The Serengeti Express
The Serengeti Express — Fly Direct to Africa's Greatest Stage

Morning: Zanzibar Airport to Serengeti Airstrip — One Hour, One World Apart You board a light aircraft at Zanzibar Airport. The flight crosses the Tanzanian mainland, crosses the coast and the open savannah, and descends through the clear air above the Serengeti plains. The strip appears below — a narrow clearing in the grass, a windsock, a Land Cruiser waiting. You step off the plane into the Serengeti. The silence is the first thing. Then the scale. Then the particular quality of the light on the plains that you have seen in photographs your whole life and which, in person, exceeds all of them.

Afternoon: First Game Drive — The Serengeti at Its Own Pace Your guide drives you into the park. The afternoon Serengeti is different from the morning — the predators are resting, the herds are moving toward water, and the light is turning from white to gold. Where you go depends on the season: if the Migration is in the northern Serengeti, that is where you head. If the calving season is underway in the south, that is where the action is. Your guide is in daily contact with other guides in the field — they know where the lions are, where the cheetah hunted at noon, and where the leopard will be at dusk.

Full: All Day in the Serengeti — The Great Migration (Seasonal) A full day on the plains. Early morning departure before sunrise — the Serengeti at first light is something genuinely different from the Serengeti at any other hour. The predators are still active. The herds are moving. The air is cold and clear and the light is everything the photographers chase. Your guide positions you for the best possible experiences: a pride of lions with cubs, a cheetah scanning from a termite mound, wildebeest crossing the Mara River if the timing is right. Picnic lunch in the bush. Afternoon game drive. Return to camp as the day ends and the sky above the Serengeti performs in colours that have no adequate names.

Morning: Final Dawn Drive & Fly Back to Zanzibar Your last morning on the plains. An early drive — one more hour in the Serengeti before the airstrip. You will not want to leave. This is correct. Your guide will tell you this is what the Serengeti does: it makes staying in one place feel like the most natural thing in the world, and leaving feel like a small loss. Return to the airstrip. Board your flight back to Zanzibar. The ocean appears below. The beach is waiting. You are already planning when to return.