Primate Pan troglodytes
Our closest living relatives, habituated over sixty years of research at Gombe and Mahale.
Gombe is where Jane Goodall began her research in 1960, and the chimpanzee communities there and at Mahale have been studied ever since. Trekking to find them is hard work in steep forest, and the hour you spend with them is unlike anything else in Tanzania.
You may see grooming, play, tool use and the occasional loud display. Mahale’s M group is large and relaxed around people; Gombe is smaller and steeped in history. Both parks sit on the shore of Lake Tanganyika, so the day ends with a swim.
Gombe Stream and Mahale Mountains national parks on Lake Tanganyika.
Guide’s tipKeep your voice low and your camera quiet. The chimps decide how close the encounter will be.
Sightings are never guaranteed: these are wild animals in wild places. What we can promise is a guide who knows where to look.
Destinations
The parks and reserves where our guides look for it, each with its own best season and safaris.
Quiet island park with forest birds, waterbirds and sitatunga.
Clear lake, western forest birds and the gateway to Gombe and Mahale.
Track wild chimpanzees in the forests where Jane Goodall began her research.
Keep exploring
Loxodonta africana
Tarangire’s big herds are the classic sight: families drifting between baobabs to the river in the dry season.
Panthera leo
The Serengeti holds one of the largest lion populations left in Africa. Prides of twenty are not unusual.
Panthera pardus
Secretive and beautiful. The Seronera valley’s sausage trees are the best place in Africa to find one by day.
Acinonyx jubatus
Built for the short grass plains. Watch one scan from a termite mound in the southern Serengeti.
Diceros bicornis
Critically endangered and closely guarded. The Ngorongoro Crater is the most reliable place in Tanzania to see one.
Syncerus caffer
The Big Five’s heavyweight. Herds of several hundred are a daily sight in Arusha National Park and the crater.
Giraffa tippelskirchi
Tanzania’s national animal, with jagged star-shaped patches. Common almost everywhere except inside the crater.
Equus quagga
The migration’s other half. Hundreds of thousands of zebra move with the wildebeest across the Serengeti.
Tell us your dates and the birds or animals you most want to see. We’ll reply within 24 hours with a route and a full quote.
