iSimangaliso Wetland Park

Strung along the northern coast of KwaZulu-Natal, iSimangaliso Wetland Park was inscribed in December 1999 as South Africa's very first UNESCO World Heritage Site. Its name, drawn from isiZulu and commonly rendered as "a miracle" or "something wondrous," suits the roughly 239,566-hectare World Heritage core: eight interlinking ecosystems fold coral reefs, long sandy beaches, ancient forested dunes, lake systems and papyrus wetlands into a single, largely unmodified expanse. Three of its lake systems are listed as Ramsar Wetlands of International Importance, and Lake St Lucia — the park's shimmering centrepiece, a Ramsar site since 1986 — is widely described as Africa's largest estuarine system.

The park is one of the few places on Earth where the Big Five share a landscape with the creatures of the sea. Lion returned to the uMkhuze section in December 2013, rejoining resident elephant, leopard, buffalo and both black and white rhino, while an estimated 800 hippos and 1,200 crocodiles crowd the St Lucia waters. Offshore, humpback whales pass on migration and whale sharks patrol the reefs; between roughly November and March the beaches become one of Africa's most important nesting grounds for endangered loggerhead and leatherback turtles. More than 500 bird species have been recorded, and the coastal dunes — said to be among the highest vegetated dunes in the world — rise behind the surf.

Marketing often bills iSimangaliso as the only park where the Big Five meet whales, dolphins and turtles, and the sheer breadth of habitat packed into one reserve makes the claim hard to dispute. Visitors should note that this is a low-risk malaria area, more so in the northern reaches, so antimalarial precautions are worth discussing with a doctor. From the estuary town of St Lucia to the remote dune forests of Kosi Bay, the park rewards slow, unhurried exploration by boat, by vehicle and on foot.