Visit Katavi National Park, Tanzania

Deep in Western Tanzania, the Katavi National Park is untamed and extremely wild.

Arriving by light aircraft you’ll pass over the Katasunga Plains before landing.

Spread out before you are burnished yellow grasslands covered with thousands of zebra, topi, buffalo and giraffe. Lion lie on the fringes, watching and waiting, shaded by mahogany trees. With only two tiny camps in a million acres, Katavi sees few visitors and you have an immense wilderness all to yourself.

Wildlife of Katavi National Park

Katavi is a classic dry season reserve. From June to October buffalo herds of up to 3,000 graze on the plains. Game drives offer superb photographic opportunities, whilst walks beside sluggish rivers are exciting. Large crocodiles lie in mud holes, marabou storks pick over hippo carcasses and spotted hyena lope off into the distance. Elephant drink from tiny water holes in mud-cracked pans, roan and sable antelope hide in dense thickets, while vultures clean and dry their wings in small streams. As the sun falls low in the sky, a visit to the hippo pool, where 600 hippo live in dense formation and engage in fierce territorial battles, provides a perfect place for a sundowner.

At night the smoke curls up from the fire and the sound of cicadas becomes deafening. If you sit quietly you might see a pennant-winged nightjar flit across the purple sky or hear a distant owl.

Katavi is a magical park. We recommend you see it now before others discover it.