Top 10 Things to Do in Serengeti National Park

The Serengeti is far more than game drives — it is a complete wilderness ecosystem with layers of experience ranging from dawn balloon flights and walking safaris to sundowners under impossibly starry skies. The most memorable moments often come from the quieter, unexpected experiences: a leopard sawing in the darkness, wildebeest stretching to every horizon, or sunrise turning acacia trees into silhouettes. This guide covers the top 10 things to do in Serengeti National Park, from essential activities to hidden surprises. Explore our Serengeti safaris for itineraries that include these experiences.

1. Morning Game Drive

The morning game drive is the core activity of any Serengeti safari and the one that deserves the most investment of time and attention. Leave camp before sunrise, ideally by 6:00am or 6:30am, and drive directly to wherever your guide has identified as the most promising location based on the previous day’s sightings and the current season. The morning hours in the Serengeti are when the most action happens: lions finishing an overnight hunt and feeding on the kill, cheetahs active before the heat builds, leopards returning to the trees before the day warms, and the light in the first 90 minutes after sunrise is a photographer’s dream.

A good morning drive in the Serengeti runs for 3 to 4 hours and then returns to camp for breakfast. By 10am, most predators have rested and the plains game has settled into the midday lethargy that makes mid-morning game drives significantly less productive.

2. Afternoon Game Drive

The afternoon game drive begins around 3:30pm to 4:00pm and runs until sunset, typically around 6:30pm. This is the second most productive game-watching window of the day. Predators begin to stir from their midday rest as the temperature drops. Cheetahs start scanning the plains from termite mounds. Lions shake themselves awake and begin to move toward waterholes or open areas where prey is gathering. The light in the 90 minutes before sunset is extraordinary, particularly in the dry season when fine dust particles in the air turn the sky into shades of amber, copper, and deep red.

Some camps also offer full-day drives with a packed bush breakfast, which allows you to stay out through the midday hours and cover significantly more ground.

3. Hot Air Balloon Safari

A hot air balloon safari over the Serengeti is one of the great experiences available anywhere in Africa. Balloons typically launch at first light and drift for approximately one hour over the plains, following the wind’s direction and descending over areas of concentrated wildlife. From above, the Serengeti looks entirely different: the scale of the ecosystem becomes apparent, animal tracks become visible across the grass, herds of wildebeest or zebra flow across the landscape like rivers of movement, and the horizon stretches further than you can see from the ground.

The balloon safari ends with a champagne bush breakfast served on the plains in a location determined by where the balloon lands. Balloon safaris cost between 550 and 700 USD per person depending on the operator and season. They book out quickly during peak season and should be reserved at least several weeks in advance.

4. Visit the Seronera River

The Seronera River runs through the heart of the central Serengeti and creates a year-round wildlife corridor that delivers excellent sightings in every season. Unlike the migration-dependent wildlife of other zones, the Seronera River’s permanent water and riverine vegetation support resident populations of hippos, crocodiles, leopards, lions, elephants, and a remarkable diversity of bird species throughout the year. Driving the riverine tracks along both banks of the Seronera in the early morning is one of the Serengeti’s most reliably productive game-viewing activities regardless of what month you visit.

The hippo pools along the Seronera are particularly good: groups of 20 to 40 hippos crowd the pools, their territorial grunting and splashing providing a constant soundtrack. Crocodiles bask on the banks nearby, and the trees along the river are excellent leopard habitat.

5. Explore the Kopjes

The kopjes (pronounced copy-ehs) are ancient granite outcroppings that rise from the Serengeti plains like islands from a grass sea. They are among the most distinctive landscape features of the central Serengeti and they support a unique community of wildlife adapted to living on and around rock. Lions use kopjes as lookout points and shady resting spots. Rock hyraxes, small mammals that are surprisingly closely related to elephants, colonize the crevices in large numbers. Klipspringers, small antelopes that walk on the tips of their hooves like ballet dancers, pick their way across the granite. The Moru Kopjes in the south-central Serengeti are also one of the few reliable locations to see black rhino in the park.

6. Night Drive in Private Conservancies

Night drives are not permitted inside Serengeti National Park but are available in the private conservancies and game reserves that border the park: the Grumeti Reserve, Loliondo, and Klein’s Camp Conservancy. Night drives reveal an entirely different dimension of the Serengeti ecosystem. The animals that are active after dark include leopards hunting along the river, lions on the move between territorial boundaries, serval cats stalking mice through the grass, honey badgers, civets, genets, porcupines, aardvarks, and spring hares. If your camp is in or adjacent to a private conservancy, always include at least one night drive in your itinerary.

7. Birdwatching

The Serengeti is one of Africa’s premier birdwatching destinations, supporting over 500 recorded species. Dedicated birders can work through dozens of spectacular species on a single morning drive. The large grassland birds are immediately impressive: the kori bustard, the world’s heaviest flying bird, stalks the plains in remarkable stateliness. Secretary birds stride through the grass hunting snakes. Ostriches run in groups across the open areas. The raptor diversity is extraordinary: Bateleur eagles, martial eagles, Verreaux’s eagle owls, augur buzzards, and a dozen species of smaller raptors patrol the airspace. The lilac-breasted roller, often voted Africa’s most colourful bird, perches on every second fence post and termite mound.

For migratory birders, the Serengeti from October to April hosts hundreds of species of Palearctic migrants that have flown from Europe and Asia to spend the northern winter in the warm African savanna.

8. Walking Safari in Adjacent Private Areas

Walking safaris are not permitted inside Serengeti National Park but are available in the private concessions that border it. A guided bush walk in the Serengeti ecosystem is a transformative experience that complements game drives in a way that nothing else can. On foot, with an armed ranger walking ahead and your guide explaining everything from tracks to termite mounds to medicinal plants, the scale of the African wilderness becomes immediately apparent. Most walking safaris are 2 to 3 hours and focus on the landscape, smaller creatures, and tracks rather than dramatic predator encounters.

9. Sundowner at a Scenic Viewpoint

Many Serengeti camps offer the option of a sundowner stop during the afternoon game drive: the vehicle pulls up at a scenic viewpoint and the guide sets up a table with drinks and snacks as the sun descends toward the horizon. This is a quintessentially African safari tradition. The landscape at sunset, when the sky turns from blue to orange to deep red and the plains go quiet except for the distant calls of nightjars and the first whooping of hyenas, is one of the most beautiful things you will ever see.

10. Star Gazing

The Serengeti sits far from any significant urban light pollution, and on a clear moonless night the sky above the plains is one of the most spectacular natural displays on earth. The Milky Way arches across the entire sky with a clarity and density that is genuinely shocking to anyone who has only ever seen it from a city. The Southern Cross, Scorpius, the Magellanic Clouds, and thousands of stars invisible from any light-polluted location blaze overhead in the absolute darkness of the African night.

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