Western Circuit

Tanzania's Western Circuit is the country's final frontier — a collection of remote parks on the shores of Lake Tanganyika that offer some of the most exclusive and intimate wildlife experiences in Africa. This is chimpanzee country, where dense montane forest cascades down to the world's second-deepest freshwater lake.

Mahale Mountains and Gombe Stream are the primary draws — both offering the rare opportunity to trek through pristine forest to observe habituated chimpanzee communities in their natural habitat. Jane Goodall's groundbreaking research at Gombe in the 1960s put these forests on the map, and today's visitors follow in her footsteps.

Katavi, further south, is one of Africa's most remote and least-visited national parks — a vast wilderness of floodplain and miombo woodland where hippos gather in their thousands and buffalo herds stretch to the horizon. The western circuit demands effort and expense to reach, but rewards visitors with experiences found nowhere else on Earth.