This week’s Traveling Light column is a conversation with guidebook author Philip Briggs, whose Bradt: Northern Tanzania guide hit bookstores this spring.

Among other things, I ask Briggs about the feasibility of self-guided travel in Tanzania, and this is what he told me:

It’s easy enough to travel between towns using public transport (and to climb Kilimanjaro on foot, of course!) but realistically the game reserves can only be visited on an organized safari. If you are desperate to do it in the cheap, a daily bus does run via the Serengeti between the Lake Victoria port of Mwanza and so-called safari capital of Arusha. You’ll see plenty of wildlife on the way, but you’ll have to pay around US$100 in park fees and can’t expect the driver to stop for you to take photos!

Full northern Tanzania travel Q&A here.