Serengeti National Park, Tanzania

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The Serengeti is one of the most famous safari destinations in the world and rightly so - vast open savanna plains of roughly 25,000 km where the animals move according to the dictates of the seasonal rains, untroubled by land-ownership or boundaries.

More than most other safari areas, the best place to stay in the Serengeti depends on when you are travelling and also, to a degree, your tolerance towards seeing other safari vehicles as the Serengeti becomes very busy as the Serengeti Migration begins in earnest.

The Serengeti Migration
Up to two million wildebeest and half a million zebra live on the Serengeti as well as thousands of gazelles, impala and other antelope. This in turn attracts the predators which has led to the popular Serengeti nickname of “The Greatest Show on Earth” . Every year these wildebeest and zebra move northwards through the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania and into the Masai Mara National Park in Kenya in search of fresh new grasses. The wildlife spills out into buffer zones outside the official parks where wild animals co-exist alongside the local Masai and their livestock.

The Serengeti migration is a complex natural phenomenon defined by the rains. The beginning of the year sees the animals enjoying the sweet grass plains in the southern part of the Serengeti.

• The short rains begin in November to mid-December, prompting the animals to return to the south-western part of the Serengeti to the short sweet grass plains. Long columns of wildebeest and zebra are trailed by opportunistic predators.

• From mid December to March, the short grass plains of the south around Ndutu are alive with migrant herds of wildebeest, zebra and gazelles and the animals give birth during this period of abundance. However for the rest of the year the southern Serengeti can be a little empty in the terms of game as the migration heads north.

• When the long rains begin in April, the plains are at their most beautiful, vivid with wildflowers and teeming game. This is an ideal time for photographic safaris as the quality of the light is magical.

• From April to June, the Serengeti is the theatre for one of the most impressive wildlife shows on earth. Hundreds of thousands of plains game begin moving north-westwards to the Seronera. This spectacular moving feast is trailed by predators; lion, cheetah, leopard and hyena.

• The Seronera area of the Serengeti comprises open plains dotted with attractive kopjes. There’s plenty of resident game with relaxed predators as well as the migrating herds coming through in April and May. Given the Seronera’s central position, you can stay here and still travel south and north to the Western Corridor. We recommend Serengeti Safari Camp or Olakira Camp which are both in the Seronera. However this location advantage means that the Seronera remains busy throughout most of the migration.

• By the end of June or July, as the rains dwindle, huge columns of wildebeest and zebra cross the crocodile-infested Grumeti River into the Masai Mara, where there is permanent water. The Grumeti River lies just to the north of what’s called the Western Corridor, an area with plenty of permanent game including zebra wildebeest, the predators and forest species such as colobus monkeys. Good lodges here include Grumeti River Lodge.

• Territorial game (hippo, elephant, leopard, serval, jackal, giraffe) remain behind, particularly in the Seronera area, hoping the fat they have gained during the last few months will enable them to survive the dry season and waiting anxiously for the rains.

• The Northern Serengeti lies between the Seronera and the Kenya border. This gentle rolling game country includes the pretty Lobo kopje. Given its northern position, it is far less crowded than the southern grasslands and the Seronera. Good options here include Sayari Camp and Serengeti Migration Camp.

• East of Serengeti National Park lies the Loliondo area which belongs to the Maasai tribes who live there. This is still part of the Serengeti eco-system and has plentiful stocks of permanent game and also experiences the migration. The plus point for this area is that the camps here, being outside the park confines, can offer night drives. Between October and November you can see the migration as it returns south into Tanzania. Here we recommend Nduara Loliondo Camp, Klein’s Camp and Suyan Camp.