Mara Mobile Tented Camp

No, and it is worth being clear because the name confuses people. The Maasai Mara is the Kenyan reserve on the far side of the border; this camp is on the Tanzanian stretch of the same river, in the far north of Serengeti National Park, between twenty-five and forty minutes' drive from Kogatende airstrip depending on where it is pitched that year. The herds cross the Mara on both sides of the border, and the crossings the camp is pitched for are the Tanzanian ones.

You cannot drive from one to the other through the parks. The Bologonja crossing between the Serengeti and the Mara has been closed since 1977 and the Sand River gate on the Kenyan side is shut to visitors for the same reason, so the only road border is at Isebania, well to the west and outside both parks. If you want both sides of the river in one trip, we plan it as two separate legs with the border formalities in between, and we would say you rarely need both: the same herds cross the same river.

The camp is pitched from June to October for exactly this window. The first herds usually reach the river in July, the bulk of them are on the northern plains through August and September, when crossings are at their most frequent, and animals are still moving back and forth across the water in October and into November as the rains draw them south again. Two of the river's largest crossing points are a short drive from the camp, and in some seasons a crossing has been watched from the camp itself.

Nobody can promise you a crossing on a given day, and we would rather say so now. The timing turns on the rains, the grazing and the state of the river, and the odds of standing at the right point at the right hour on a short stay are genuinely slim. So we book the longest stay you can manage in August or September, put you on the river early, and treat a crossing as the prize on top of a north that holds lion, elephant and resident game whether or not the herds are moving.

By light aircraft to Kogatende, the airstrip for the northern Serengeti and the Mara River, then a game drive of twenty-five to forty minutes to wherever the camp is standing that season. The scheduled flight from Arusha leaves mid-morning, calls at other strips on the way and takes getting on for three hours door to door; a direct flight is nearer an hour and a half. We can put you on a private charter instead, a Cessna Caravan or a Pilatus PC-12, which flies direct, leaves at the time you choose and can collect you at Kilimanjaro so you are not routed back through Arusha.

Scheduled or private, the aircraft take fifteen kilograms a person in a soft duffel, and that figure includes hand luggage and camera gear. It is one of the longer sectors on the northern circuit, so we avoid pairing it with an international arrival on the same day.

Yes. TravelHealthPro, the UK's official travel health service, rates every part of Tanzania below 1,800 metres as high risk for malaria and lists antimalarial tablets among its recommendations for it, treating only ground above 1,800 metres as free of risk, and the American CDC draws its line at the same height. That rating holds all year, with no seasonal easing for the dry months. Kogatende and the Mara River valley sit at roughly 1,400 metres, well below the line, and the crossing season is spent beside the water.

We are travel planners, not medical professionals, and we do not recommend medication in our own voice. Which tablets, if any, are right for you and for any children with you is a decision for you and your own doctor or a travel clinic, made with your dates to hand. The practical, non-medical part is straightforward in a canvas camp: cover arms and legs from late afternoon, use repellent for the walk to the campfire, and keep the tent's mesh zipped.

Dry, bright and colder at night than people expect. June to October is the Serengeti's dry season: afternoons around twenty-six degrees, nights around fourteen, and the occasional cold front between June and September that drops the dawn temperature close to freezing on the open plains. Rain is rare, and the price of the clear skies is dust on every drive.

Pack in layers: a proper fleece or down jacket, a hat and gloves for the dawn run to the river, then shirtsleeves by mid-morning; a neutral-coloured sunhat and high-factor sun cream for the long hours parked at a crossing point; a scarf or buff against the dust; and binoculars, because a crossing often begins on the far bank. The camp does laundry, so three changes of clothes are plenty, and all of it goes into a soft bag of fifteen kilograms for the aircraft.

The stay covers the tent, all meals, house drinks, laundry and wifi, with game drives, guided walks in the designated zones, picnics and bush dining part of the camp's daily programme; the balloon flight from Kogatende is the one activity arranged and charged on top. Wifi is included, which is rarer than it sounds under canvas, and the solar supply with its standby generator keeps it running round the clock.

It is still a mobile camp in a national park, so we would not build a working day around the connection, and if you need to be reliably reachable, tell us and we will check what the signal is doing at that season's site before you commit.