A safari is the trip people rank first afterward, almost regardless of what else they have done, and the Serengeti is the reference point the word conjures. What the photos cannot carry is the sound: lions at 4am through canvas, the static of a million wildebeest hooves during migration season.

Timing determines what you see. The great herds mass in the southern Serengeti roughly January to March for calving, and the dramatic river crossings happen in the north around July to September. Neither is better; they are different films. Costs here are honest signals, a rock-bottom safari usually means more hours driving and fewer animals, and this is the one trip category where stretching the budget pays back in memory.

Bring binoculars per person, not per couple. The person without them is always the one facing the leopard.