Tanzania sits at the very heart of the African safari experience. The Serengeti National Park is a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of the world’s greatest wildlife spectacles — an endless golden plain teeming with lion, leopard, cheetah, elephant, buffalo and giraffe. The annual Great Migration, when over a million wildebeest and zebra thunder across the Serengeti and Masai Mara in search of greener pastures, is widely considered one of the great natural wonders of the world. The Ngorongoro Crater is equally extraordinary: a collapsed volcanic caldera 19 kilometres wide that acts as a natural enclosure for an astonishing density of wildlife, including one of Africa’s last remaining populations of black rhino. Game drives here feel almost surreal in their abundance. Beyond these headline attractions, Tarangire National Park offers huge elephant herds and ancient baobab trees, while Ruaha and Selous in the south are vast, remote and genuinely wild. For something completely different, Zanzibar — the ‘Spice Island’ — lies just off the Tanzanian coast. Stone Town’s labyrinthine alleyways, Arab trading houses and vibrant food markets are a UNESCO-listed treasure. The beaches on the north and east coasts — Nungwi, Kendwa, Paje — are among the finest in the Indian Ocean: powdery white sand, turquoise water and excellent coral reefs for diving and snorkelling. Tanzania is a year-round destination, with dry seasons from June to October and January to February offering the best game viewing. Most visitors combine a multi-day safari itinerary with a beach extension on Zanzibar — the classic ‘bush and beach’ combination that Tanzania does better than almost anywhere else in the world.