7-Day Great Serengeti Migration Safari Tanzania

Your trip begins the moment you land at Kilimanjaro International Airport. Your senior safari guide is there to meet you, help with your bags, and drive you the short way to Arusha, the busy little town that most northern circuit safaris start from. It sits in a temperate belt at the foot of Mount Meru, so the air is fresher than you might expect.

There is no game viewing today. Instead the plan is to let you rest, catch up on sleep, and get ready for the early starts ahead. You check into Four Points by Sheraton, where you can unwind after the flight, sort your kit, and ask your guide any last questions about the days to come.

If time and daylight allow, you can wander the hotel grounds and take in the view toward Meru before dark. It is a gentle opening day by design, since the real driving and wildlife begin tomorrow. Dinner is served at the hotel, and you spend your first night there in Arusha.

After breakfast you set off for the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, a drive of a few hours that climbs steadily out of Arusha into cooler, greener highland country. You reach Karatu in time for lunch at Acacia Farm Lodge, then carry on to the crater itself. The first sight of the caldera from the rim is something you will not forget in a hurry.

In the afternoon you descend more than six hundred metres onto the crater floor for a game drive. This small, closed world holds a remarkable density of animals. Look for lion prides on the grass, spotted hyena, cheetah, jackal, and the occasional leopard, alongside herds of zebra, gazelle, wildebeest, and buffalo. A shallow soda lake often carries a band of pink flamingos across the far side.

The crater sits just off the migration's main path, so it is more about resident game than the herds today, a rich start all the same. As the light softens you climb back to the rim. Dinner and the night are at a lodge on the crater's edge.

You leave the highlands after breakfast and drop down toward the Serengeti, aiming for the Seronera area in the park's centre. Seronera is known for holding wildlife all year, so the drive in doubles as a game drive. Watch the roadside for elephants, giraffes, buffalo, and the first big groups of plains game as the country flattens and opens out.

The scale of the Serengeti takes a while to sink in. Grass runs to the horizon in every direction, broken only by the odd flat topped acacia and the rocky outcrops called kopjes. You reach your camp in the Lobo area in time for lunch, then head out again for an afternoon drive around Seronera.

From August onward the migration is often working through the central and northern parts of the park, so your guide keeps an ear on where the herds have been seen. Nothing is guaranteed, but the odds are good at this time. Meals are provided, and you spend the night at your camp.

Today is a full day out in the heart of the Serengeti, with no long transfer to break it up. You spend the hours crossing grassland, threading through riverine thickets, and checking the kopjes and waterholes where the big cats like to rest and hunt. Early morning and late afternoon are the prime times, so you plan the day around them.

Seronera is one of the best places anywhere to find lion, and leopards are regular in the trees along the watercourses. Cheetahs use the open plains to run down gazelle, while herds of zebra, wildebeest, and buffalo move across the grass. Keep an eye on the Grumeti River line too, where the migration passes through around the middle of the year on its way north.

For birding the river edges are alive with kingfishers, fish eagles, and herons, a good change of pace between the big animals. You take a picnic lunch in the field and stay out as long as the light holds. Dinner is back at camp, where you sleep.

After breakfast you point the vehicle north toward the remote Kogatende and Wagakuria country, the far edge of the park up near the Kenyan border. The drive is long but rewarding, since you are travelling through the migration's territory the whole way. Plains zebra and Thomson's gazelle dot the grass as you go, and you stop for a picnic lunch out on the plains.

This northern corner is quieter and wilder than the centre, with fewer vehicles and a real sense of space. It is also where the Mara River cuts through, which is the whole reason you have come this far. You arrive in time for an afternoon drive aimed squarely at the river.

From roughly August into October the herds mass along these banks, and you may catch wildebeest, zebra, and gazelle throwing themselves into the water while crocodiles wait below and lions watch the far side. A crossing can never be promised on any single afternoon, but this is the place and the season for it. Dinner and the night are at Acacia Migration Camp.

A full day in the Kogatende sector gives the river time to deliver. Crossings happen when the herds decide, not when we do, so your guide moves between different bends and lookout points through the day, reading the animals and waiting for them to commit. It calls for patience, and the payoff can be huge.

Even away from the water there is plenty to find. The north holds strong resident populations, so look for lion prides, elephant herds, and buffalo along the woodland margins between the open stretches. From August to October you may also see the migrating columns of wildebeest, zebra, and gazelle beginning their turn back south as the season shifts.

You cover new ground today, seeking out corners of the sector you have not yet seen and stopping wherever the action pulls you. Lunch is taken in the bush so you never have to cut a good sighting short. Meals are included, and you spend a second night at your northern Serengeti camp.

You make the most of your last morning with an early breakfast and a final game drive as you work your way toward Kogatende Airstrip. The early light is often the best of the whole trip, so the camera stays out until the last minute. Any parting sightings of the herds or the cats are a fine way to end the safari.

At the airstrip you board a scheduled flight back to Arusha, which saves you the long overland drive south and gives you an aerial look at the plains you have just explored. This trip through the Serengeti ends where it began, back in Arusha.

On arrival you are treated to a hot lunch, then transferred either to Kilimanjaro airport for your onward flight or to your Arusha hotel if you are staying on. Your safari in Tanzania closes here. Breakfast and lunch are the meals provided today.