Six tents go up each year on the short-grass plains at the southern tip of the Serengeti ecosystem, inside the Ngorongoro Conservation Area and not the national park itself. The camp is mobile, in place from mid-December to May. It is raised for the wildebeest calving season and struck once the herds have moved north, so its whole existence is measured against the movement of the animals.
Cheetahs hunt the flat ground and lions work the kopjes.
Between January and March the herds concentrate here to give birth, 300,000 to 400,000 calves dropped within three or four weeks. Cheetahs hunt the flat ground and lions work the kopjes. Nothing about that few weeks is subtle. The camp is pitched in a bay of acacia woodland, the plains running out in front of it and old migration trails passing close by the tents.
Every booking comes with its own open-sided 4WD, a guide and a spotter, and that changes the shape of a day. Departures happen when guests want them, not when a schedule decides, and a sighting is not shared with a queue of other vehicles. Because the camp lies within the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, guides can drive off-road and after dark, working the night with red-filtered lights.
Nights can be spent fly-camping under a flysheet
Few camps operate this far south, and the ground out here is largely left to itself. A sighting found on the open plains is often left to the single vehicle that came across it, and the horizon in every direction is mostly empty. Guides lead walks along the shores of Lake Eyasi. Nights can be spent fly-camping under a flysheet, with the tents waiting at the end of them.
Alex Walker learned to walk in big-game country as a child, alongside his father’s trackers. He founded the camp and still runs it under his own name, Alex Walker’s Serian. That upbringing shows in how the operation works, with a guide and a spotter attached to each group for the length of a stay, and a clear preference for getting people out of the vehicle and onto their feet. Serengeti South is one of several camps he moves around Tanzania and Kenya with the seasons, and the same guides often carry guests from one to the next.
The southern season runs from around mid-December to May. A second seasonal camp a few kilometres away looks out over the same plains from its own vantage point, with migration trails passing directly through it too, and staying at both in one trip is increasingly common, since it widens the ground covered while the herds are calving. From July to mid-November the operation shifts north, to camps close to the Mara River crossing points and in the Lamai Wedge, following the same animals into the river-crossing phase of their year, hundreds of kilometres from these calving grounds.
Storms build across the plains through the calving months, and wildflowers follow the rain
Six tents stand well apart along the tree line, canvas over proper beds, each with an en-suite bathroom, a flush toilet and a bucket shower filled with hot water on request. Wildebeest and zebra graze past the tents day and night, and there is no Wi-Fi to distract from it. Evenings gather around a fire and then move into a candlelit mess tent, where everyone eats together at one table. Hot water bottles appear in the beds on cold nights, and blankets are waiting in the vehicle before an early start.
Walking with Hadzabe hunter-gatherers and with Ndorobo and Mangati guides takes guests south into the Lake Eyasi country, where the interest is in beehives, in tracks, and in the plants people use as medicine. The Seketeti Escarpment falls away towards the lake and doubles as a fly-camping destination. Storms build across the plains through the calving months, and wildflowers follow the rain. The short green grass holds the herds in one place long enough for the whole cycle of birth and predation to play out within a few weeks.
accommodation
Serian Serengeti South has six canvas tents, spaced along the tree line for privacy and views over the short-grass plains. Each has a proper bed under mosquito netting, an en-suite bathroom with a flushing toilet and a bucket shower filled with hot water on request, and a veranda with daybeds facing the plains.
activities
Private open-sided 4WD with a dedicated guide and spotter for every group, with off-road driving and night drives permitted here in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, not inside Serengeti National Park. Walking safaris, fly-camping, bush breakfasts, birding, and time on foot with Hadzabe and Ndorobo guides.
conservation
Serian Serengeti South refurbished the classroom at the local school with new flooring and desks, and built a food store so the school could receive government food deliveries. Guests often bring stationery to donate. Hadzabe and Ndorobo guides lead the walking safaris in their own country, and staff are drawn from the surrounding area.
Get in touch and let’s start the conversation. An initial consultation helps us understand what you’re looking for, whether that’s specific experiences, luxury touches, or marking a special occasion, and from there we’ll guide you through what’s possible so you can decide if we’re the right fit.
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It is a mobile camp on the short grass plains of the southern Serengeti, and it is pitched for the calving. The wildebeest drop their young on these plains from about December to March, with the peak of it in late January and February, because the short grass over the volcanic soil is the richest grazing in the ecosystem at that point in the year.
That is also why it is a mobile camp rather than a lodge. It goes up where the herds are, and when they move north it comes down again. Outside those months this ground is empty in a way that is hard to picture.
Crowded and busy rather than dramatic in the way a river crossing is. Hundreds of thousands of animals are on open ground with newborns among them, which draws every predator on the plains into a small area, so lion, cheetah and hyena are unusually visible and unusually active.
The short grass helps: this is the most open country in the Serengeti, so you see across distance rather than into thickets, which is why photographers favour it. A calf is on its feet within minutes of being born, and watching that happen is the part most people remember.
By light aircraft to Ndutu or Kusini, the two strips serving the southern plains, and then a drive to camp. From Arusha the flight is around fifty minutes to an hour; from Kilimanjaro International allow an hour to an hour and a half depending on the routing and any stops on the way.
Because the camp moves, we confirm the strip with the operator for your actual dates rather than assuming last season's. The aircraft take soft bags only, fifteen kilograms a person including hand luggage and camera gear.
Yes. The UK's official travel health service rates every part of Tanzania below 1,800 metres as high risk and recommends antimalarial tablets for it, and treats only ground above 1,800 metres as free of risk. The American CDC draws the same altitude line. The southern Serengeti plains sit at around 1,650 metres, so they fall below it, if not by a great deal.
We do not make medical recommendations. That is a conversation between you and your own doctor or a travel clinic, who know your history and can weigh it properly. We are travel planners, not medical professionals, and we would rather say so than imply otherwise.
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