Amboseli

Amboseli is Africa's best spot for photographing elephants with Kilimanjaro in the background: the continent's highest peak, just across the border in Tanzania, is visible clear as day almost every morning before clouds roll in. The park is small and flat — unlike the Mara, it's easily covered in a day or two — with some of Africa's largest and most-studied elephant herds. June-October and January-February (the dry months) are the best time, when animals concentrate around the park's permanent central swamps.