Nyerere National Park and Ruaha

Tanzania's southern parks are enormous and almost empty. Nyerere, formed from the northern section of the Selous Game Reserve, is the largest national park in Africa. Ruaha, further inland, is the second largest in Tanzania and holds around ten percent of the world's remaining lions.

What you can do here is the real difference. The northern parks are vehicle only. In the south you can walk with an armed ranger, and in Nyerere you can take a boat out onto the Rufiji River and its lakes, which puts you at water level alongside hippo, crocodile and whatever has come down to drink.

Both parks are among the best places in Africa to see African wild dog, which is one of the continent's most endangered large predators. They are reached by light aircraft from Dar es Salaam rather than by road from Arusha.