Katavi is the wildest major park in Tanzania, and the numbers explain why it feels that way: it receives fewer visitors in a year than the Serengeti receives on a busy day. Access is effectively by charter flight only.
The park is built around seasonal floodplains fed by the Katuma River and the Katavi and Chada lakes. As the dry season advances the water retreats into a few shrinking channels, and the concentrations that result are extraordinary — hippo pack into the remaining pools in their thousands, and buffalo herds move in columns across the plains.
Katavi is also known for unusually large lion prides and for elephant herds that can run to several hundred animals. Combined with the Ruaha ecosystem, the wider region holds one of the most important remaining elephant populations in East Africa.