AT A GLANCE
Why go?
Serengeti National Park is the great stage of East African wildlife, a vast sweep of acacia-dotted savanna where more than a million wildebeest, zebra and gazelles move in an endless circle across the seasons. It is here, in Tanzania's most celebrated reserve, that you find the planet's largest land-animal migration together with dense populations of lion, leopard, cheetah, elephant, buffalo and the rare black rhino—a park that has repeatedly been named Africa's leading national park.↗↗
The park's heart lies around the Seronera River Valley, where this guide is centred: a year-round water source that supports the Serengeti's highest concentration of big cats and anchors most lodges, the park headquarters and the airstrip. Whether you come for a dramatic river crossing, a calving season on the southern plains or simply a morning of predator sightings in golden grassland, Serengeti rewards travelers who plan around the rhythms of the herds.↗
The greatest show on earth
The reason most travelers come to Serengeti is the Great Migration, the circular journey of well over a million wildebeest, joined by countless zebra and Thomson's and Grant's gazelles, all following the rains in a relentless search for fresh grazing and water. It is widely described as the world's largest movement of land mammals, and its broad pattern is predictable even though the precise timing shifts each year with the weather.
