Best time to visit Serengeti National Park : When is the best time of year to visit the Serengeti? The Serengeti offers an exceptional and unforgettable experience at any time of year. The best months to visit Serengeti National Park are, however, January to February or June to September. Ideally, you should schedule your trip to coincide with The Great Migration.
For instance, the Northern Serengeti and the park’s western corridor are the finest places to spend the summer and fall months if you want to watch the sprinting wildebeest in the Southern Serengeti. Reputable tour companies will have a good knowledge of where the animals are going and when, and they’ll probably modify their Serengeti safari itineraries based on the herd’s movement.
During the dry season, which lasts from June to September, the vegetation thins out and wildlife congregates around rivers and waterholes, making it simpler to spot it on game drives. Weather in the Serengeti is largely predictable. In the Serengeti, temperatures are generally steady and there is a lot of sunshine and sunny days.
Typical daytime highs range from the upper 70s to the upper 80s. Additionally, because fewer mosquitoes are present during the dry season, there is a lower risk of developing malaria. Because of the area’s greater elevation, Ngorongoro Conservation Area may be a little bit cooler than other places you might visit. The rainy season, which lasts from April to May, brings torrential rainfall and several lodge closures.
What can I expect when I visit the Serengeti?
Observing the wildlife is, of course, the Serengeti’s greatest draw. You can be sure to spot the Big Five (lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo, and black rhino) as well as a variety of plains game, including giraffe, Grant’s gazelle, impala, kongoni, topi, and eland in Serengeti National Park, which has the largest concentration of large mammals on Earth.
In addition, the stunning African wild dog, which had vanished from the Serengeti in 1991, was brought back there in 2012. More than 500 different bird species, including ostrich and flamingo, may also be seen.
However, even if this sounds spectacular, nothing compares to The Great Migration, which involves over a million wildebeest, zebra, and other hoofed animals moving from the Serengeti to the Maasai Mara in Kenya. The Western Corridor of the Serengeti is where the migratory herds travel through in April and May. The herds must traverse the Grumeti River and the Mara River, each of which are home to over 3,000 crocodiles, to reach the Maasai Mara. 50 wildebeest drown for every one that the crocodiles catch.
The migratory herds begin to move south, back to the Serengeti, as soon as the dry season finishes in late October. Every year, some 250,000 wildebeest and 30,000 plains zebras perish during the migration from diseases, predation, exhaustion, and thirst. These dramatic river crossings are examples of the circle of life and survival of the fittest, but they are also a bittersweet and stunning sight to see.
How many days do I need to visit the Serengeti?
The Serengeti is a sizable national park in northern Tanzania that covers 5,700 square miles and has more than 3,700,000 acres of pristine savanna. The name of the park itself alludes to its vastness: “Serengeti” is a close translation of the Maasai term siringet, which means “the place where the land runs on forever.”
That being said, it takes at least four days to adequately explore the Serengeti and its species. Due to its size, you’ll need this time to drive about in your safari vehicle with your guide in search of the Big Five and other wildlife. You’ll have ample time—four days—to experience a range of weather patterns. It may take even longer to get through the park if you go during the peak season of the wildebeest migration because of the crowds that are present.
