A game drive is a slow, patient search through the park in an open-roofed 4x4 with a guide who knows the ground. It is not a tour with a schedule; it is a series of decisions made on the morning's tracks, alarm calls and radio reports.
The two great times are early morning and late afternoon. Leaving camp at first light puts you out while lions are still walking the road and leopards are coming down from the trees, and the light for photographs is at its best in the first and last hour of the day. In the middle of the day the heat pushes most animals into the shade, which is when travellers usually return to camp for lunch and a rest — or, on a full-day drive, eat a packed lunch under an acacia and keep going.
Expect three to four hours in the morning and two to three in the afternoon, or a full day with a picnic in the Serengeti and Ngorongoro. You stay in the vehicle except at marked picnic sites and toilets. Standing through the roof is fine; sitting on the roof is not, and any guide who allows it is risking their licence and your safety.