Olakira Migration Camp

Introduction

Most Serengeti camps watch the migration pass. Olakira follows it. Twice a year, this mobile tented camp dismantles entirely and relocates — south to Ndutu for the calving season from December to March, north to Kogatende for the river crossings from June to October. What remains behind is nothing more than a flattened patch of grass.

Operated by Asilia Africa, Olakira sits at the Classic tier of a portfolio built on guiding quality and conservation science. Nine to ten tents, each open on three sides to the Serengeti sky. The migration is not something you observe here. It is something you inhabit.

Location

The Serengeti is not one landscape but several, and Olakira occupies two of them. The southern camp at Ndutu sits on volcanic short-grass plains where the horizon is uninterrupted and visibility runs to the limits of useful optics. The northern camp at Kogatende trades openness for texture: riverine forest, granite kopjes, and the Mara River cutting through it all with crocodile and hippo in permanent residence.

This is Serengeti National Park proper, all 14,763 square kilometres of UNESCO-listed savannah, and TANAPA regulations apply without exception. No night drives, no off-road driving, no private concession flexibility. What the park gives in return is scale: roughly 1.5 million wildebeest, 300,000 zebra, and 200,000 gazelle moving in a clockwise circuit that has been running, with minor improvisation, for millennia. Olakira positions itself at whichever end of that circuit matters most. South for the calving, when Ndutu’s plains produce around 8,000 newborns a day through January and February and every predator within range knows it. North for the crossings, when the herds mass at the Mara River from June through October and the camp sits roughly 300 metres from a known crossing point — close enough that the first sign of action is sound, not sight.

Lion density here ranks among the highest in Africa. Leopard, cheetah, and elephant are all High likelihood at both locations. Rhino is not; the nearest population holds territory at Moru Kopjes, 80 kilometres from the southern camp and over 200 from the north. This is Big Four country, honestly stated. Wild dog passes through the northern Serengeti on occasion, though expecting them would be optimistic.

The camp closes entirely in April, May, and November, the months it takes to dismantle one site and reassemble the other. It is a calendar that follows the animals rather than the accountants. Malaria risk is moderate to high year-round; prophylaxis is not optional.

Rooms

Asilia calls these “stargazing tents,” a term they use across several properties but which earns its keep here. The design is built around a single conceit: 270-degree mesh walls that reduce the barrier between sleeper and savannah to little more than a suggestion. Canvas above, open aspect on three sides, and the whole structure light enough to be dismantled and trucked between camps twice a year. The 2025 refresh has introduced a copper and green palette, warmer than previous seasons and well suited to canvas at this latitude.

The star-bed is the detail that lingers. A proper bed on wheels, rolled out onto a mesh-sided veranda so you sleep under open sky with the Milky Way doing the work of a nightlight. For photographers, this doubles as a long-exposure platform; for everyone else, it is simply the most persuasive argument against a roof that we have encountered in East Africa. Both camps face east, so dawn light arrives without requiring you to move.

En suite bathrooms are sensible rather than showy: double vanities, indoor shower, the standard you would expect at Classic tier. Laundry is included, which matters more than it sounds when dust is a permanent companion. Wi-Fi is available but limited, as it tends to be in mobile camps.

One or two tents per camp are configured for families, accepting children from five upwards. Tent number one in the layout typically serves this role. For those wanting a vehicle to themselves (and during crossing season, the case is strong), private vehicles are available at a supplement, capped at six seats regardless.

Communal Areas

The central lounge and dining area sits midway along the tent line, which in a camp of nine or ten units means your neighbours are close enough to become friends by the second sundowner. This is canvas and steel, not stone and timber — everything you see will be packed onto trucks and rebuilt several hundred kilometres away when the season turns. That impermanence lends the communal spaces a particular honesty. Nothing here pretends to be permanent.

A fire pit anchors the evenings. After dark, with the generator off and the Serengeti doing what it does best with silence, the circle of chairs around the flames becomes the only social architecture that matters. The Boma, a new outdoor dining area for the 2025 season, extends the camp’s mealtime options beyond the main tent.

Dining is communal, shared tables rather than private arrangements, and all meals and most drinks are included (house wines, spirits, beers, soft drinks; premium wines and champagne at supplement).  Bush sundowners are served in the field during afternoon game drives rather than back at camp.

Activities

Game drives are the currency here, and Olakira spends them well. Morning and afternoon departures carry a maximum of six per vehicle, a ratio that matters when a leopard drapes itself across a sausage tree branch and everyone wants the same angle. Asilia’s guides progress through a four-level training system that rewards depth over seniority, and it shows. Lion and leopard sightings run at High likelihood across both camp locations. Cheetah favour the southern grasslands around Ndutu, where the open terrain leaves nowhere to hide. Elephant herds are resident year-round. Wild dog, as ever, operate on their own schedule.

The two seasons deliver fundamentally different theatres. At the southern camp from December to March, the calving grounds produce roughly eight thousand new wildebeest per day at peak, which concentrates predator activity into something close to a permanent, slow-motion siege. The northern camp from June to October brings the Mara River crossings. Seasonal likelihood, herd-dependent, never guaranteed on any given morning, but the camp sits close enough to the main crossing points that a radio call can have you there within minutes. Hippo and crocodile along the river are Very High; they are, in effect, the permanent residents who tolerate the annual visitors. Walking safaris operate from the northern location only, accompanied by an armed TANAPA ranger through designated zones. Two to three hours on foot at a pace that reveals what vehicles roll past.

Balloon flights launch from Seronera, a considerable distance from either camp location. Maasai cultural visits can be arranged separately.