Katavi National Park

Katavi National Park (1974), Tanzania'S Third Largest, A Remote Wilderness Of Seasonal Floodplains Where Hundreds Of Hippos And Crocodiles Crowd The Katuma River In The Dry Season, With Large Buffalo Herds, Lions, Elephants And Few Vehicles. Reached By Small Plane To Airstrips, With Tented Camps. · Mpanda, Katavi

Katavi National Park was founded in 1974 and covers about 4,471 sq km in the Rukwa Rift in far western Tanzania, near Lake Tanganyika. It is the third-largest national park in the country and one of the least visited. Its heart is the Katuma river and the floodplains around Katisunga and Lake Chada. In the dry season, from June to October, hundreds of hippos crowd the shrinking pools, fighting over territory beside crocodiles up to 4-5 m long, while buffalo herds of a thousand or more come to drink. Elephants, giraffes, zebras, roan and sable antelope, lions and leopards live here too, with over 400 bird species. The honest picture: it is wild, remote and EXPENSIVE, because you must fly or drive for days, and the camps are few. A few thousand visitors come each year, so you may see no other vehicle all day. Camps run walks with armed rangers, and most of them open only from June to October. Plan the trip around the dry season, book far ahead, and expect to pay well for a visit that few travellers ever make, in a park with no crowds.

Remote park of about 4,500 sq km in the Rukwa Rift in western Tanzania, reached by small plane from Arusha or Dar es Salaam or two days of road from Mpanda, with the Katuma river and Lake Chada, Mpanda, Katavi, Tanzania

The park is open every day of the year and the gates take entries in daylight hours only. Game drives and walks run by day; ranger-led night drives are not part of a normal visit. Many camps are seasonal and OPEN only in the dry season, roughly June to October. Roads CLOSE in the wet months; confirm access.

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