Katavi National Park

Tucked away in Tanzania's remote far west, Katavi is one of Africa's wildest and least-visited national parks - a place where you are far more likely to share a sighting with a handful of fellow travellers than a crowd of vehicles. The Katuma River and the seasonal Chada and Katisunga floodplains draw extraordinary concentrations of wildlife in the dry season, when hundreds of hippos crowd into shrinking pools and some of the largest buffalo herds left in Africa gather to graze.

Because of its remoteness, Katavi is reached almost exclusively by light aircraft, and is best combined with a chimpanzee trek in neighbouring Mahale Mountains National Park for a Western Circuit safari unlike anywhere else in the country. For travellers who have already seen the northern parks and want genuine solitude, Katavi delivers it in full.