Western Circuit · National Park

Gombe Stream National Park

Where Jane Goodall began her famous chimpanzee research.

July–October and December
approx. 35 km²

Gombe Stream National Park

Type: National Park
Region: Western Circuit
Area: approx. 35 km²
Established: 1968
Best time: July–October and December
Access: Boat from Kigoma (flight to Kigoma from Dar es Salaam or Arusha)

Overview

Tanzania’s smallest national park: steep forested valleys on the shore of Lake Tanganyika, made famous by Jane Goodall’s chimpanzee studies.

Gombe Stream is a narrow strip of forest-covered hills and valleys running down to Lake Tanganyika. It is where Dr Jane Goodall began her landmark study of chimpanzee behaviour in 1960 — research that continues today and has made Gombe’s chimpanzees among the most studied wild animals on Earth.

Reached by boat from Kigoma, the park offers intimate chimpanzee trekking, forest waterfalls and encounters with olive baboons, red-tailed monkeys and red colobus.