Stone Town

A small park below Mount Meru with crater lakes, giraffe and colobus monkeys, where walking safaris and canoeing are permitted.

The Serengeti covers about 14,750 square kilometres of grassland, kopjes and riverine forest, and holds the largest land mammal migration on earth as roughly 1.5 million wildebeest move in an annual loop. Where to stay depends entirely on the month: southern plains for calving, western corridor mid-year, northern river crossings from July. Predator density is high across the park all year.

Ngorongoro is an intact volcanic caldera about 19 kilometres across, with a floor of grassland, swamp and soda lake holding a resident population of some 25,000 large animals including black rhino. Vehicles descend on a one-way road at dawn and must leave by late afternoon. Maasai continue to graze cattle in the wider conservation area.

Zanzibar is an Indian Ocean island with a Swahili trading port at Stone Town, spice farms inland and white-sand beaches around the coast. Tides on the east coast are extreme, exposing wide flats at low water, while the north coast stays swimmable throughout. Ferries and short flights connect it with Dar es Salaam.

The island's last substantial forest, home to the endemic Zanzibar red colobus monkey, with boardwalks through mangrove.

Kilimanjaro is the highest mountain in Africa at 5,895 metres and the highest free-standing mountain in the world, climbed without technical equipment but with real altitude risk. Routes take five to nine days, and longer itineraries such as Lemosho or the northern circuit give much better acclimatisation and summit rates. Guides and porters are compulsory.