Serengeti National Park

The Serengeti is the stage for the largest animal migration on land: roughly 1.5 million wildebeest, a quarter of a million zebra and hundreds of thousands of Thomson's gazelle moving in a yearly circuit between northern Tanzania and Kenya's Maasai Mara. The park itself covers nearly 15,000 square kilometres and was created in 1940; its boundaries were fixed in 1951, and in 1959 the eastern highlands were split off as the Ngorongoro Conservation Area so that the Maasai, excluded from the park, could keep grazing there. Bernhard and Michael Grzimek's book and film Serengeti Shall Not Die made it famous the same year, and UNESCO listed it in 1981.

Where you see the herds depends on the month. Around half a million calves are born on the short-grass plains of the south, largely inside Ngorongoro's borders, between January and March. As the dry season sets in the herds turn north and west, passing through the Western Corridor in April and May, where they must cross the Grumeti River. To reach the Maasai Mara they must also ford the Mara River, where some 3,000 crocodiles lie in wait and far more animals drown in the crush than are taken by the reptiles. When the dry season ends in late October, the herds start back south.

The park is more than the migration. The southern plains are almost treeless grassland on volcanic ash, broken by kopjes, granite outcrops that predators use as lookouts. Seronera, in the centre, is the park's main settlement; the Western Corridor follows the Grumeti and Mbalageti rivers; the north is rolling Commiphora woodland, remote and less visited. The wider ecosystem holds more than 3,000 lions, over 5,000 elephants, buffalo, leopard and a small surviving population of black rhino, and more than 500 bird species have been recorded, from ostriches and secretarybirds to shoebills.

Visiting is by vehicle safari: nobody lives inside the park apart from park staff, researchers and lodge and camp workers, and game drives are run by lodges and safari operators. Seasons, fees and permitted activities change, so check with the Tanzania National Parks Authority before visiting.

Getting there

The small town of Mugumu lies about 62 km from the park, near its western boundary. Most visitors either fly or drive from Arusha. Light aircraft operated by local airlines fly from Kilimanjaro International (JRO) and Arusha (ARK) to airstrips inside the park, the main one at Seronera. By road the drive from Arusha takes around nine hours via the Ngorongoro highlands to Naabi Hill Gate, the main entrance, with Seronera about 45 km further on. On the western side, Mwanza International Airport (MWZ) on Lake Victoria is about 185 km away. The Mara Serena airstrip (MRE) is closer on the map, but it lies across the border in Kenya.