Month by month
Katavi in March: the park is closed
March is the first of three months when Katavi is not a difficult trip to plan, it is simply not on offer. Every camp that took guests through February has shut its doors, and the rainfall that drove the closure has not eased off to make a workaround: March ties January for the wettest total of the entire Katavi year.
If you only want the answer
There is no version of a March trip to Katavi worth planning. Every camp is closed, no flights operate on this route, and the roads are at their worst of the year. Look at June or the following November instead.
No easing off, just a shutdown
March matches January's rainfall exactly, 151 mm across 23 days, which makes it the wettest single month tied for top spot on Katavi's calendar. The camps that were still open in February have now all closed for the season: Chada Katavi, Katavi Wildlife Camp and Mbali Mbali Katavi are shut, and none reopens before June.
This is not a case of a quieter park still worth reaching. Safari Air Link runs no flights on the western circuit route in March, neither scheduled nor on request, and the black cotton soil under the floodplains is at its least drivable of the year.
What is actually happening on the ground
The Katuma is fully out of its dry-season bed, spread across the Katisunga and Chada plains as standing water rather than a river you could point a vehicle along. Game disperses into that space rather than concentrating anywhere a visitor could reliably find it, which removes most of the incentive a determined traveller might otherwise weigh against the access problems.
TANAPA's own campsites and rest house are, on paper, open year-round, but that status does not translate into a usable trip in March. With the roads this soft and no functioning fly-in option, reaching them safely is not realistic.
What to do instead
Move your dates rather than your plan. June gives you the same green, quiet landscape with camps freshly reopened and priced at their lowest of the year, and November, at the other end of the dry season, offers a comparable wet-season feel with camps still operating and rates already reduced. Both avoid the specific problem March presents, which is not discomfort but genuine inaccessibility.