Dozens of national parks, game reserves, and other safari destinations live here – that is hundreds of them. Each last of them has to give something to track gorilla, or a chimpanzee, and a more subtle pleasure such as finding rare birds or colorful butterflies. It is a cast of charismatic large mammals dominated by the five big ones. However, the highlights below are perhaps the 10 best places to visit in South Africa tour packages, for first-time travelers who wonder exactly where to go.

1. Serengeti National Park (Tanzania)
Serengeti, the largest and oldest national park in Tanzania, has been named after the best places to visit in Africa by many safarigoers. It is registered to be a UNESCO World Heritage Site primarily because of hosting up to two million wild beasts and tens of thousands of zebras, the world's most impressive annual wildlife migration. The expansive plains, estimated at 3,000 inhabitants, are home to the largest Lion population of Africa. In East Africa, it is perhaps the most reliable place of guitar though leopards in the central Seronera Valley are frequently observed. Other traditional species include elephant, buffalo, giraffe, bat-eared fox, spotted hyène, and a wide range of antelope.

2. Masai Mara National Reserve (Kenya)
The smaller Masai Mara is equally satisfying in terms of viewing the game, essentially the Kenyan counterpart of the Serengeti. The star residents are big cats. Hogs are highlighted by the pride of up to 20 lions, but they are also an excellent place to see cheetah and leopard, along with elephants, buffalo, and girls – with luck, the black rhino. The Masai-Mara is the most spectacular part of the annual migration from Serengeti to cross the Mara river from late June through early October when hundreds of thousands of wild strawberries arrive.

3. Mana Pools National Park (Zimbabwe)
Mana Pools is one of Africa's best adventurous places to travel. It's certainly the place to go if you're looking for an unguided and guided safari destination. Better still, it offers a thriller to canoe in a forest-fronted Zambezi River in the form of a network of linked pools across one of the most intimate wildlife areas of Africa. If you are paddling or walking, it's also safe to see a wealth of elephants, hippos, buffalos, crocodiles, and water-related birds.

4. Etosha National Park (Namibia)
The flagship reserve of Namibia, Etosha is dominated by the vast, salty pan that it is usually called for. The pot is lined by a series of perennial waterholes – some floodlit at night – which attract large flocks in the dry season. It is also a black rhino park in Africa that is more reliable, but not buffalo-like but is found in this region. Etosha is unusually well equipped for safaris on its own.

5. Kruger National Park (South Africa)
One of the best places to visit for a driving safari in Africa will take at least two weeks to discover the incomprehensibly large Kruger National Park. Because of its proximity to Johannesburg, many people focus on the south, but the further north, if you want to get away from the route beaten. Kruger is responsible for 147 species of mammals, the majority of which are in any African National Park, including a prodigious Big Five population, along with cheetah, hippos, zebra, giraffe, warthog, baboon, and more than 20 Antelopes. 517 bird species are also present.

6. Amboseli National Park (Kenya)
Amboseli National Park is the world's highest freestanding mountain with the heaviest terrestrial mammal. It is from here that you get towering over the animal-rich lands of East Africa with the most inspiring views of snow-covered Kilimanjaro. It is one of the best places to visit Amboseli to see the interaction of elephants that is extraordinarily well used and beautifully tainted here. Amboseli is the world's longest-lasting study of elephants established in 1975.

7. South Luangwa National Park (Zambia)
South Luangwa National Park is also famous for its outstanding night trips. It is one of Africa's best places for a sumptuous walking safari. The majority of holiday lodges give expertly led game walks, but the real deal is a multi-day trek from semicircular fly camps that consume the sights and scents of the bush without distraction from a runner. While there are no rhinos, this is another excellent Big Five reserve with a particularly high probability of intimate leopard visits.

8. Bwindi Impenetrable National Park (Uganda)
Two words: gorillas of the mountain. This exuberantly forested Nationalpark in Uganda is one of Africa's best places to visit if you wish to see the gentle giants in their misty mountain homes – the largest Primate in the world weighing up to 200kg. A giant silverback is definitely the highlight of most visitors to Bwindi, entering the liquid brown eyes. But it is also an excellent location, forest dwellers, including the yellow-backed duiker, L'Hoest's monkey, and 23 bishops that end up in the Albertine Rift.

9. Okavango Delta (Botswana)
The vast lands of the river Kavango collapsing into the desert sands are among the best locations for near encounters with hippos, crocodiles, and other marine animals to visit in Africa. It is also home to plenty of elephants, a limited number of lions and leopards, mainly explored in experienced dugout canoes, but the actual attraction is the primary sense of place of the Delta.

10. Mahale Mountains National Park (Tanzania)
Mahale is one of East Africa's most remote parks and protects a stretch of jungle-drawn Rift Valley cliffs on the border of the stunningly beautiful Tanganyika Lake. It is one of the best places to visit in Africa to 800 chimpanzees if you want to get close to close relatives of people living in the wild. The Mahale chimpanzees were used to by Japanese investigators in the 1960's and are so comfortable that it's not uncommon to have a fully grown adult brush, only a few centimeters from you.