All activities / Wildlife Safaris / Odzala-Kokoua National Park
Wildlife Safaris in Odzala-Kokoua National Park
A vast rainforest park in the north of the Republic of the Congo, one of Africa's great strongholds of western lowland gorillas and forest elephants, laced with clearings called bais where the forest opens and the wildlife gathers.
Why here
Odzala-Kokoua is one of the best places on earth to walk up to wild western lowland gorillas, and one of the least visited. The park spreads across roughly 1.3 million hectares of Congo Basin rainforest and holds an estimated 7,200 western lowland gorillas and 7,500 forest elephants, along with chimpanzees, bongo, forest buffalo and more than 440 bird species. The signature experience is tracking habituated gorilla families on foot from a forest research camp, then spending days on the bais, natural clearings where elephants, buffalo and sitatunga come out of the trees to feed and where you watch from raised platforms. Only around 250 travelers a year reach Odzala's gorillas, so the forest feels wild rather than managed. This is also frontline conservation: the park sits in the second-largest tropical carbon sink on the planet, and the small tourism operation exists to give that forest a living value. It is expensive and hard to reach, which is precisely what keeps it intact.
Best months
The two drier windows, roughly June to August and December to February, give the best forest tracking and bai viewing. Gorilla tracking is demanding on-foot work through dense, humid, sometimes swampy forest, with sightings never guaranteed and daily group sizes strictly capped for the animals' welfare. Rain is possible in any month. Expect heat, humidity and insects, and a real level of physical effort.
Getting there & around
Access is by a chartered or scheduled flight from Brazzaville north to the park airstrip, then road and river transfers to the camps, so effectively everyone travels on a full multi-day package that includes flights, permits and all logistics. Gorilla tracking permits and camp space are very limited and booked far ahead. Yellow fever vaccination and malaria precautions are required, and you need reasonable fitness for the forest walks. Check your government advisory for the Republic of the Congo before travel.
Skill levels: intermediate, advanced
Schools & guides (1)
Kamba African Rainforest Experiences
OutfitterKamba African Rainforest Experiences, formerly the Congo Conservation Company, is the tourism operator inside Odzala-Kokoua National Park. It was founded in 2012 when Sabine Plattner and the primatologist Magdalena Bermejo turned the Ngaga gorilla research camp into a lodge, and rebranded as Kamba in 2023. It runs three small camps, Ngaga for gorilla tracking, Lango on a forest bai, and Mboko on the savanna and river, and was named to Time's World's Greatest Places in 2024.