How to get Katavi National Park

A safari to Katavi National Park costs about $750 per person for a budget Tanzanian safari to $1750 per person for a mid-range to luxurious Tanzanian safari. These costs take other factors like accommodation, meals, transportation and sight-seeing activities into account.

For specialised activities like game drives or walking safaris in Katavi, you can expect to pay between $40-$60 per person as an additional cost. 

Because Katavi is relatively small, most tourists also like arranging combined safari tours starting in Arusha to neighbouring parks like Ugalla and Mahale. 

Katavi National Park is special for a number of reasons. A trip here reveals a wilderness so untouched and remote, that it almost takes you back in time. As the third largest of the Tanzania national parks, Katavi is comprised of approximately 4,471 square kilometres of everything from open grasslands and forests to floodplains and seasonal lakes. 

If you’re lucky enough to be one of the few hundred people who visit Katavi each year, you’re likely to encounter more wildlife than people on your trip. The park offers an unspoilt wildlife experience that cannot be likened to anything of its time, but rather how Africa must have existed centuries ago – before human interference. 

The best time to visit Katavi National Park is undoubtedly during the dry season (June-October) in Tanzania. This is because there is less rain and sparser vegetation, which means that tourists can spot more of the wildlife. However, if you are an avid bird lover, visiting Katavi during the wet season (November-April) will be better because of the diverse migratory bird population in the park during this time. 

As you might’ve already guessed, seasons in Tanzania are split into two periods: the dry season and the wet season. Below is a complete breakdown of these seasons and the weather in Tanzania: 

Dry Season (June-October) – Best Wildlife Sightings and More

Renowned as a dry-season safari park, Katavi offers everything from its best weather to its prime wildlife sightings from June-October. 

As the park’s water sources dwindle and the floodplains retreat in the dry season, animals gather around the scattered pools of water that remain. Katavi’s wildlife population comes alive in the dry season and the iconic hippo pools, herds of buffalo and predator sightings are at their peak. 

During this time the grasslands are also thin and make wild spotting easier. A major bonus of the dry season is also the lowered risk of catching malaria due to fewer mosquitos.

Wet season (November-April) – Best Time for Bird Watching 

Generally, I wouldn’t recommend visiting the Katavi in the wet season. There are, however, some advantages of travelling to the park during this time of year. 

The wet season offers bird-watchers the chance to witness migratory species which make Katavi their seasonal home. There is also the benefit of off-season rates and the chance to stay at camps many could have otherwise not been able to afford. An added bonus is that the scenery is spectacularly lush. 

Travelling to the already remote Katavi becomes increasingly difficult during the wet season, however, and some roads become inaccessible. Certain camps also close during the peak of the wet season (April-May). 

Another disadvantage to consider is that instead of gathering around pools of water, most wildlife is dispersed during the wet season. Malaria precautions should also be taken during this time as there are more mosquitos. 

Walking safari experiences involve treks with an armed ranger and bush camping.

The walking safari route takes you along Lake Katavi, a seasonal floodplain where you can expect to see grazing hippos and crocodiles.

For travellers who cannot walk long distances, game drives can be organised through your accommodation.

Katavi is also a great destination for birdwatching, and it is home to over 400 bird species. Prices are around $59 per person at the time of writing, and there is an additional guided walking fee per group which is $23.60 for a short work or $29.50 for a longer one.

Katavi National Park has an interesting history. You can visit the Kabora-Lyonga-slave route which passed through this area during the slave trade. Visitors can also view the famous tamarind tree which gave the park its name according to local tradition. In Katavi customs, the tree is the home of the famous hunter, Kataviwhom, and locals offer food to its roots to gain luck when hunting. 

Once in Katavi, Tanzania’s third largest national park won’t disappoint you. Two enormous plains of knee-high golden grass – Chada and Katasunga – dominate the park, surrounded by varied woodlands and an unusually abundant amount of game.

Katavi’s animals

Katavi National Park is at its best in the dry season, when the plains fill with thousands of zebra, topi and impala. Hartebeest, giraffe, and Defassa waterbuck are also very common, there’s a large population of resident elephants, and some impressive herds of buffalo. Katavi is a great park for watching lion-buffalo interactions. Spotted hyena are frequently seen, whilst leopard appear on the woodland fringes, but are more elusive. Wild dog do live here, but tend to stick to the escarpment and are rarely seen on the plains.

During the dry season, the Katuma and Kapapa rivers are the only water for miles. As the game files down to drink, hundreds of hippo congregate in the tiniest waterhole and enormous crocodiles sit out the heat in river-bank mud-holes.

Birds

Katavi hosts large flocks of open-billed and saddlebilled storks, spoonbills, crested cranes and pink-backed pelicans. Raptors are plentiful whilst the woodlands of the national park are home to species as diverse as African golden orioles, paradise fly-catchers and pennant-winged nightjars.

Vegetation in Katavi

Katavi is situated on the northern side of the ‘Rukwa Rift’, an extension of the Western Rift Valley. Katavi’s dry woodlands are dominated by brachystegia species, which are mostly native to tropical Africa and dotted very densely around this area.

The far west of Tanzania gives home to two of Tanzania’s lesser known national parks: Katavi National Park and Mahale Mountains National Park. This western circuit is extremely remote, tricky to access and pretty costly to visit. As a result few people make the effort to come here and so it has remained an untouched, unique experience, and absolutely worth visiting.

Katavi National Park is a name to conjure with. It is one of the best parks in Africa and many safari operations would love to start camps here. However, the logistics and costs are so difficult, that there are only a couple of small, permanent safari camps sharing this 4,500km² of wilderness. You sometimes run across more prides of lion than other people on a game drive.