Serengeti National Park

Drivers who work this park talk about it in belts, not in slogans. Seronera in the centre is the year-round office: resident lion, leopard on the sausage trees, hippo in the pools, and a decent chance of seeing something serious even in April mud. The south around Ndutu and the short-grass plains holds the calving from December into March. The west along the Grumeti loads up in May and June. By July the herds are usually stacked against the Mara River in the north, around Kogatende, waiting for a crossing that nobody can schedule.

A crossing is twenty minutes or three hours. Sometimes the lead animals turn around. We do not promise one on a two-night stay. If the river is the reason you are booking, take the 6-Day Serengeti Migration Safari in July, August or early September and sleep in the north, not in Seronera "because it is central". Central is a compromise, not a migration camp.

Roads inside the park are corrugated, black-cotton in the rains, and slow. Arusha to Naabi Hill is a long day if you also drop into Ngorongoro. Many of our guests split the drive by sleeping on the crater rim or flying Arusha to Seronera / Kogatende. Balloon mornings leave around sunrise from designated sites; you need to book the slot when you confirm the safari, not at the dinner table the night before.

The name comes from the Maasai siringet, the place that runs on forever. That is still the feeling at 6:40 a.m. when the light is low and there is nothing between you and the next kopje except grass. It is also a working TANAPA park: gates close, speed limits are enforced, and off-road driving is restricted to specified areas in the north and on the Ndutu plains, not everywhere a cat is sitting.

Most northern itineraries pair the Serengeti with Tarangire on the way in and the crater on the way out. If you want the classic week, look at the 8-Day Big Five & Migration Explorer or the 7-Day northern lodge safari. Families who need a slower pace use the 6-Day Family Northern Safari.