Kenya and Tanzania
The highest density of large mammals on earth
Ten regions across two countries, and the differences between them are larger than the border is.
Kenya
The Masai Mara reserve
The highest concentration of big cats you will find anywhere, and the river crossings between July and October. It is also, in those months, genuinely busy: the reserve is public land and the number of vehicles at a sighting is not capped.
Worth it for the density. Worth pairing with a conservancy so you get both.
The Mara conservancies
Private and community land bordering the reserve, with the same wildlife moving freely across it. The difference is the rules: a fixed number of beds per hectare, a cap on vehicles at a sighting that is actually enforced, plus off-road driving, night drives and walking.
For most travellers at this level, the conservancies are the answer and the reserve is a day trip from them.
Laikipia
A plateau of private and community conservancies at 1,700 to 2,000 metres. Cool, comfortable at midday, lower malaria risk, and the widest range of activities in Kenya: walking, riding, night drives, rhino tracking on foot and fly camping.
Our usual first suggestion for families and for anyone on a second safari.
Samburu and the northern drylands
Hot, dry, sculptural country north of Mount Kenya, with species found nowhere else on a standard circuit: Grevy’s zebra, reticulated giraffe, gerenuk, Somali ostrich and beisa oryx.
It pairs unusually well with the Mara because it looks nothing like it.
Amboseli
Elephants under Kilimanjaro. The photograph is real and the elephant research here is among the longest-running in the world.
A short stop rather than a long one for most itineraries — two nights, timed for a clear morning.
Tanzania
The southern Serengeti
The calving grounds. Between roughly January and March, hundreds of thousands of wildebeest give birth over a few weeks, and the predator activity that follows is the most concentrated on the continent.
The central Serengeti
Resident game all year and the most reliable base if your dates are awkward. Busier than the north or the south.
The northern Serengeti
The Mara River from the Tanzanian bank, July to October. The same crossings as the Kenyan side with fewer vehicles and a longer flight to reach them.
Ngorongoro Crater
A collapsed caldera with a contained, permanent population inside it. There is no equivalent anywhere and it is worth one full day. It is also heavily visited, and that is not fixable.
The south and west — Nyerere, Ruaha, Katavi
Properly remote. Fewer vehicles by an order of magnitude, excellent walking and boating, and a wilder feel than the northern circuit. Further to reach and worth it on a second trip.
The pairing that works best here
A Mara conservancy with Laikipia or Samburu. Two genuinely different landscapes, one internal flight, and no sense on the second stop that you are seeing the first one again.
The pairing to avoid is the Mara with the northern Serengeti. It is one ecosystem with a border through the middle.
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