6-Day Calving Season Safari
A short calving season safari. You fly straight into the Serengeti, spend two nights in Ndutu with the herds, and finish with a morning in the Ngorongoro Crater.
- Length
- 6 days, 5 nights
- Comfort
- Premium
- Price
- Price on request
Between about December and March, the wildebeest herds spread over the short-grass plains of the southern Serengeti and the Ndutu area. Most calves are born within a few weeks, usually around February, and lion, cheetah and hyena stay close to the herds.
Flying from Arusha to Seronera saves a long day on the road, so more of the trip goes to game drives. Two nights in Ndutu give you a full day on the plains. The last full day is spent in the Ngorongoro Crater before a night close to Kilimanjaro International Airport.
The lodges named on each day are options, not fixed choices. Similar camps can be used to suit your dates and budget.
Day by day
- Day 1: Fly to the Serengeti. A short morning flight takes you from Arusha to Seronera airstrip, in the middle of the Serengeti, where your guide is waiting. From the air you get a first sense of the scale of the place as farmland gives way to open plains. Spend the afternoon on a game drive around the Seronera river valley. The river keeps water and shade here when the plains are dry, which makes it good country for lion and leopard. Look up as well as ahead, because leopards often rest in the branches of the big trees along the banks. Overnight at Serengeti Serena Safari Lodge or similar.
- Day 2: Central Serengeti to Ndutu. Head south towards Ndutu, on the edge of the southern Serengeti. The drive takes about two and a half hours without stops, but you game-drive the whole way, so expect it to fill most of the day. The woodland around Seronera slowly opens into wide short-grass plains as you go. You stop for a picnic lunch on the plains. Ndutu lies just inside the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, and in calving season the herds that spread across these plains are the reason to come. Overnight at Lake Masek Tented Lodge or similar.
- Day 3: A full day in Ndutu. A whole day with the herds. Your guide follows where the animals have moved overnight, since the wildebeest go where the rain has brought up fresh grass. In a typical season the plains hold large numbers of wildebeest and zebra, newborn calves, and the predators that follow them. A wildebeest calf can stand within minutes of being born, and it needs to, because lion, cheetah and hyena stay close to the herds at this time of year. Births and hunts can happen at any moment, so a picnic lunch means you don't have to leave a good sighting. Calving runs roughly from January to March, and it shifts with the rain. Overnight at Lake Masek Tented Lodge or similar.
- Day 4: Ndutu to Karatu. One more morning in Ndutu, when the light is soft and the cats are often still active. The woodland around Lake Ndutu and Lake Masek is worth a look too, for giraffe, elephant and resting lion. Then you climb up through the Ngorongoro highlands to Karatu, a farming town below the crater rim, where the plains give way to green hills and fields of coffee and wheat. The drive is about three hours. Overnight at Ngorongoro Farm House or similar.
- Day 5: Ngorongoro Crater. Leave early and drive down about 600 metres to the crater floor. Ngorongoro is a collapsed volcano roughly 19 km across, and its walls enclose grassland, swamp, a small forest and a soda lake. Black rhino live here, with lion, buffalo, elephant and hyena. Rhino are scarce across Tanzania, so this is one of the better places to look for them, but a sighting is never certain. Lunch is a picnic in the crater. In the afternoon you climb out and drive east to the Kilimanjaro airport area, about four and a half hours, passing back through Karatu and Mto wa Mbu on the way. Overnight at Airport Planet Lodge or similar.
- Day 6: Departure. Your last morning is an easy one, with no long drive ahead. Have breakfast, then take a short transfer to Kilimanjaro International Airport for your flight home. Check your flight time with your guide the evening before, so the transfer can be set around it.
Who checked this route
- Checked by Bariki, Senior safari guide, 10 November 2026.
- Two nights in Ndutu is the heart of this trip. In calving season the herds follow the rain, so where we drive each morning depends on where the short grass is that week.