i
Photo by Giles Laurent, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Best time to visit Serengeti
Tanzania · Africa
All twelve months scored on daily temperature, rainfall, humidity and holiday crowding.
The year in Serengeti
Tap a month for its page
- JanJSerengeti in January: ok, busy
- FebFSerengeti in February: good
- MarMSerengeti in March: good
- AprASerengeti in April: good
- MayMSerengeti in May: sweet spot
- JunJSerengeti in June: sweet spot
- JulJSerengeti in July: good, busy
- AugASerengeti in August: good, busy
- SepSSerengeti in September: sweet spot
- OctOSerengeti in October: sweet spot
- NovNSerengeti in November: sweet spot
- DecDSerengeti in December: good
- Sweet spot
- Good
- OK
- Avoid
- Busy
Dry season: Feb, May–Oct, 6 or fewer rainy days a month.
Plan this trip
Each site opens on its own search: choose your dates there. A few open on their home page, where you type the place too.
Links marked Ad pay us a commission if you book, at no extra cost to you; most pay nothing, and what a site pays never decides whether it is listed or where. How we rank
Flights from
Flights
Your city is a guess from your time zone. Choose your city
Where are you flying from? Choose your city for its flights and fares.
Book with the airline
Where to stay
Book direct
Luxury
Things to do
Car hire
Rent direct
Travel insurance
Check whether your bank card or home insurance already covers this trip.
If the trip needs a visa, the travel agent or visa centre usually sells the cover it asks for.
Mobile data (eSIM)
Your own plan's EU roaming may already cover this.
Renting a pocket Wi-Fi is the other common way to stay connected.
These are sites people in book with. Each opens in a new tab, on the site's own pages.
Month by month
No fare history for this route yet, so this ranking is climate and crowds only — the price column will fill in as the scanner collects.
| Month | Max °C | Rain days | Humidity | Sun h/day | Verdict | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan | 28° | 8d | 63% | 11.0h | okbusy | busier than usual |
| Feb | 29° | 6d | 60% | 11.2h | good | 29C max, 6 rainy days |
| Mar | 28° | 8d | 64% | 10.9h | good | 28C max, 8 rainy days |
| Apr | 28° | 11d | 69% | 10.5h | good | 28C max, 11 rainy days |
| May | 27° | 4d | 64% | 10.8h | sweet spot | 27C max, 4 rainy days |
| Jun | 28° | 1d | 52% | 10.6h | sweet spot | 28C max, 1 rainy day |
| Jul | 28° | 1d | 49% | 10.4h | goodbusy | busier than usual |
| Aug | 29° | 1d | 48% | 10.5h | goodbusy | busier than usual |
| Sep | 30° | 1d | 47% | 10.8h | sweet spot | 30C max, 1 rainy day |
| Oct | 30° | 3d | 52% | 11.0h | sweet spot | 30C max, 3 rainy days |
| Nov | 29° | 8d | 61% | 10.8h | sweet spot | 29C max, 8 rainy days |
| Dec | 27° | 11d | 67% | 10.8h | good | 27C max, 11 rainy days |
Rain days are the days with at least 1 mm of rain, as a weather station counts them.
Weather read at Seronera: ten years of ERA5 and ERA5-Land reanalysis, through Open-Meteo's open data.
A busy month is a crowded one, not a bad one — usually it is crowded because the weather is good. It is flagged rather than scored down, and crowds alone never make a month “avoid”: that is reserved for weather worth skipping.
How busy it gets
Then and now
Serengeti's April days now average 27.7°C, 1.5°C warmer than in 1981–1990. 8 of 12 months are clearly warmer.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1981–90 | 26.7° | 27.3° | 27.8° | 26.1° | 26.0° | 26.7° | 26.8° | 27.5° | 28.6° | 28.8° | 27.4° | 27.1° |
| 2017–26 | 27.7° | 28.9° | 28.4° | 27.7° | 27.4° | 27.9° | 27.9° | 28.6° | 29.9° | 30.3° | 28.9° | 27.4° |
| Change | +0.9° | +1.5° | +0.6° | +1.5° | +1.5° | +1.2° | +1.1° | +1.1° | +1.3° | +1.4° | +1.5° | +0.3° |
The average daily high, month by month, for the nearest ERA5 grid cell. Bold is a clear change; grey is within the ordinary spread between years. Every destination, ranked.
Getting there
Fly into Arusha (JRO), then drive. The flights under Where to book are to Arusha.
| Arusha (JRO) | the drive is not measured yet |
|---|---|
| SEU | the drive is not measured yet |
The drive from each airport is the road's, from openrouteservice.org by HeiGIT: typical, not a schedule.
How far Serengeti is, and what it costs, depends on where you set off from — the months above do not.
- from Nairobi
- from Johannesburg
- from Riyadh
- from Doha
- from Lagos
- from Cairo
- from Abu Dhabi
- from Dubai
Open in Rome2rio for every way from to Serengeti, flying or not.
Before you go
Type G plugs at 230 V. Drives on the left. The currency is the Tanzanian shilling. UK Foreign Office: avoid all but essential travel to parts. Global Affairs Canada: Exercise a high degree of caution (with regional advisories). US State Department: Level 3: Reconsider Travel. Everything for Tanzania: cost of living, languages, emergency numbers and health.
Being there
On arrival
- Paying — Since 2025 the law says prices must be in Tanzanian shillings: change money only at banks or bureaux de change, or pay by card, though some visitor services, such as the Zanzibar ferry, still price in US dollars. ATMs in the main towns take foreign debit cards but can run out of cash, and cards are not widely accepted in rural areas.
- UPI, for visitors from India — Not accepted for paying here; bring a card that works abroad.
- Tipping — Not required but welcome, and often expected in tourism: 5-10% in restaurants unless service is included; for taxis, rounding up is enough.
Getting around Serengeti
- Apps — Rides: Bolt. Maps: Google Maps.
Serengeti National Park is enormous, covering about 14,763 km², so getting around almost always requires a safari vehicle. More on Wikivoyage
From the Wikivoyage article on Serengeti National Park, written by travellers and licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Help
- Emergency — 112 (any emergency).
TravelCharika is not an emergency service: we cannot call for help or send anyone. Numbers can change; if one fails, ask someone local or your hotel.
Your embassy — : how to reach your embassy or consulate abroad. A guess from your city, : a city is not a passport.
Put together by hand from the sources listed, checked 7 October 2026. Apps, cards and rules change, so check before you rely on one.
Sources (15)
- gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/tanzania/getting-help
- gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/tanzania/safety-and-security
- travel.gc.ca/destinations/tanzania
- bot.go.tz/Adverts/PressRelease/en/2025050221310087.pdf
- azammarine.com
- azammarine.com/rates
- azammarine.com/general-booking-terms-and-conditions
- bolt.eu/en/cities/zanzibar
- bolt.eu/en/cities
- roughguides.com/tanzania/travel-tips
- en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Tanzania
- en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Zanzibar
- developers.google.com/maps/coverage
- pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2286608
- rbidocs.rbi.org.in/rdocs/AnnualReport/PDFs/09PAYMENT290526C6588B796E664822A2BD0DEB6452CAD4.PDF
Serengeti in pictures
i
Giles Laurent, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
i
Giles Laurent, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
i
Harvey Barrison from Massapequa, NY, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
What Serengeti is like
Serengeti National Park is a large conservation area in the north of Tanzania. The park flows over into neighboring Kenya where it's known as the Masai Mara. More on Wikivoyage
- Worth seeing
- From December to May, depending on the rains, the large herds are concentrated on the low lying grass steppe between Olduvai, Gol, Naabi and Lagarja. More on Wikivoyage
- Worth doing
- Take photographs! A good zoom and a large memory card make the results so good you'll be looking at the photos months and months later. More on Wikivoyage
- Getting in
- The nearest international airport to the Serengeti is Kilimanjaro Airport (JRO IATA) [1] near Arusha. More on Wikivoyage
- Staying healthy
- The temperature lets one forget the altitude of Serengeti, which facilitates sunburn. Do not forget sunscreen, or cover yourself with appropriate clothes. More on Wikivoyage
From the Wikivoyage article on Serengeti National Park, written by travellers and licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; the full article has far more. The numbers above are measured; this is experience.
Around Serengeti
Also in Tanzania
Nearby
- Nairobi Kenya · 256 km
- Mombasa Kenya · 572 km
- Victoria Falls Zimbabwe · 1,983 km
- Seychelles Seychelles · 2,300 km
Kind of place
Serengeti is in Tanzania, Africa. Distances are great-circle, so a short one can still be a long way round.
Check your inbox. A confirmation is on its way: open the link in it, press Confirm, and you are subscribed.
That did not go through. Check the address, or try again in a minute.
Already sent. A confirmation went to that address in the last day: look for it, spam folder included. Its link works for three days.
You are not on the list until you confirm from your inbox. The list lives with our email provider, Resend; the privacy page says the rest.
Links marked Ad pay us a commission if you book through one, at no extra cost to you. That does not affect the scores on this page, which are computed from climate and fare data before any link is built.