Fourteen thousand square kilometres of grassland carrying the largest terrestrial mammal migration on earth. The name comes from the Maasai siringet — the place where the land runs on forever — and the plains genuinely deliver that. Where you go depends entirely on when you come: calving on the southern short-grass plains around February, the western corridor mid-year, the northern Mara River crossings from August.
Calving season on the southern plains — thousands of newborns and every predator in the ecosystem waiting. Astonishing.
The scale is the thing. You drive for hours and the horizon never changes. Balloon flight at dawn was worth every dollar.
Best guiding we have had anywhere in Africa. Leopard, cheetah and a full lion pride in three days.
Uganda3 daysUganda's largest and oldest park, split by the Victoria Nile as it forces itself through a seven-metre gorge and detonates into the Rift Valley below. Game drives on the northern bank turn up elephant, giraffe, buffalo and lion across open savanna; the afternoon launch cruise runs to the foot of the falls past hippo pods and basking crocodile. The Delta stretch is one of the last reliable places on earth to see the shoebill.
Rated 4.7 out of 5 from 3 reviews
Uganda3 daysUganda's most popular savanna reserve sits beneath the Rwenzori range between lakes George and Edward. The Kazinga Channel cruise delivers density you rarely see anywhere else — elephant, buffalo and hippo along a single stretch of shoreline. In the southern Ishasha sector the lions climb fig trees and drape themselves across the branches through the heat of the day, a behaviour recorded in only a handful of places worldwide.
Rated 4.7 out of 5 from 3 reviews
Kenya4 daysThe northern reach of the Serengeti ecosystem and the stage for the Great Migration river crossings between roughly July and October, when close to two million wildebeest and zebra run the gauntlet of the Mara River. Outside migration season the Mara still holds the densest big-cat population in Kenya — lion, cheetah and leopard on open grassland that seems built for watching them.
Rated 4.7 out of 5 from 3 reviews