Katavi National Park

Katavi National Park is one of Tanzania’s least visited parks, offering an off-the-beaten-path experience. Its untouched wilderness features expansive floodplains, riverine forests, and seasonal lakes teeming with wildlife. Visitors can encounter large hippo pods, crocodiles, and diverse bird species, along with lions and leopards. The park’s remoteness guarantees a secluded and authentic safari adventure, ideal for avid explorers seeking solitude in nature.

When to visit

Katavi is a dry-season park. From July to October the Katuma River shrinks to a series of pools and the wildlife spectacle is extraordinary — hundreds of hippos packed into shrinking water, buffalo herds a thousand strong and predators working the edges. In the wet season from December to April the floodplains fill, animals scatter widely and most camps close.

Getting there

The park is in far western Tanzania and is reached by air. Scheduled and charter light aircraft connect it with Arusha, Dar es Salaam and the Ruaha area, and it is very commonly combined with Mahale on the same trip.

What you'll see

In peak dry season the Katuma River, Lake Chada and Lake Katavi deliver some of the densest hippo and crocodile concentrations in Africa, along with enormous buffalo and elephant herds and the lions that follow them. Because so few people come, you are likely to have sightings entirely to yourself.

Good to know

• Around 4,470 km² — Tanzania's third-largest national park, yet one of the quietest.
• Two to three nights is usual, almost always paired with Mahale for chimpanzees.
• Walking safaris and fly-camping are offered by the handful of camps.
• Come for remoteness and raw wilderness rather than an easy, polished circuit.