Every road we know

Fourteen thousand square kilometres of grassland carrying the largest terrestrial mammal migration on earth. The name comes from the Maasai siringet — the place where the land runs on forever — and the plains genuinely deliver that. Where you go depends entirely on when you come: calving on the southern short-grass plains around February, the western corridor mid-year, the northern Mara River crossings from August.

The world's largest intact volcanic caldera — 260 square kilometres of crater floor 600m below the rim, holding roughly 25,000 large animals that mostly never leave. It is the surest place in East Africa to see black rhino, and one of very few where lion, elephant, buffalo, leopard and rhino occupy a single enclosed bowl. Descending through cloud forest at dawn into that natural amphitheatre is the moment people remember.

The highest point in Africa at 5,895m and the tallest free-standing mountain on earth — a walkable summit that needs no technical climbing, only time, patience and respect for the altitude. The Machame and Lemosho routes give the best acclimatisation and the best scenery, climbing through rainforest, moorland and alpine desert to the Roof of Africa. Summit night starts around midnight and finishes on the crater rim at sunrise.

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.