Natural features
Table Mountain, Cape Town
Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa
The flat-topped mountain above Cape Town, 1,085 m, one of the New7Wonders of Nature.
Travel tips in Africa
Natural features
Etosha National Park
Kunene, Namibia
A vast salt pan surrounded by grassland and waterholes, where elephants, lions, rhinos, giraffes and zebras gather in the dry season.
Walks and treks
Garden Route and Tsitsikamma
Eastern Cape, South Africa
A scenic coastal drive between Mossel Bay and Storms River, with lagoons, forests and beaches.
Natural features
Victoria Falls (Zimbabwe side)
Victoria Falls, Matabeleland North, Zimbabwe
The Zambezi drops 108 m over a 1.7 km wide edge, the 'Smoke that Thunders', a UNESCO site.
Natural features
Tsingy de Bemaraha
Mahajanga, Madagascar
A stone forest of jagged limestone pinnacles, a UNESCO site, explored with guides using via ferrata cables, ladders and rope bridges.
Natural features
Jardin Majorelle, Marrakech
Marrakesh, Marrakech, Morocco
A garden of cacti, palms, bamboo and lily ponds created by the French painter Jacques Majorelle from the 1920s, around his studio painted in an inten…
Natural features
The Knysna Heads
Knysna, Western Cape, South Africa
Two huge sandstone cliffs guarding the narrow, dangerous channel between the Indian Ocean and the Knysna lagoon.
Natural features
Chobe National Park
Chobe, Botswana
A park with one of the largest elephant populations in Africa.
Historic sites
Abu Simbel
Abu Simbel, Aswan, Egypt
Two huge rock temples built by Ramesses II, with four 20 m statues of the pharaoh on the façade.
Natural features
Murchison Falls National Park
Buliisa, Uganda
Where the Nile forces itself through a 7 m gap and plunges 43 m.
Attractions
Grand Egyptian Museum, Giza
Giza, Egypt
The world's largest archaeological museum, next to the Giza pyramids, with a huge statue of Ramesses II in the atrium, a grand staircase of statues, …
Natural features
Anse Source d'Argent, La Digue
La Digue, Seychelles
One of the most photographed beaches in the world, with pink granite boulders, white sand and a shallow turquoise lagoon.
Historic sites
Karnak Temple, Luxor
Luxor, Egypt
The largest ancient religious site in the world, built over 2,000 years, with the Great Hypostyle Hall's 134 giant columns, obelisks and an avenue of…
Tours and activities
Bwindi Impenetrable Forest gorilla trekking
Kanungu, Western, Uganda
A rainforest park, a UNESCO site, home to nearly half the world's mountain gorillas.
Tours and activities
Nile felucca and cruise, Aswan
Aswan, Egypt
Sail the Nile at Aswan on a felucca, a traditional wooden sailing boat, past Elephantine Island and the Botanical Garden, at sunset.
Natural features
Andasibe-Mantadia lemurs
Toamasina, Madagascar
A rainforest park east of Antananarivo where you hear the wailing call of the indri, the largest lemur.
Walks and treks
Cirque de Mafate, Réunion
Saint-Paul, Reunion
A vast volcanic amphitheatre with no roads, reachable only on foot or by helicopter, with small villages (îlets) and guesthouses (gîtes).
Tours and activities
Victoria Falls (Zambia side) and Devil's Pool
Livingstone, Southern, Zambia
The Zambian side lets you walk the Knife-Edge Bridge in the spray and, from mid-August to January when the water is low, swim in Devil's Pool at the …
Natural features
Great Migration, Maasai Mara
Narok, Kenya
Every year about 1.5 million wildebeest, with hundreds of thousands of zebra and gazelle, follow the rains in a huge clockwise circuit between Tanzan…
Places to stay
Flatdogs Camp, South Luangwa
Eastern, Zambia
An affordable, relaxed safari camp on the banks of the Luangwa River, right at the main gate of South Luangwa National Park, one of Africa's best par…
Historic sites
Kigali Genocide Memorial
Kigali, Rwanda
The memorial to the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi, in which over a million people were killed, with mass graves of more than 250,000 victims and a …
Walks and treks
Simien Mountains
Debark’, Amhara, Ethiopia
A dramatic plateau of jagged peaks and deep valleys, a UNESCO site, home of gelada baboons, walia ibex and the Ethiopian wolf.
Historic sites
Aït Benhaddou
Ouarzazate, Drâa-Tafilalet, Morocco
A fortified village (ksar) of earthen kasbahs climbing a hill above a river on the old caravan route, a UNESCO site, used in films such as Gladiator …
Historic sites
Cape Coast Castle
Cape Coast, Central, Ghana
A whitewashed castle on the Ghanaian coast that was a major hub of the transatlantic slave trade, a UNESCO site.
Natural features
Mana Pools
Mashonaland West, Zimbabwe
A remote park on the Zambezi, a UNESCO site, famous for walking safaris, canoe trips, and elephants standing on their hind legs to reach the trees.
Natural features
Ngorongoro Crater
Ngorongoro, Arusha, Tanzania
The world's largest intact volcanic caldera, 600 m deep and 20 km wide, a UNESCO site, home to about 25,000 animals including black rhinos, lions and…
Historic sites
Apartheid Museum and Soweto, Johannesburg
Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa
A powerful museum telling the story of apartheid and the struggle against it.
Historic sites
Fès el-Bali medina
Fès al Bali, Fès-Meknès, Morocco
One of the largest car-free urban areas in the world, a UNESCO site, with about 9,000 lanes, souks, the Al-Qarawiyyin university (founded in 859) and…
Tours and activities
Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda
Busogo, Northern, Rwanda
Bamboo forests on the Virunga volcanoes, where Dian Fossey studied mountain gorillas.
Natural features
Bazaruto Archipelago
Inhambane, Mozambique
Islands of white dunes and turquoise water off Vilanculos, a marine park with dugongs, manta rays and coral reefs.
Walks and treks
Santo Antão hiking, Cape Verde
Ribeira Grande, Cape Verde
The most dramatic island of Cape Verde, with green valleys, cliff-side paths and terraced farms.
Walks and treks
Piton de la Fournaise, Réunion
Saint-Benoît, Reunion
One of the most active volcanoes in the world, on the French island of Réunion.
Natural features
Sossusvlei and Deadvlei
Hardap, Namibia
Some of the highest sand dunes in the world, red-orange in the Namib Desert, a UNESCO site.
Natural features
Serengeti National Park
Mara, Tanzania
Endless plains with more than a million wildebeest and zebras on the Great Migration, and one of the highest densities of lions in Africa, a UNESCO s…
Historic sites
Rock-Hewn Churches of Lalibela
Lalibela, Amhara, Ethiopia
Eleven medieval churches carved down into solid rock in the 12th and 13th centuries, a UNESCO site and a living pilgrimage centre.
Historic sites
Amphitheatre of El Jem
El Jem, Mahdia, Tunisia
One of the largest Roman amphitheatres in the world, built around 238 AD, remarkably intact, with space for 35,000 spectators, a UNESCO site.
Natural features
Amboseli National Park
Kajiado, Kenya
A park famous for large herds of elephants walking across the plains with snow-capped Mount Kilimanjaro behind, in Tanzania.
Historic sites
Chefchaouen
Chefchaouen, Morocco
A mountain town in the Rif whose medina is painted in every shade of blue.
Natural features
Okavango Delta
North-West, Botswana
A vast inland delta where the Okavango River spreads into the Kalahari, a UNESCO site, with channels, lagoons and islands full of elephants, hippos, …
Natural features
Le Morne Brabant, Mauritius
Black River, Mauritius
A mountain rising above a turquoise lagoon on the south-west tip of Mauritius, a UNESCO site as a refuge of escaped slaves.
Walks and treks
Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro
Moshi, Kilimanjaro, Tanzania
At 5,895 m, Kilimanjaro is the highest mountain in Africa and the highest free-standing mountain in the world, and you can walk to the summit without…
Historic sites
Gorée Island
Dakar, Senegal
A small car-free island off Dakar with pastel colonial houses and the House of Slaves with its 'Door of No Return', a memorial to the Atlantic slave …
Historic sites
Stone Town, Zanzibar
Zanzibar, Zanzibar West, Tanzania
The old Swahili trading town of Zanzibar, a UNESCO site, with carved doors, the House of Wonders, the Old Fort, the former slave market and the Forod…
Natural features
Avenue of the Baobabs
Toliara, Madagascar
A dirt road lined with towering Grandidier's baobab trees, up to 800 years old, near Morondava on the west coast.
Natural features
Vallée de Mai, Praslin
Baie Sainte Anne, Seychelles
A palm forest, a UNESCO site, home to the coco de mer palm with the largest seed in the plant kingdom, and the rare black parrot.
Natural features
Kakum National Park canopy walk
Foso, Central, Ghana
A rainforest park with a canopy walkway of seven rope bridges up to 40 m above the forest floor.
Walks and treks
Climbing Pico do Fogo
Cova Figueira, Santa Catarina do Fogo, Cape Verde
Fogo is a single volcanic island, and its 2,829 m peak is the highest point in Cape Verde.
Historic sites
Great Zimbabwe
Masvingo, Zimbabwe
The stone ruins of a medieval city, the capital of a great trading kingdom from the 11th to 15th centuries, with the curving Great Enclosure and the …
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