The Serengeti National Park is the heart and soul of Tanzania and the quintessential safari experience. This UNESCO World Heritage Site borders Kenya’s Maasai Mara to its north, the Ngorongoro Conservation Area to its south, and is the site of the annual Great Wildebeest Migration. Every year, more than two million animals migrate throughout the Serengeti and the Mara.

Due to the size of the reserve, it is important to plan which area of the Serengeti you will stay in during any given time of the year, especially if you either want to experience the migration or avoid the crowds. As a rule of thumb, from December to March we recommend staying in the South-Central Serengeti, May to mid-July in the Western Corridor/Grumeti Reserve, and mid-July through November in the Northern Serengeti and Mara River areas. The Central Serengeti has consistently good game viewing year-round. Each of these areas offers different landscapes: the northern Serengeti is hilly and strewn with rock kopjes, the central areas are mixed grass and woodlands, and south is sprawling plains.