Serengeti National Park

The Serengeti covers 14,763 square kilometers of open savanna in northern Tanzania. The name comes from the Maasai word siringit, which means “endless plains.” Drive for an hour in any direction and you will understand why. The landscape is broken by granite outcrops called kopjes and pockets of acacia woodland, but mostly it is just grassland stretching to the horizon.

The park is famous for the Great Migration, the largest movement of land animals on Earth. Over 1.5 million wildebeest, 250,000 zebra, and hundreds of thousands of gazelle move through the ecosystem year-round following fresh grass and rain. What you see depends on when you arrive. Calving happens in the southern Ndutu area from January to March. The dramatic Mara River crossings happen from July through October. There is no bad month to visit the Serengeti, but the timing of your trip decides what you witness.

The Serengeti holds the largest lion population in Africa, around 4,000 individuals. Leopards are common in the riverine woodland around Seronera. Cheetahs are most visible on the open plains in the south and east. This is one of the few places on the continent where you can reliably see all three big cats in a single trip.