Kenya

Kenya is where the safari was born. The Masai Mara — the northern extension of the Serengeti — is the stage for the Great Migration (roughly July to October), when over a million wildebeest and zebra cross the Mara River past waiting crocodiles, with lion, cheetah and leopard never far behind. Amboseli, in the south, frames its big elephant herds against the snows of Mount Kilimanjaro across the Tanzanian border. The Great Rift Valley adds Lake Nakuru's flamingo flocks and rhino sanctuary, while Lake Naivasha offers boat safaris and walking at Crescent Island. Encounters with the Maasai people, hot-air balloon flights over the Mara at dawn and a finish in Nairobi (with its elephant orphanage and giraffe centre) complete a classic Kenyan circuit.