Serengeti vs Ngorongoro: Which Should You Visit?

The quick verdict

• ·Short on time or only want one park: Ngorongoro Crater.
• ·Want the migration, big skies and wilderness: Serengeti.
• ·Have five days or more: do both — they are on the same road.

Wildlife

Ngorongoro packs around 25,000 large animals into 260 km² of crater floor, including the best chance of black rhino in Tanzania. In one morning you can realistically tick off the Big Five.

The Serengeti is 14,763 km². Sightings take longer to find, but the scale of what you find — a thousand wildebeest streaming past your vehicle, a leopard in a sausage tree, three cheetah brothers on a termite mound — is on another level entirely.

Scenery

The crater is a green amphitheatre with walls rising 600 metres on every side; it feels enclosed, almost like a set. The Serengeti is the opposite: horizon in every direction, broken only by kopjes and flat-topped acacias.

Cost and access

Ngorongoro is three to four hours from Arusha and can be done in a two-day trip. The Serengeti is seven to eight hours by road or a short flight, and park fees plus camping fees make it the more expensive of the two per day.

Crowds

The crater floor concentrates every vehicle in the same 260 km², so mid-morning in August can feel busy. Go down at first light and you have it largely to yourself for two hours. The Serengeti absorbs visitors far better — except at an active river crossing.