Experience
The Great Migration, month by month
Two million wildebeest and zebra move in a slow clockwise loop through the Serengeti and the Maasai Mara. Where you stay matters more than how long you stay.
- Wildebeest, plus roughly 300,000 zebra and 500,000 gazelle moving with them
- 1.5m
- Travelled in a single clockwise loop each year, across two countries
- 800 km
- Kilometres of Serengeti–Mara ecosystem the herds keep permanently grazed
- 3,000
Overview
What to expect
The herds follow rainfall and the fresh grass behind it, not a calendar. They calve on the short-grass plains in the south, drift west and north through the middle of the year, cross the Grumeti and then the Mara rivers, spend the dry months in the far north and the Maasai Mara, and turn south again with the short rains.
Timing is a matter of probability, not certainty. A camp in the right sector during the right fortnight puts you in the middle of it; a lodge two hours away in the same week does not.
The year
Where the herds are, and where you should be
Jan – Mar
Calving on the short-grass plains
Around half a million calves are born in a three-week window on the mineral-rich plains near Ndutu. Predator activity is the highest of the year, and the herds are spread across open country where you can see for miles.
Stay in
Ndutu, southern Serengeti
Odds of the big event
Very high
Itineraries
Built around this experience
Honest advice
What we tell everyone
Book the sector, not the month
A camp in the wrong part of the Serengeti in peak season sees less than a camp in the right part off-peak.
Give it three nights
One night at the river is a coin toss. Three nights makes a crossing likely rather than lucky.
Mobile camps move for a reason
They relocate with the herds twice a year. Permanent lodges cannot, which is why they are cheaper.
Fly the long legs
Kogatende is a nine-hour drive from Arusha and a ninety-minute flight. The flight costs less than the day it saves.
The migration is not the only reason to come
Resident lion, leopard and elephant do not migrate. A good safari holds up even if the herds are late.
Begin your journey
2027 camps are already filling
Mobile camps in the north hold twelve tents and sell out roughly a year ahead. Tell us your fortnight and we will tell you what is still open.