Northern Serengeti: the crossing season, honestly

The most photographed corner of East Africa for three months of the year, and largely empty for the other nine. What it takes to see what you came for.

Where it is

The far north of the Serengeti, running up to the Kenyan border and the Masai Mara beyond it. Kogatende and Lamai are the main areas, either side of the Mara River.

It is a long way from everything. Eight hours or more by road from Seronera, or a light aircraft flight from Arusha or the central airstrips.

The season

Roughly late July to October, with August and September the reliable window. Outside those months the herds are elsewhere and the north is quiet in every sense — beautiful, empty, and without the event you came for.

Some camps close entirely from November to June.

What a crossing actually involves

The herds arrive at the bank and stop. They may stand there for hours. They may drift along the bank and cross two kilometres away. They may turn around entirely and cross the following afternoon, or the following week.

When it happens it takes minutes and it is genuinely overwhelming: thousands of animals in the water, crocodiles working the current, the noise.

Nobody controls this. An operator who guarantees you a crossing is selling you something they do not own.

How to give yourself a chance

• Three nights minimum. Two is fair. One is a very expensive lottery ticket.
• Stay north of the river or on it, not a two-hour drive away.
• Accept full days at a crossing point. Bring a book and a flask.
• Fly at least one leg. The road from Seronera consumes a day at each end and there is no game viewing worth the fuel on it.

The crowds

Real, and worth deciding about in advance. At an active crossing point in August you are one of twenty to thirty vehicles. Park rules keep them off the bank, but they are in the frame.

September is the same wildlife with meaningfully fewer of them. Early October, fewer again, with a rising chance the herds have started south.

What else is there

Outside the crossings the north is excellent and underrated: resident lion, large elephant herds along the river, and the finest open country in the park. In June, before the herds arrive, it is close to empty of vehicles.

For a returning visitor who has already done Seronera, the north out of season is a genuinely good trip.

What we would build

Three nights Kogatende or Lamai in early September, flying in, then flying to the central Serengeti or straight back for the crater. Eight or nine days total.

If that budget is not available, we would rather send you to the central Serengeti for four nights in February than the north for one night in August.