TANZANIA

Tanzania is synonymous with the Serengeti (meaning “endless plains” in the Maa language), a key location in the Great Migration of more than 1.5 million herd animals from the park’s southern reaches to Kenya’s Maasai Mara and back again. At 5,895 metres (19,340 feet), Mount Kilimanjaro is the world’s tallest freestanding mountain, while Nyerere National Park is the largest in Africa – so extensive you may not see another safari vehicle. Little-known Tarangire National Park is home to 2,500 elephants, while Ngorongoro Crater (the collapsed caldera of a volcano that may have been taller than Kilimanjaro) contains 25,000 mammals, half of them zebras and wildebeest.

Thousands of pink flamingos feed seasonally along the edge of mineral-rich Lake Manyara, while in the little-visited west, majestic Lake Tanganyika is fringed by white-sand beaches. The sand is more enticing still on Zanzibar, the Indian Ocean spice island known for its dazzling turquoise waters plied by white-sailed dhows.