Gorongosa, Mozambique

Gorongosa National Park in central Mozambique was one of Africa's great wildlife reserves before two decades of civil war reduced it to almost nothing. The recovery, driven by a long-term partnership between the Mozambican government and the Carr Foundation, is now widely regarded as one of the most successful rewilding efforts on the continent. Lion, elephant, buffalo and wild dog populations have all returned. The park's terrain, centred on the floodplains of the Urema Valley and rising into the rainforest of Mount Gorongosa, offers a landscape that differs entirely from the classic savanna safari. It remains almost entirely absent from premium travel itineraries. The reader who goes this year goes before that changes.