Rubondo Island National Park is located in the Northwest Tanzania, 150 Kilometers (95 miles) west of Mwanza and covers 457 sq km (176 sq miles) of its total area. The national park is accessible from Arusha, Serengeti National Park, Mwanza and Lake Manyara National Park by scheduled flight in high season as well as charter flights only in low season. Also Rubondo is easily accessible from Mwanza by road and thereafter transfer by boat which is owned and operated by the Tanzania National Park Authority.

Rubondo Island National Park is tucked in the southwest corner of Lake Victoria, the world's second-largest lake, an inland sea sprawling between Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya. With nine smaller islands under its wing, Rubondo protects precious fish breeding grounds such as fish eagles, malachite kingfisher, flycatcher Herons, storks and spoonbills flourish in the swampy lake fringes, supplemented by thousands of Eurasian migrants during the northern winter.

Rubondo is more than a water wonderland. Deserted sandy beaches nestle against a cloak of virgin forest, where dappled bushbuck move fleet yet silent through a maze of tamarinds, wild palms, and sycamore figs strung with a cage of trailing taproots.

Tasty tilapia form the staple diet of the yellow-spotted otters that frolic in the island’s rocky coves, while rapacious Nile perch, some weighing more than 100kg, tempt recreational game fishermen seeking world record catches.

The shaggy-coated aquatic sitatunga, elsewhere the most elusive of antelopes, is remarkably easily observed, not only in the papyrus swamps it normally inhabits, but also in the forest interior.

Rubondo accommodates flocks of African grey parrots released onto the island after they were confiscated from illegal exporters screech in comic discord as they flutter furiously between the trees. Ninety percent of the park is humid forest; the remainder ranges from open grassland to lakeside papyrus beds.

A number of indigenous mammal species - hippo, vervet monkey, genet, mongoose and crocodile share their protected habitat with introduced species such as chimpanzee, black-and-white colobus, elephant and giraffe, all of which benefit from Rubondo inaccessibility.