Addo Elephant National Park, South Africa

For many tourists to South Africa, the only reason behind their journey is to spend some quality time in its metropolises like Cape Town and Johannesburg. Indeed Cape Town is one of the most beautiful cities that you will ever find with the scenic beauty of the cape peninsula clashing with the Atlantic Ocean and of course the gorgeous table mountain. But if you ask us the real attraction of South Africa is not in its modern cities but in its numerous national parks that are home to the most exotic wildlife of the continent.

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Most people think that Tanzania and Kenya are the only real game viewing options in Africa but that’s not entirely true. While their Serengeti and Masai Mara national parks are home to one of the highest concentration of wildlife but both Botswana and South Africa also have their fair share of national parks that can provide you with an awesome safari and game viewing experience. Take South Africa’s Addo Elephant National Park, for example, it has more elephants in it than both the Serengeti and Masai Mara combined and that’s not all.

It is also home all of the Big Five animals of Africa, if you couple it all with the gorgeous landscape and the excellent infrastructure then you get a national park that any game viewing enthusiast will not want to miss out on. The park is located in the Eastern Cape Province and is easily accessible from the city of Cape Town. If you are not already in the country then you should take flights to Cape Town and then hire a 4wd to take you the Eastern Cape which has quite a few of other great national parks as well apart from the magnificent Addo National Park.

What makes Addo National park so unique is the facility of game viewing while sitting on the back of a giant elephant Elephants catches the imagination of all of us from our childhood years and an opportunity to ride one can be a memorable experience. Apart from the fun of riding an elephant this kind of safari has another benefit as well. Most of the animals are not familiar with the human scent and they take it as a signal of danger and mostly run away when a human approaches them.

That means you can not observe them closely but when you are riding the elephant its own scent will hide yours and as an elephant’s scent is something that the other animals are used to of so they will not get scared and run away providing you with a chance to observe them closely. The park has high numbers of lions zebras, hyenas, leopards, rhinos and wildebeests in it and it will take some really bad luck on your side to miss out on any one of these during your two-hour safari while sitting on the back of the elephant. You can arrive at the park in any season but during the late months of summer, a lot of rain falls in this area making such a safari a little difficult.