The Great Migration is simply like nothing else on Earth. Perhaps you’ve seen the migration before on a Tanzania safari or you’ve only seen Disney’s The Lion King and wondered what a wildebeest stampede looked like for real. No matter your experience with African wildlife, the Great Migration will amaze you on your East Africa vacation.
Well over one million animals migrate across one of the most robust environments on the planet in order to eat and reproduce. Lion and hyena thin out large portions of the herd while other animals simply die of exhaustion. This is the game of life and death played out on one of the planet’s most fantastic stages.
Great Migration, What is it?
The Great Migration is the name for the movement of over 1.5 million wildebeest and hundreds of thousands of zebra and gazelle during the dry season on the East African savanna. The herds move around 2,000 kilometers from the southern expanse of the Serengeti plains and Ngorongoro Crater over the borders of Kenya to Maasai Mara National Reserve and back down to the southern Serengeti again in search of food and water.
However, while named the Great Migration, this movement of animals is not a simple trip from point A to B. No migration ever is. Instead of a simple back and forth movement between Tanzania and Kenya, the Great Migration is a clockwise cycle of movement that wildebeest undergo every year in order to find food and water and rear their young during seasonal change.
Great Migration Safari Holidays
where to stay for The Great Migration Tanzania
If you would like to safari at the heart of the Great Migration of wildebeest and zebra, the best approach is to book one of the Serengeti’s famous mobile camps. The mobile camps are erected at set locations throughout the year, and often move either two or three times a year depending on where the herds usually are at that particular time.
Two mobile camps in particular set themselves apart from the others for their commitment to keeping up with the herds – Nomad Tanzania’s Serengeti Safari Camp and &Beyond’s Serengeti Under Canvas. These are the two mobile operations which we consider truly mobile and will be located near or amongst the herds at any time of the year as they move to more than two locations (which is the standard route of most the other mobile camps). That brings us to the mobile camps of Alex Walker’s Serian, Asilia’s Olakira, Ubuntu and Kimondo which move twice a year and offer superb mobile operations from July to November, and from December through to March. For the rest of the year these fabulous camps are closed.
If going mobile is a little too adventurous for you, then the Serengeti has various permanent lodges that will offer all the creature comforts you need together with a good location to see the herds on your Tanzania safari. Here is an overview of the movement of the herds, and the best permanent lodges to stay at for each time of year.
