Wildlife destinations
There are indeed a multitude of wonderful wildlife destinations in photographic terms.
However the question does often surface – When does a good wildlife photographic destination become a great photographic destination??

In my mind, when a destination meet the following criteria it becomes a great destination:

Firstly, easy access to the wildlife area.

Secondly , duration is necessarry in the particular area. Very often it takes time to get to know the landscape and it takes time to get a feel for the habitat and also to get a feel for the rhythm and flow of the habitat.

Thirdly, a major facilitator of photography is the ability to work within highly flexible time limits. It is indeed a major game changer the ability to leave very early for the game area, to stay out longer or even to stay out the whole night with a particular animal or animals.

Fourthly, the option to go offroad, within a wise, sensitive and ecologically responsible manner is a major plus. There are scenarios that if one cannot go offroad in pursuit or offroad in the positioning of the vehicle, the shot is simply not going to happen. However one needs to state unequivically there are situations and areas where offroading is simply inexcusable. These would include animals with extremely young, dependent siblings or botanical or geological sensitive areas. In these situations sanity, wisdom and responsible behaviour should prevail.

Once again stating the obvious, if one is using flash or spotlight , go about in a sane, wise and responsible manner. This would include not using overly bright light, reasonable flash settings , side lighting, back lighting , lighting preferably only the nocturnals and trying one’s best not to disturb animal behaviour for example with hunting cats or dogs we switch to nightvision or thermal until the prey is down, only then reverting to white light again.

Last but not least, of critical importance is the presence of realtime ,current local knowledge of the particular animal or the area.

One cannot put enough emphasis on the availability of good guides and keen, motivated trackers.

Alas we do not live in a perfect world and very often the above remarks only become a pipe-dream and one has to improvise and work around the problems and limitations. The ability to improvise, manage and resolve limitations is the hallmark of the real pro.