Kampala & the Kasubi Tombs

A Swahili trading island where Africa, Arabia, India and Europe have been folded together for a thousand years. Stone Town is a UNESCO labyrinth of coral-rag alleys, carved doors and former spice and slave markets that repays getting lost in. North and east the island turns to turquoise shallows and dhows: Nungwi, Paje for kitesurfing, and the spice farms in between.

Uganda's largest and oldest park, split by the Victoria Nile as it forces itself through a seven-metre gorge and detonates into the Rift Valley below. Game drives on the northern bank turn up elephant, giraffe, buffalo and lion across open savanna; the afternoon launch cruise runs to the foot of the falls past hippo pods and basking crocodile. The Delta stretch is one of the last reliable places on earth to see the shoebill.

Uganda's most popular savanna reserve sits beneath the Rwenzori range between lakes George and Edward. The Kazinga Channel cruise delivers density you rarely see anywhere else — elephant, buffalo and hippo along a single stretch of shoreline. In the southern Ishasha sector the lions climb fig trees and drape themselves across the branches through the heat of the day, a behaviour recorded in only a handful of places worldwide.