From white coats to black manes, from tree dwellers to desert nomads, every region tells a different lion story. So, where’s the best place to see lions? The truth is, there isn’t one, there are many. It all depends on what kind of story you want to tell.
If you want see lions that climb trees, Tanzania’s Lake Manyara National Park is where you would have the best luck. Here, the lions have learned to climb and drape along branches like oversized house cats. They use large trees as a vantage from which to lazily survey the forest or plains, and simultaneously seek refuge from the heat. In this lush corridor linking to Northern Tanzania itineraries, guests can watch lions in one of their rarest behaviours, part instinct, part invention, entirely mesmerising. The image of a lion poised on a sweeping limb is one that stays long after the safari ends. Whether for vantage, shade, or sheer feline curiosity, &BEYOND Phinda’s lions are regularly seen draped across low boughs, echoing their more famous counterparts in Lake Manyara. It’s a behaviour that also appears in Botswana’s Okavango Delta, where lions have learned to use the trees to escape floodwaters or survey the shifting plains.
At &BEYOND Phinda Private Game Reserve, lions share their realm with cheetahs, leopards, and hyena, predators that shape a dynamic, ever-shifting balance. Its prides are strong and encounters often thrilling. Phinda is one of the best locations to visit if you want to see predator interactions or lions interacting with other species like rhino. Set across seven ecosystems, from rare sand forest to mountain and wetland, Phinda delivers context as much as spectacle. Picture lions roaring as they pad through eery mist rising off the Sand Forest’s floor. As one of the first private reserves where lions where introduced together with cheetah, Phinda is all-at-once a re-wilding and conservation success story and a predator-rich theatre. Hosted by our finest of guides and trackers, tracking lions is always grand adventure and excellent lion sightings (often including bundles of lion cubs) prove the ultimate safari reward. Another place you can experience epic predator action is the Sabi Sand Nature Reserve.
In Shangaan, Ngala means “lion” and at &Beyond Ngala Private Game Reserve, the name fits. This is classic lion country: wide open, unfenced to the Kruger National Park, and filled with large prides. Here, lion sightings are both frequent and personal, sometimes featuring the rare and storied white lions born of this region. Stay at Ngala Safari Lodge or Ngala Tented Camp, where guides know every pride by lineage and history. Their roars roll across the Timbavati riverbed like living thunder, especially if you opt to experience the Ngala Treehouse, reminding you that in Africa, kings still rule.
Some lions wear their pride in darker hues. The famed black-maned lions of Chobe National Park, are spectacular whether striding through dust or elephant herds, their massive dark manes inked by genetics and geography. At &BEYOND Botswana Under Canvas, guests can track lion movements through delta and dirt and then enjoy both the impermanence and the luxury of small tented camps while following the rhythm of the wild. One literally feels the reverberation of a lion’s roars while watching the flames of a campfire at night and sleeping beneath canvas. In the Kalahari, scarcity breeds strength. Lions here survive where water is a rumour and shade a luxury. Around &BEYOND partner property Tswalu, these black-maned desert lions roam vast, red dunes, their muscular silhouettes looming against the stark horizon.
In Botswana’s Okavango Delta, lions are water wise. They stalk reed beds and cross channels, adapted to a landscape that shifts with every flood or drought. Prides hunt among water lilies or watch litters of cubs play in the shade of jackalberry trees. &Beyond’s private concessions here are vast, secluded, and wild, offering rare freedom to follow lions off-road, in silence, without crowds. In this wetland kingdom, the lions of the Okavango are both predators and pioneers.
In the Serengeti, the lions don’t wait for opportunity, they follow it. As the Great Migration thunders across the plains, prides around &BEYOND Grumeti Serengeti River Lodge and &BEYOND Klein’s Camp shadow the herds. These are lions built for movement: lean, strategic, patient. The action, and interaction between lions and other predators and scavengers, is simply unmatched. This location offers a front seat to nature’s chaos. At Klein’s Camp, a 10,000-hectare private concession allows off-road and night drives, privileges the national park can’t. Guests can witness lions under starlight or see a hunt unfold at sunrise, all without another vehicle in sight. For the truly nomadic experience, &BEYOND Serengeti Under Canvas takes you closer still; luxury tents that follow the migration, mirroring the lions’ own rhythm. And when the migratory herds cross international boundaries, the journey doesn’t stop. &BEYOND Bateleur Camp is the perfect outpost from which to gaze across gnu-studded plains and the famous Mara River is just a short traverse away from the mayhem and miracle of the herds making river crossings.
Contrary to popular belief, lions are not exclusive to Africa. India has tigers and lions–Asiatic lions. Found only in India’s Gir Forest, they are a close but distinct subspecies of the African lion; slightly smaller, with shorter, sparser manes that leave the ears exposed, and a characteristic fold of skin along the belly. Their social structure differs too: males typically form compact coalitions, while females and cubs occupy loosely connected territories rather than the cohesive prides seen in Africa. It is possible to tailor an &Beyond journey through India pairing these felines with tigers in Ranthambore and leopards in Jawai, a rare chance to meet the last wild cats of Asia in their ancestral home.
The America’s boast their very own type of mountain lion too, or pumas. Although often nicknamed “mountain lions,” pumas are not true lions at all. They belong to a different genus (Puma), lack a mane, and have a much lighter, more uniform coat compared to the boldly marked, powerfully built Panthera leo. Pumas are solitary hunters, raising cubs alone and avoiding conflict, while African lions are the only truly social big cats, living in prides, defending territory as a collective and hunting cooperatively. Pumas cannot roar whereas lions project their calls across kilometres, the quintessential sound of the African wilderness. And while lions dominate open savanna, pumas thrive in rugged Andes terrain, relying on agility, long bounds and stealth more than sheer strength. On the Wild-Side-of-Chile expedition, guests can track them through grasslands and granite slopes, big cats defined not by dominance, but by presence. They are the lion’s New World counterpart: solitary, spectral, beautifully wild.