Month by month
Katavi in April: the emptiest month on record
April is the deepest point of Katavi's closure, and the official numbers make the case better than description could: in 2024, ten international visitors entered the park across the entire month. That is not a quiet season, that is a park that has, for practical purposes, taken itself off the map for four weeks.
If you only want the answer
April has no operating camps and no flights, and the visitor data backs up just how absolute that closure is. If you are anywhere near western Tanzania this month, Katavi is the one park to leave off the itinerary entirely.
The number that says it plainly
Rainfall eases from March's peak to 81 mm over 13 days, a real drop, but the closure that began in March continues without interruption: Chada Katavi, Katavi Wildlife Camp and Mbali Mbali Katavi remain shut through the whole of April. Tanzania's own 2024 tourism statistics recorded exactly ten international visitors to Katavi in April, out of 1,338 for the full year, which tells you how thoroughly the closure removes the park from anyone's actual travel plans.
Nothing about the wildlife picture changes that calculation. The floodplains that concentrate game so dramatically in the dry season are still under water in April, and there is no camp infrastructure available to reach them even if there were something worth seeing.
Flights, or the lack of them
Safari Air Link's western-circuit route carries no service in April, a continuation of the gap that opened in March and will not close until June. There is no charter workaround that changes this: without an open camp to fly guests to, there is no commercial reason for a flight to exist on this route this month.
Self-driving does not solve the problem either. The black cotton soil beneath the Katisunga and Chada plains is at its softest in the weeks after peak rainfall, which puts April among the worst months of the year to attempt the roads even if you had somewhere to stay at the end of them.
What to do instead
Treat April the same way the camps and the airline do: as a month to route around entirely. If your trip is fixed to this window, look at parks elsewhere in Tanzania with a different rain pattern, and save Katavi for June onward, when the ten-visitor month becomes a distant memory and the plains start delivering the concentrations the park is actually known for.