Best safari destinations to spot the Big 5 animals

Combine the Serengeti and the adjoining Ngorongoro Crater Conservation Area and you’ve got good chances of seeing the Big 5. We visit both of these wildlife-rich areas on our Serengeti Lodge Safari and Family Zanzibar, Serengeti & Ngorongoro Safari holidays. We visit and stay in the Serengeti, which means ‘endless grass plains’ in Masai. These vast grassy plains are home to wildebeest, prides of lions and African elephants, to name but a few. Visit between July and September and you may be lucky enough to witness ‘The Great Migration’. This is when huge numbers of wildebeest and other herbivores like zebra migrate across the Serengeti, on their way into Kenya’s Masai Mara to find richer pastures.

We also go on game drives in the Ngorongro Crater, the world’s largest caldera. The area has the highest density of lions and large numbers of wildebeest, gazelles and birds like flamingo and pelican. Black rhinos do live in the area and are part of a big conservation effort, so there are good chances of spotting the rarest of the Big 5 here.

Botswana’s landscape features vast plains and lush and fertile grasslands thanks to the Chobe River and swampy Okavango Delta. This makes it an ideal natural habitat for wildlife of all shapes and sizes, from birds including storks and cranes, to the huge African elephant and black rhino.

We visit two of the best parks for spotting the Big 5 on our Botswana safari tours – Moremi Game Reserve and Chobe National Park. The Big 5 are present in both parks, although like the other destinations the black rhino is rarer to see. Moremi’s mix of swamps, forests and dry land make it a wildlife haven for hundreds of species of birdlife and animals like the booming hippo. On our Botswana tours we stay on a houseboat in the Delta panhandle, giving the best opportunities to spot birds and animals throughout the day.