Our TOP 10 Bucket List

Continuing our spotlight of the ultimate sights-in 3rd place, animal safaris...

- BRIDGET MCGROUTHER

ANIMAL CRACKERS

For wildlife lovers, going on safari is high on travel adventure bucket lists. There is nothing more enthralling than having your own David Attenborough moment with a gorilla or hearing the reverberating roar of a lion. Most first-time safari travellers seek the Big Five in Africa: elephant, lion, leopard, rhinoceros and Cape buffalo. Best of all, safaris help to protect the animals you see as well as local communities.

SNAP HAPPY

In Botswana's Okavango Delta, I spotted the Big Five on safari drives and boarded a dug out mokoro canoe to see birds and butterflies among the reeds and water lilies. Flying in a tiny plane over the Delta to spot wildlife is an adventure in itself, especially when animals have to be chased off the runway! A two-centre safari allows different experiences, such as on the riverside Chobe Safari Lodge with boat trips past hippos and crocs and neighbouring Zambia.

DIVE RIGHT IN

Zambia is famous not only for David Livingstone and the mighty Victoria Falls, where rainbows dance in the spray, but for safari adventures on, around, and above the thunderous Zambezi. I'll never forget my helicopter ride and microlight flight where we swooped over elephants swimming across the water and crocs sunbathing on rocks. At riverside accommodation, zebra often graze around the swimming pool while monkeys swing from the trees!

SAFARI SO GOOD