More than just a passion for exploring uncharted places, Deeper Adventure seeks to preserve Africa’s wildlife, lands, and popular tourist destinations. “There is a pressing need to encourage visitation to lands less traveled because the better-known safari parks are at risk of overcrowding,” says Smith. “Burigi-Chato National Park is a new creation that will appeal to adventurous travelers with a passion for exploration while taking pressure off the beaten paths. This is an opportune space to experience the authentically unexplored.”
The company seeks to bring travelers as close to nature as possible. Each safari will encourage spontaneous exploration without rigid, set itineraries to leave room for discovery and an opportunity for the destination’s hidden gems to be uncovered.
Noteworthy for its remoteness, Burigi-Chato National Park is ideal for hiking safaris, remote camping, and wilderness exploring. For the active traveler, there is game viewing, bird watching, nature photography, walking, camp-to-camp hiking, boating, and Overlanding.
There are no permanent camps or lodges in the area. Thus, the experience requires walking safaris and camping. Anyone can visit, but it requires professional outfitting with tents, gear, vehicles, and bush skills.
Deeper Adventure’s two-week itinerary centers around Burigi National Park. The adventure begins with the mountain gorillas in Rwanda, as Burigi is easily accessible from Rwanda’s International airport in Kigali. As the gateway to gorilla trekking, this creates a new adventure opportunity for combining a wildlife safari with a gorilla trekking adventure. From there, the expedition moves to active adventure in Burigi National Park and then flies across Lake Victoria for a finale with the Serengeti’s thousands of migrating mammals, along with lions and other big cats. While Burigi and the Serengeti are on opposite sides of Lake Victoria, the two destinations can be seamlessly connected with a short flight on a bush plane.
“As a new park, Burigi’s long-term viability depends on its ability to attract visitors,” states Wil Smith. “Park fees will fund maintenance and conservation needs. The tourism purchase of goods and services will garner support from surrounding communities by providing jobs and adding value to local businesses. By choosing Burigi over a more traveled destination, a traveler will add a meaningful contribution to wilderness conservation and wildlife preservation.”
Discovering Burigi-Chato National Park
Burigi National Park opened to the public in 2019 when the Republic of Tanzania set these lands aside as National Parks, consisting of almost 2,000 square miles of wilderness. Burigi-Chato National Park is situated deep within Africa’s Great Lakes heartland, at the source of the Nile River.
Stretching from Lake Victoria in the East to the Rwandan boundary in the West Burigi- Chato is an enormous piece of wild country encompassing freshwater lakes, deeply set valleys lined with forest, open plains, swamps, rivers, flood plains, and hundreds of square kilometers of medium and tall grass wooded savanna. At night, with no artificial light to blight the sky, the starlight is intense. Smith shares, “Most of the park is roadless. It is remarkably peaceful, with no planes flying, no vehicles driving, and no mechanical or electrical noises. The only sounds are natural, the loudest being hippos bellowing in the night.”
The wildlife population includes big cats, elephants, plains antelopes, zebras, giraffes, and tropical birds. Because the park is new and visitors are few, the animals are shy around humans. “Nevertheless,” Smith continues, “We encountered a variety of charismatic animals, including giraffes, zebras, antelopes, buffalo, and hippos. In many ways, coming upon a giraffe while out on a walk is just as exciting as spotting an elephant from the confines of a jeep.”
Tags: Deeper Adventure
