Travel reviews by Gabriella from Italy

"Namiri Plains is a quite peculiar place to go on safari, it can be the best place ever or a "meh". It all depends upon what you are looking for - to me it's THE place to be for my safaris, and this was my 3rd visit but please read further.
Honestly speaking, I would not advise this camp for travellers on their first safari trip ever, because the area does not offer the whole variety of wildlife you can encounter in central Serengeti. So if you visit Serengeti and you go straight to Namiri Plains, you might be disappointed because you see very little or sometimes even totally zero elephants and giraffes, and absolutely no hippos, and in general smaller numbers of all the common African wildlife that you expect to see and to photograph on your first safari trip, for which on the contrary the Seronera area is highly recommended, where the same company Asilia runs a very very comfy camp called Dunia, famous for being the one and only completely run by women (btw I had the big luck of having one of their lady guides driving me up to Namiri and SHE ROCKS!!). That said, you will wonder why go to Namiri Plains? Because Namiri is where the big cats roam. So if you are fond of (or like me slightly obsessed with) big cats, and you only want to see cats, and to hear cats all night and dream of cats and breathe cats and end up with all your memory cards only full of cats striking any kind of pose .. then a stay at Namiri is something you cannot miss.

Many highlights of my recent stay. First of all cheetahs, cheetahs and more cheetahs, all beautiful, looking healthy and well fed, literally thriving, was what made my heart sing. among the many, a cheetah mother appearing out of the blue that we followed to the den discovering that she had newborn cubs...Then, we have been under a real cuteness-overload attack with the local lion pride displaying repeatedly the 14 cubs of different ages very very near the camp (and there will be more coming in the next months, because I have seen at least 4 different couples of honeymooners mating). And furthermore, spending quality time with two leopard cubs was a super treat.

One remarkable thing, this year, was the weather. The green season is always a dare, because April and May are the months of the Long Rains, but this year I think I have seen 4 seasons in the same day. After the terrible drought of the past 2 years, April 2018 has been overly generous with water... so Serengeti was all lush green and in bloom, but also super muddy. Please keep that in mind if you thiink the chance of getting bogged somewhere is part of the fun and adventure; but if you don't want to deal with mud skip the green season and go for the dry one. The rains have visited us also during my stay (half may), with usual 30-minutes downpours in the hottest hours except one day, when we had like in 2 hours the amount of rain they usually have in one week .. The camp staff however handled the unexpected situation with the usual, lovely all-Tanzanian hakuna-matata attitude. Please notice anyway that every tent is provided with rainboots and umbrellas, so you don't have to worry about packing those things .. travel as light as possible: a safari is a good chance to practise a bit of declustering.

The rain season however has ist perks, and the main one is the Great Migration. More than a million wildebeests on the move, wandering around in pursuit of the rainbs and the best grass to graze. When the Migration comes, the plains are covered in black dots up to the horizon and it's not rare to have herds in the camp. One day I even had the fun of watching thousands of wildebeest running in front of me while I was sitting in my tent. Another morning I enjoyed my wakeup-call cup of tea sitting outside in the good company of a family of elephants (unique event) who were grazing the tender leaves of the thorny acacia in front of my tent. Not to mention the honor of hearing lions roaring every night while I was in bed: the coming of the Migration is a sort of Big Cats Xmas Time, that is well described as "feeding frenzy" ending up in very happy, very full-bellied cats.

No need to say, I absolutely want to go back and stay again at Namiri."