A remote archipelago in the middle of the Indian Ocean, the Seychelles are about as close to an airbrushed tropical idyll as one can get: Think lush green islands ringed with fine white sand and set in a glowing turquoise sea. And with progressive conservation policies, the country retains remarkable marine life and unusual terrestrial life within its borders.

That's not to say that...

The Laikipia District of northeastern Kenya is home to some of the last vestiges of ancient culture in Africa, and the resident Maasai are the living ancestors of these ancient cultures. One such group, the Il Laikipiak Maasai, took a drastic step toward preserving both their culture and the wild nature of their 16,500 acres of land: They set aside 80 percent of it for conservation and...

Mountain gorillas may be some of our closest family members, evolutionarily speaking, but there are fewer than 800 left in the wild thanks in large part to humans' own destructive actions. Almost half of the remaining population of mountain gorillas, including the clan that Dian Fossey studied, reside in the lush volcanic hillsides of northwestern Rwanda.

Witnessing these sensitive...

The Campi ya Kanzi experience hearkens back to the glory days of African safaris. Six luxury tent-cottages are outfitted with four-poster beds, brass lamps, colonial storage trunks, kilim rugs, and daily fresh flowers. Each lavish abode has a wide veranda where tea-sipping guests have epic views across the sweeping savannah, of glacier-capped Mount Kilimanjaro, and of the lush Tsavo and...

Stunning Mnemba Island lies roughly three miles off the northeastern tip of the main island in Tanzania's Zanzibar archipelago, cast out in the Indian Ocean like a shimmering string of jewels. The five-acre, triangular wedge of an island takes only half an hour to circumnavigate on foot, but this short walk gives a good sense of the area's distinct and diverse habitats, home to a mind-boggling...

It has perhaps the most spectacular view in all of Kenya: From Ol Donyo Wuas Lodge, a casual viewer can see Kilimanjaro, the continent's loftiest peak, stretching a full 100 miles from end to end. Beneath it, elephants lumber through the grasslands; in the other direction, tropical mist forests lie beyond the Chyolo Hills, lava outcroppings studded with succulents.

In business for...

At Sanctuary Swala, guests barely need to lift a finger to witness some of Africa's most stunning wildlife: Right from the decks of its 12 tented suites, they can spot lions, kudu, impala, and herds of as many as 50 elephants frequenting the watering hole just a few dozen paces away. The tents are so close to the pond that it's not uncommon to hear an elephant's stomach gurgling as she slurps...

All it takes is about an hour of driving in the back of a jeep at Kenya's magnificent Masai Mara National Reserve and visitors are mesmerized by the wealth of wildlife. Mara is Swahili for "dotted hillside" and if you look across the savannah, you'll spot giraffes, elephants, Cape buffaloes, zebras, baboons, lions lounging under tall acacia trees, impalas, and hordes of wildebeests, especially...