Etosha National Park

Etosha is defined by its enormous salt pan, so large it can be seen from space, and by the waterholes that ring it. In the dry season the wildlife comes to the water rather than the other way around, which makes game viewing here unusually rewarding and unusually calm. Elephant, giraffe, springbok, oryx, zebra and lion gather within metres of one another, and the floodlit waterholes at the main camps allow sightings long after dark.

Our safaris cross the park from the quieter western sector or from Okaukuejo in the south, with its famous floodlit waterhole, to Namutoni in the east, where the old German fort stands on the park boundary. Black rhino, lion prides and large herds of plains game are all possible at the waterholes along the way.

The park is reached on good roads, which makes it as suited to a first safari as it is to a returning photographer.