Covering nearly 4,500 square kilometres along the rift escarpment, Katavi National Park is home to a rich variety of wildlife and offers some excellent game viewing for the truly adventurous. Completely off the beaten track, it is isolated and undiscovered. The surrounding Game Reserves of Rukwa, Lukwati and Luafi add to the ecology and spans an astounding 25,000 square kilometres that the game has to traverse. With such a variety of landscapes, the individual environments change and as they do, the wildlife also varies. Flat plains, marshland, rugged hills, lakes and rivers all make up this great western Tanzania ecosystem and all of this makes for a few fantastic close encounters and some excellent photographic opportunities.

The Katavi wildlife area only reached official National Park status in the mid 1970s and was roughly half the size. With continuous support, the area was expanded and is now the home to huge herds of zebra and buffalo and three species of hyena which follow the larger predators in hopes for their next meal. A rather quaint story surrounds the name and relates to a local spirit called Katabi who is personified in a tamarind tree alongside Lake Katavi. His spirit wife resides on the other side of the lake and the local tribe believes that Katabi can be found among the albino giraffes and reedbuck found in the park.