Serengeti National Park

The Serengeti covers some 14,750 square kilometres of grassland, woodland and rocky outcrops in northern Tanzania, and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Its name comes from the Maasai word for “endless plains”, and standing on them you understand why.

It is home to large prides of lions, cheetahs, leopards resting in the acacias and elephants, and to the Great Migration: more than a million wildebeest and hundreds of thousands of zebras moving in a vast loop through the year. In January and February they give birth on the southern plains; from July to October they cross the Mara River in the north.

Stay at least two or three nights in the right area for the season. A sunrise hot-air-balloon flight over the plains, followed by breakfast in the bush, is a memorable extra.