One of the least visited national parks in Africa, in the far west of Tanzania. In the dry season the Katisunga floodplain holds buffalo herds of a thousand and more, and hippo pile into the shrinking pools in numbers that have to be seen. You will likely be the only vehicle in the park.
Every one of these is something we run here, not a stock list.
We do not have a scheduled itinerary for Katavi National Park on the site right now, which does not mean we cannot take you. We build private trips to order across Tanzania — tell us your dates and we will put a route and a price together.
Plan a trip to Katavi National ParkKatavi National Park, located in western Tanzania, is one of the country’s most remote and untouched wilderness areas. Covering around 4,500 square kilometers, it is renowned for its large herds of buffalo, elephants, and hippos, especially during the dry season when wildlife congregates around the Katuma River and floodplains. The park also offers excellent predator sightings, with lions and crocodiles being common. Its isolation ensures that visitors experience a truly wild and serene environment, far from the typical tourist routes, making it ideal for adventurers seeking an off-the-beaten-path safari.
Most safaris here combine two or three of these.
Fourteen thousand square kilometres of plains, and the stage for the whole wildebeest migration — which is not an event but a year-round circuit the herds never stop walking. Where they are depends on the month, so the Serengeti rewards planning more than any other park in East Africa.
A collapsed volcano twenty kilometres across with twenty-five thousand animals living on the floor of it, walled in by a six-hundred-metre rim. It is the one place in East Africa where seeing all of the Big Five in a single morning is an ordinary outcome rather than a lucky one.
Tarangire has the baobabs and the elephants. In the dry season the river is the only water for miles and the herds concentrate on it — three and four hundred elephant in a day is not unusual, which beats anything the Serengeti offers. It is two hours from Arusha and usually the first stop on a northern circuit.
A narrow strip of forest, lake and floodplain under the Rift Valley escarpment, famous for lions that sleep in the acacia branches. It is small enough to see in half a day and sits directly on the road between Arusha and the Ngorongoro Crater, so it costs an itinerary almost nothing.
Tell us roughly when you can travel and how long you have. We will tell you honestly whether Katavi National Park is the right call for those dates — and what it costs.
