a few weeks before arriving in Tanzania. Through conversations with Amanda, my local partner, I learned that she had been quietly supporting orphanages within her community. I wanted to understand more about the work she was already connected to and find a way to participate and contribute while we were there. So I asked if we could add a visit.

It wasn't about arriving with our own idea of what this community needed from us. Amanda already had the relationships. The work existed before we arrived and would continue after we left. We were simply being invited into something already in motion.

Before we arrived, we made our way into town, stopping at a store for food, snacks and juice. We popped it all into the back of the bajaji and were on our way, but first, we needed to feed ourselves. We stopped at a local favorite called The Uzunguni. Get the grilled chicken. Trust me.

Arriving at the orphanage brought mixed feelings. There was excitement, matched by the excitement of the kids. There was something about simply sitting with them and sharing an experience as they ate their snacks and drank their juice, laughter erupting between the wiggles in their seats. Yet all of that existed against the contrast of worn furniture, dim lighting and what felt like a thick blanket of survival hovering in the air. It was something worth observing without pretending the joy erased what was plainly around us. Of course, they sang that infamous East African song for the “Muzungu” group. We laughed and we cried. It was a raw moment of vulnerability, connection and breaking bread together.

Now, let’s lighten it up. Off we went on one of the best flights of my life.

Our pilot, Ali, gave us a treat. As we made our way toward the Serengeti, we flew near Ol Doinyo Lengai, the Mountain of God, with incredible views below us while Ali paired what we were seeing with stories and history. For a flight that was supposed to get us from one place to another, the journey there became an experience of its own.

The Serengeti had a stillness paired with an electric curiosity about what we would see next. Spotting animals became almost a game, testing our eyes to find them plainly hidden within the landscape. Once you saw them, you wondered how you had ever missed them. We were blessed to see many animals and experience more than a few memorable encounters, but two quickly rose to the top: the lions tucked around our jeep and certainly that black rhino experience.

Boy, did that escalate quickly. There is something extraordinary about seeing one of the world's endangered animals in the wild. There is something slightly different about seeing one coming toward you at full speed.

From there, we get to Zanzibar. This was the relaxing portion of the trip, with sun and sea. Stone Town brought a different kind of energy, with its narrow streets, historic architecture and layers of culture, while beyond it was another side of Zanzibar altogether: beaches, water and the islands and islets that make up the archipelago.

Then there was the food.

There was plenty of seafood, but this was not simply seafood by the Indian Ocean. Zanzibar's history as a center of the spice trade had found its way onto the plate, creating flavors shaped by the Swahili Coast and the cultures that have moved through it. That Swahili fusion is something I would keep going back for again and again.

As for the rest, that needs to go in the travel guide.