Serengeti

The Serengeti is the largest and most celebrated wildlife area in Tanzania, and the centrepiece of any journey into the country’s northern circuit. Its plains extend beyond the horizon in every direction, and it is this scale that sustains the great migration through most of its annual cycle.

Timing shapes the experience considerably. The southern plains host the calving season in January and February, when several hundred thousand wildebeest are born within a matter of weeks and predator activity is at its most intense. By July the herds have moved north towards the Mara River, where the crossings continue into October. Outside the migration, the Serengeti remains outstanding year-round for resident lion prides, cheetah on the open grassland, and leopard along the Seronera river valley.

We usually combine the Serengeti with the Ngorongoro Crater, and often with Kenya’s Maasai Mara, which adjoins it across the border and forms part of the same ecosystem.