Western Tanzania Safaris
Western Tanzania is the home of Mahale and the legendary Katavi...
The western safari parks of Katavi and Mahale are the “road less travelled” in safari circles. Due to the relative costs and inaccessibility of the region (a 4hour flight from Arusha or a night stop over from the south), only those both rich in funds and time tend to be able to get out here...but this is a huge shame as this really is an outstanding region of Africa and, in our opinion, really deserves to be ranked in the all time great trips on the continent. Moreover, with camps such as Katavi Wildlife offering great value for money, we would highly recommend spending a week here in season and defy you not to see at least three things that you wouldn’t see anywhere else in Africa! It is that good!
When to go
Arguably the ultimate month to head to Katavi National park, to see the famous denning crocodile and the hippo pool, whilst also giving yourself the best chance of seeing the vast buffalo herds that are famed here, is from the end of August until the end of September. This being said, the later in the dry season you go, the more likely it is to see the hippos and crocodiles but the less likely to see the buffalo. This being said, if you head to the region from the middle of June until the middle of November you won't be disappointed.
How to get there
Getting to and from the Western safari parks is definitely the biggest challenge both for the travel time and also the cost. Currently there are two routes out and back. The first is using Arusha, in the north, as the starting point and flying with Nomad Safaris on their shared charter flight on Mondays and Thursdays. Using Nomad does mean that you need to stay in at least one of their properties, but the flight is in the region of 4 hours and it pretty simple. The second option is to overnight in Ruaha National Park and then fly using Safari Airlink, again, on Mondays and Thursdays. While this adds an extra day to the itinerary as you need to fly from Dar es Salaam to Ruaha the night before, you are able to then choose which properties to stay in and you can extend the safari by adding in time in one of the other southern parks. Please have a look at the links below for more information on the parks over here.
