Best time to Visit Serengeti National Park
Best time to Visit Serengeti National Park : The Serengeti National Park provides amazing chances to see wildlife all year round – you just have to figure out the best time and place to witness the incredible Great Migration, one of nature’s most spectacular events. But beyond the iconic the Great Migration, lies a question crucial to your safari experience:
This article, we’ll learn when is the best time to go to Serengeti national park, Tanzania, for the Great Migration to the diverse wildlife in the Serengeti Tanzania.
Depending on what exactly you’re looking for, YOUR best time for visiting the Serengeti might not be MY best time for visiting the Serengeti. Are you looking to see the great migration? Or maybe you’re trying to escape the masses or trying to find the cheapest prices? Or are school holidays the only times you can travel?
Have a look at my post about the best time to visit Tanzania for lots of general information about the weather, high- and low-season and an overview of Tanzania per month. In short, these are the main things to consider when deciding when to visit the Serengeti:
- January and February are great if you want to see the calving of the wildebeest in the southeastern part of the park. It’s very warm during this months with a chance of rain in January but usually nothing that will ruin your trip. The landscape is usually pretty green after the short rain season.
- March to May is the heavy rain season and it’s not recommended to go on a safari in these months. You might get lucky and get spectacular animal sightings without the crowds but there’s a pretty big risk of very heavy rains that can damage roads, make them slippery or force the wildlife to go and hide.
- June-September is a great time for visiting the Serengeti and this is when the famous river crossings happen in Serengeti Mara. This is however high season (especially July and August), so you won’t be alone and prices might be higher than during the rest of the year. It’s the cooler dry season, with bright skies and nice warm temperatures during the day but it often cools down at night, especially in and around the northern parks. In June the landscape is very green from the heavy rain season but it gets dry again pretty quickly. This might look a bit less pretty but it definitely has its charm and it allows for more wildlife sightings as they’re not hidden behind the long grass and gather around watering holes.
- October-November is the warm (read: hot) dry season and everything is now very dry. The wildebeest are almost all back from Kenya and move towards the south-east from the northern Serengeti. It’s calmer than from June to September.
- December (and part of January) is the short rain season but unlike the heavy rain season, this is most often not a reason to stay at home. The Christmas holidays are peak season and especially in the more luxurious lodges prices are often even higher than June-September. From a wildlife perspective this is definitely not a bad time but if you’re on a budget or like a bit more intimacy, you might want to pick another moment.
