Best places in Africa to see elephants

Chobe National Park in Botswana

With roughly 120 000 elephants moving through the region, a sunset cruise along the Chobe River during the dry season puts you eye to eye with herds drinking, bathing and crossing the water, sometimes hundreds at a time. It is one of the great wildlife spectacles on the continent, and one boat ride is usually all it takes to understand why.

Amboseli National Park in Kenya. Snow-capped Kilimanjaro rising behind a herd of elephants is one of the most photographed scenes in Africa, and for good reason. Amboseli’s elephants have been studied since 1972 by the Amboseli Elephant Research Project, the longest-running study of wild elephants anywhere, so experienced guides can point out specific families by name, matriarch and history.

It’s also one of the last places on Earth to reliably see ‘big tuskers’-bulls whose tusks are so long and heavy that each can weigh over 100 pounds (45kg) and nearly reach the ground, a genetic trait Amboseli’s relative isolation has helped protect for generations.

Sabi Sand Game Reserve borders the Greater Kruger National Park in South Africa.

It’s one of the continent’s oldest and most respected private reserves, known for skilled, patient guiding and trackers who read the bush rather than search from a distance. Because the reserve is unfenced and shares an open boundary with the Greater Kruger, elephant herds range across a vast, connected landscape, and sightings here regularly include the rest of the Big Five in a single outing.

Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe

With no permanent rivers, Hwange relies on a network of pumped waterholes, and by the late dry season (August to October) more than 40 000 elephants pass through the park to drink.

Camps built directly overlooking these waterholes mean you can watch dozens of elephants arrive, drink and spar without leaving your seat, often well into the night under floodlight.

Tarangire National Park in Tanzania

Between June and October, herds of up to 300 elephants converge on the Tarangire River, the only permanent water for miles, and lean into the park’s centuries-old baobabs to strip moisture-rich bark. It’s the largest elephant concentration in northern Tanzania, and the baobab studded scenery makes it one of the most photogenic sightings in East Africa too.

If the big three aren’t wild enough for you, here are three curveballs worth knowing about.

Damaraland, Namibia
Home to one of the only desert-adapted elephant populations on Earth. These elephants trek up to 70 kilometres a day along dry riverbeds like the Hoanib and Huab, surviving on moisture pulled from roots and bulbs. Seeing an elephant against red desert dunes and no water in sight is unlike anything else on safari.

Mana Pools, Zimbabwe
Watch for Boswell’s crew, a group of bull elephants famous for rearing up on their hind legs to reach seed pods in the albida trees, a trick found nowhere else in the world. Some elephants here also swim across the Zambezi River, submerging almost entirely with just their trunks periscoping above the surface.

Odzala-Kokoua National Park, Republic of Congo
Deep in the Congo Basin rainforest, Odzala is one of the last strongholds of the African forest elephant, a smaller, straighter-tusked and critically endangered cousin of the savannah elephant. Sightings happen in bais, nutrient-rich forest clearings where elephants gather to drink and feed on mineral-rich mud, often alongside forest buffalo and, if you’re fortunate, western lowland gorillas.

Every park in this guide depends on conservation work that happens off camera — anti-poaching patrols, orphan rehabilitation, human-elephant conflict mitigation, research collaring. If you’d like to support that work directly, here are some of the organisations doing it, several of them in the very places above.

• Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in Nairobi & Tsavo, Kenya
  Kenya’s best-known elephant orphanage. Foster a rescued orphan elephant for as little as $50 a year and follow their rewilding journey.
• Reteti Elephant Sanctuary in Namunyak Conservancy, Northern Kenya)
  The world’s first community-owned elephant sanctuary, run entirely by local Samburu keepers. Adopt one of its rescued calves.
• Mara Elephant Project in Maasai Mara, Kenya
  Collars and monitors elephants across the Mara ecosystem to reduce poaching and human-elephant conflict.
• Big Life Foundation in Amboseli-Tsavo-Kilimanjaro ecosystem, Kenya & Tanzania
  Funds the rangers protecting Amboseli’s big tuskers and the wider ecosystem around them.
• Tsavo Trust in Tsavo Conservation Area, Kenya
  Runs the Big Tusker Project, providing aerial surveillance and protection for Kenya’s last super tuskers.
• Elephants Alive (Greater Kruger, South Africa): GPS-collars and studies elephants across the same reserves as Sabi Sand. Sponsor a collar and you may have an elephant named after you.
• HERD – the Jabulani Herd in Hoedspruit, South Africa: South Africa’s first elephant orphanage, caring for rescued and orphaned calves. Adopt a member of the Jabulani herd.
• Game Rangers International – Elephant Orphanage Project in Kafue, Zambia
  Rescues, rehabilitates and releases orphaned elephants back into the wild, a journey that can take up to 12 years. Adopt an orphan. org/adoptions
• Wild Is Life – Zimbabwe Elephant Nursery in Harare & Panda Masuie, Zimbabwe
  Zimbabwe’s first elephant nursery, not far from Hwange’s elephant population. Adopt or support a rescued orphan.
• Elephant-Human Relations Aid (EHRA) in Damaraland, Namibia: Protects the desert-adapted elephants of Damaraland, building water-point walls and training communities to coexist with elephants. Donate or volunteer. org