Mara

The Serengeti's northern reaches feel different from the central plains: more folded ground, more rock and riverine forest, longer sightlines broken by hills rather than the flat immensity further south. Camps here are fewer and generally smaller, and the drive between sightings is longer — which is the trade, and which is why this end of the park suits second-time visitors and photographers more than first-timers on a tight schedule. In the crossing months the north is where the migration is, and the migration guide sets out when that is and why it cannot be predicted precisely. What deserves saying here is what the north is when the herds are elsewhere. The resident wildlife does not migrate: lion prides hold territory year-round, elephant work the riverine woodland, leopard are as findable here as anywhere in the country, and the absence of both wildebeest and vehicles makes for a quieter, more searching kind of game drive. Several camps stay open through the low months precisely for this, and rates fall accordingly. If your interest is the ecosystem rather than one event, the north out of season is among the best value in Tanzanian safari.

The Mara river rises in Kenya and runs south-west across this region, and it is the only significant permanent water in the northern Serengeti — which is what makes it structurally important rather than merely dramatic. Hippo pods hold the deeper pools in numbers, large crocodiles live along it permanently, and the strip of forest along its banks supports species that the open grassland does not: colobus and vervet in the canopy, elephant browsing the thickets, and a heavy concentration of birds. In the dry months it is the water the whole northern ecosystem depends on. The crossings that made it famous happen where the banks break down into usable slopes, and those points are known, watched and crowded in season. Outside those weeks the same riverbanks are among the most rewarding quiet game viewing in the park, and you will have them to yourself. It is worth holding both pictures at once: the river is not an event venue that goes dormant, it is the thing the north is built around.

The region's western edge is an entirely different country. Lake Victoria is a freshwater sea — you cannot see across it — and the Tanzanian shore here runs through fishing towns, papyrus inlets and rocky headlands. Musoma is the regional centre, sitting on a peninsula with water on three sides, and it is a genuinely pleasant, unhurried lakeside town with a market, a working harbour and none of the safari economy's pricing. Boats run out to inhabited islands offshore where fishing is the entire economy and a visitor is a novelty rather than a customer. What makes this worth building into an itinerary is the contrast: the shoreline is an hour or two from the park boundary and could not be less like it. There is no game viewing, no lodge circuit and no schedule — just a large lake, a working shore and the ordinary life of a part of Tanzania that tourism has almost entirely bypassed. For travellers who find the safari format hermetic, this is the antidote, and the trip-planning guide makes the general case for building in exactly this kind of change of register.

The northern Serengeti is reached by light aircraft to one of the airstrips serving the area, or by a long drive up through the park from the central plains — long enough that it is a game drive rather than a transfer, which some people enjoy and others do not. The transport guide covers the luggage limits that come with the flights and they apply strictly here. The lake side is reached by road from Musoma's airstrip or overland, and connects onward towards Mwanza. For timing, the crossing period is roughly July to October and the region is at its busiest and dearest then; the months either side are quieter with the herds partly present; and from November to June the north is a resident-wildlife destination with very few visitors. The short rains around November and the longer ones in April and May soften the ground and thicken the bush, and some camps close. If you want the crossings, book far ahead and give the area several nights. If you want the north itself, come when nobody else is.