Addo Elephant Park

Possibly the most famous reserve in the Eastern Cape is this, the Addo Elephant National Park that covers 240,000 hectares and features 120,000 hectares of marine reserve to boot.

Malaria-free and about an hour’s drive from Port Elizabeth, South Africa’s third largest National Park is good for ease and families. The park is the only in the world to conserve the ‘Big Seven’ – the Big Five along with the great white shark and southern right whale off the Algoa Bay coast.

When the original elephant section of the park was proclaimed there were only 11 elephants remaining in the area, today the park has the densest population of elephants on earth.

However while the elephants are the main star of the show, the finely tuned ecosystem is also home to lion, buffalo, black rhino, spotted hyena, leopard, antelope, zebra, as well as the unique flightless dung beetle.