Katavi

Katavi is one of the least visited large parks in Africa, and that is mostly a function of distance — it sits in the far west, a long way from any circuit, and most visitors fly. Those who make the journey in the late dry season see something very few people do.

The park's floodplains — Katisunga chief among them — flood in the wet season and then shrink through the dry until what is left is a few pools. By September and October the hippo are packed into them in densities that are genuinely hard to photograph convincingly, hundreds in water barely covering them, with crocodiles dug into the mud banks and constant territorial fighting. Buffalo herds here run into the thousands.

The country otherwise is miombo woodland and seasonal lakes, with borassus palms standing over the grass. There are very few camps and almost no other vehicles. This is the park for people who have already done the northern circuit and want to know what it looks like without anybody in it.