Queen Elizabeth National Park

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.

The northern reach of the Serengeti ecosystem and the stage for the Great Migration river crossings between roughly July and October, when close to two million wildebeest and zebra run the gauntlet of the Mara River. Outside migration season the Mara still holds the densest big-cat population in Kenya — lion, cheetah and leopard on open grassland that seems built for watching them.

The elephant park, and the one that gives you the photograph you already have in your head: big tuskers crossing dust and swamp with Kilimanjaro filling the sky behind them. Amboseli's herds are among the most studied on earth and remarkably relaxed around vehicles. The mountain hides in cloud through the middle of the day, so the light you want is at dawn and again at dusk.