Safari means ‘Journey’ in the language of Kiswahili, the lingua franca of Tanzania and Kenya, and adequately describes what going on safari is about: a physical journey as well as a spiritual one. A visit to Tanzania is an act in going on a safari of yesteryear. The Serengeti makes up more than 12,000 square miles and is home to the annual wildebeest migration, also known as the Greatest Show on Earth.

Tanzania his also home to the Ngorongoro Crater, a 12-mile wide caldera that is designated a World Heritage Site and contains one of the highest density of predators in Africa. To spend a few nights on the crater rim, watching the sun set near a fire is one of the most romantic experiences.

When to Go: January thru March and June thru December. The Great Migration will be in the Serengeti for all months except August and September, allowing the traveler flexibility of when to travel if seeing the migration is a goal.

Our Take: We love to combine a few camp locations in the Serengeti with Ngorongoro Crater and perhaps one to two more camps and that rounds out a superb safari itinerary in the north of Tanzania. For the more adventurous traveler the more remote Selous, Ruaha, Katavi and Mahale Mountains make for an experience like no other.

“To depart on a safari is not only a physical act, it also is a gesture. You leave behind the worries, the strains, the irritations of life among people under pressure, and enter the world of creatures who are pressed interest o no moulds, but have only to be themselves, bonds loosen, anxiety fades, the mind closes against the world you left behind like a folding sea anemone.”

~ Elspeth Huxley, The Flame Trees of Thika