Let’s go to Chad in 2025

A Scheduled Trip to Chad

Highlights

Ennedi – Zakouma – Gerewol - Manda
February 2025
7-Person Small Group Expedition
Arrive in Chad on February 3, 2025 – Depart from Chad on February 19, 2025

A Chadian Trifecta of Superb Desert, Wildlife & Cultural Encounters

Trip Highlights

• Gueltas, dromedaries, Toubou, desert crocs, petroglyphs – this is Ennedi, of course!
• The elephants of Zakouma National Park and their story of hope & the resurgence of a wildlife-rich park in a most unexpected location.
• Manda NP – we have no idea what we’ll see here at all…
• A spiritual gathering of Wodaabe youth at a Gerewol Festival in the south.

Scheduled group tour from
February 3, 2025 - February 19, 2025

Starting from
EUR 19,000
per person sharing

Duration
17 days / 16 nights

Transport
Fly-in Safari

Accommodation
Tented Camps

Exploring
Ennedi, GEREWOL, ZAKOUMA

About this Safari

Dear Adventurers and Explorers,

Chad has emerged as a “must visit” front-runner for safari goers and adventurers who are seeking a truly off-grid wilderness experience, crowd-free, with the look and feel of a Classic African safari of the last century. I am proud to say that Chalo Africa has taken its place firmly in the safari firmament as one of those very few companies worldwide that continually pushes the envelope to bring you novel & fascinating Chadian adventures each year.

We were among the first to bring our guests to the virtually unknown and unvisited Ouadi-Rimé Ouadi-Achim Game Reserve in Central Chad in 2020 so they could witness the good work of the Sahara Conservation Fund and its partners on the reintroduction of some of the rarest species of desert wildlife on earth like the scimitar-horned oryx and addax! This time, in the spirit of true exploration, along with the tried and true, we will also explore a brand-new park in Chad and round it all off with an explosion of sound, color & festivities at a Gerewol festival in the south!

We will start this trip with the Great Desert of the North, the Sahara and the Ennedi Plateau! We’ll drive off-road over the dunes through surreal landscapes, camping in quiet solitude, with nothing but the desert sky and stars overhead. During our time in Ennedi, we’ll interact with desert nomads herding their camels and goats, and enjoy this ancient place of prehistoric rock drawings, oases and unimaginable geological formations—we might even find an abandoned Libyan tank or two being swallowed into the dunes! The Ennedi Cultural Reserve is a UNESCO World Heritage site and protected by African Parks (AP).

After Ennedi, we’ll head off to Zakouma National Park. Just a decade ago, this park had been a place of carnage for elephants, but African Parks successfully locked it down. Now the elephant population is breeding again and recovering its numbers. It’s one of the great present-day success stories in conservation. Zakouma’s sheer abundance of wildlife given its location in the midst of nothing but arid lands is extraordinary. Its undulating clouds of quelea are magical, not to mention its healthy populations of predator & prey. Night safaris here are especially productive—and it is relatively easy to spot many of the nocturnals, like honey badger and serval etc. that are hard to spot elsewhere!

From Zakouma, we’ll climb aboard our 4x4s and head off towards Manda NP in southern Chad. I cannot tell you at all what you will see here as no one I know has been there lately. Early in the last century this was a thriving park with Giant Eland as its star inhabitant. Now we hear that most of the wildlife is gone, but it may still harbor good populations of Lycaon pictus or the African wild dog. Either way, whether we find an empty park or not, the hope is that your trip reports will inspire other people to visit too.

And finally, from Manda to Moundou, where we will end the trip on a high note with a Gerewol Festival that we have organized for you. Please note this is not the spontaneous Gerewol festival that takes place in Sept-Oct each year in the north. This one has been pre-organized by us with the local Wodaabe youth who have migrated down south with their families at this time of year and are willing to recreate the festival for us. Since this festival holds tremendous spiritual significance for the Wodaabe, more often than not, the hypnotic nature of the event causes it to turn into the real thing after all. I do hope that you decide to join us on this extraordinary adventure.

Sangeeta & Zarek

Rates –
The cost of this 17-day trip is 19,000 Euro per person.

Dates – 2025
3rd February – 19 February 2025

The Master Guides Collection

Designed by Zarek Cockar

Request for the Full Itinerary

or call our African safari specialists at
+1 703 220 6393 or +91 9717 275237

Day By Day Itinerary

Day 1: February 3, 2025 – Arrive in N'Djamena, Chad

We will meet you at N’Djamena’s Hassan Djamous International Airport (NDJ) and transfer you to your lodging……