Western Circuit
Tanzania's most remote and least visited safari region, reached by chartered flight along the shores of Lake Tanganyika and Lake Victoria. This is chimpanzee-trekking country — vast, wild, and a world away from the northern and southern circuits.
Untouched
Southwestern Tanzania, western circuit
Tanzania's third-largest national park and one of its least visited, Katavi sees a fraction of the traffic of the Serengeti while offering some of the country's most dramatic dry-season wildlife concentrations. The Katuma River and its floodplains are the lifeline of the park, drawing enormous numbers of animals as the surrounding bush dries out.
During the peak dry months, shrinking pools along the Katuma can hold hundreds of hippo packed together, with large buffalo herds and predators following close behind.
The landscape is a mix of open floodplain, miombo woodland, and seasonal lakes, giving Katavi a genuinely wild, untouched feel compared to the more developed parks further east.
Only a handful of camps operate here, all small and seasonal — book well ahead if travel dates are fixed.
Access is by chartered flight only — there's no realistic road route from Dar es Salaam or Arusha.
Chimpanzees
Shores of Lake Tanganyika, western circuit
Accessible only by boat or chartered flight, Mahale rises straight out of Lake Tanganyika's clear waters into forested peaks over 2,400 metres high. The park protects one of Africa's largest known populations of wild chimpanzee, including a habituated troop that researchers have followed for decades.
Days here are built around a single activity: trekking into the forest with local guides to find the chimps, which can take anywhere from thirty minutes to several hours depending on where the troop is feeding.
Outside of trekking, Lake Tanganyika itself — the world's second-deepest lake — offers exceptional snorkelling among hundreds of endemic cichlid fish species in clear, warm water.
Beach-style lodges line the lakeshore, making this one of the few places on any circuit to pair wildlife trekking with genuine lake relaxation.
Chimp permits are limited and trekking groups are capped in size — book your dates well in advance.
Jane Goodall's Park
Shores of Lake Tanganyika, near Kigoma
Tanzania's smallest national park, and arguably its most famous for research rather than size — this is where Jane Goodall began her landmark chimpanzee studies in 1960, work that continues at Gombe to this day. The park is a narrow strip of forested hills running along the lakeshore, reachable only by boat from Kigoma.
Because the terrain is steep and compact, chimp trekking at Gombe tends to be more physically demanding than at Mahale, but sightings are often closer and more frequent thanks to decades of habituation.
The surrounding forest also holds olive baboon, red colobus, and a rich variety of forest birdlife along its network of walking trails.
Accommodation is limited to a small public bandas and one or two lodges — this is a low-infrastructure park by design.
Trails are steep with little flat ground — a reasonable fitness level makes the trek far more enjoyable.
Africa Adventure — Southern Circuit Specialists
Based in Mikumi, Morogoro, Gilbays Safaris runs daily departures into Mikumi National Park alongside safaris and tours across Tanzania — from game drives to Maasai cultural excursions.
