Safari season: when to go to East and Southern Africa

For most of Africa, the best game viewing is in the dry season. The grass is short, the trees lose their leaves, and the animals gather around rivers and waterholes, so they are easier to find. In Southern Africa that means the winter months from May to October. East Africa has two dry spells, and the Great Migration adds its own calendar on top.

Month by month

• January and February: calving season in the southern Serengeti. Southern Africa is green and wet.
• March to May: the long rains in East Africa. Some lodges close, and roads in the parks can be hard going.
• June and July: the dry season starts almost everywhere. The migration moves north through the western Serengeti.
• August to October: the peak of the dry season. River crossings in the Masai Mara and northern Serengeti, and the best game viewing in Southern Africa.
• November and December: the short rains in East Africa, and the first rains and newborn animals in the south.

The Great Migration

More than a million wildebeest, with zebras and gazelles, move in a loop between the Serengeti in Tanzania and the Masai Mara in Kenya, following the rain and fresh grass. The rough pattern:

• January to March: the herds are on the short-grass plains of the southern Serengeti and the Ndutu area, where most calves are born within a few weeks in February. Lions and cheetahs follow.
• April and May: they move north-west during the long rains.
• June and July: they cross the Grumeti River in the western Serengeti.
• July to October: they reach the northern Serengeti and the Masai Mara, and cross the Mara River again and again. August and September are the most reliable months for crossings.
• November and December: after the short rains they head south again.

The timing shifts by a few weeks from year to year with the rain, so it helps to stay a few nights rather than one. The Mara and the Serengeti also have plenty of resident animals outside migration season.

Southern Africa

In Kruger, the dry winter from May to September is the classic time: the bush is thin, and the animals come to the rivers. The early mornings can be cold. The Okavango Delta in Botswana is unusual: the flood water from the Angolan highlands takes months to arrive and peaks from about June to August, in the middle of the dry season, so the delta is at its fullest when the land around it is driest.

South Luangwa in Zambia is where walking safaris began. Many camps there close from November or December to April, when the rains make the roads impassable. The best game viewing is from August to October, though October is very hot.

Victoria Falls changes with the Zambezi. From March to May the river is at its highest, and the spray can be so thick that you cannot see the falls well. From about August to January the water is lower, the view is clearer, and Devil's Pool on the Zambian side is open. October and November are the hottest months of the year there.

In Namibia, Sossusvlei's red dunes are dry all year but most comfortable from April to September; summer days are very hot. Etosha National Park, in the north, is best from June to October, when animals line up at the waterholes.

The green season

From November to March, much of Southern Africa turns green. Many animals give birth, migrant birds arrive, and the landscape is beautiful, but the bush is thick and animals are harder to spot. Afternoon storms are common, though they rarely last all day.

Gorillas

Gorilla trekking happens in Rwanda's Volcanoes National Park and in Bwindi in Uganda. You can trek all year, but the dry seasons from June to September and December to February make the steep, muddy trails easier. Only a small number of permits are issued for each gorilla family each day, so book well in advance.

Tips

• If you want the river crossings, plan on August or September and stay in the north of the Serengeti or the Mara.
• If you want the calving, go to the southern Serengeti in February.
• Zanzibar is a common add-on for a beach after a Tanzanian safari; it is driest from June to October and again in January and February.