Tour Uganda's National Parks

Your international flight will land you in Entebbe, a small town on the Lake Victoria Peninsula 30 kilometers outside the capital. Here you'll spend a night to begin the Tour Uganda Wildlife Safari the following morning.

If you arrive early and have a couple of free hours, you can do some activities around Entebbe to put you in the local scene mood.

Shoebill Tracking: is one of the most requested activities that will require an extra cost. The shoebill, a giant grotesque stork-like bird that looks like it flew out of Darwin's evolutionary stories, wades the mashes of Lake Victoria, preying on lungfish and frogs. It's quite a rare sighting that leaves many travellers in awe. You take a local fisherman's boat for about 2-3 hours in Mabamba Bay swamp, where hundreds of rare water bird species have been recorded.

Alternatively, you can take a walk or ride to the mall to buy a few things like trekking boots and exchange currency for tipping your service people.

Other activities include backroad biking with a local guide, leisurely walks in botanical gardens, visiting Ngamba Chimps Island, and brick oven Pizza evening at Goretti's.

Main Destination: Mabamba Bay, Lake Victoria

Accommodation: Papyrus Guest House
Mid-range guest house located near Entebbe Airport

Meals & Drinks: Meals at own expense
Drinks not included

Start the Uganda Tour with an early breakfast. Journey to Western Uganda across gorgeous emerald landscapes, cattle ranches, and banana and tea plantations stretching over the mountainous region with stunning elegance. Watch the rolling hills and cultivated terraces drive by as you breathe the fresh breeze in the back of a four-by-four cruiser through the green country—Stop en route at Mpambire to watch local artisans make drums using old archaic methods at the equator. It is a 5-7-hour country drive to the lodge.

After lunch at the lodge, join your guide on a wildlife viewing drive through the savannah plain and, maybe, a 1-hour boat ride on Lake Mburo. You'll come close enough to touch animals like bushbucks, bush duikers, crocodiles, hippos, giraffes, plenty of water birds, etc.

Main Destination: Lake Mburo National Park

Accommodation: Rwakobo Rock
Mid-range to luxury lodge outside Lake Mburo National Park.

Meals & Drinks: Full Board (Breakfast, lunch & dinner)
Drinking water included

Start your day with an early morning game drive in the park before you join the highway to drive across southwestern Uganda's rolling hills, tea plantations, tropical rainforest, and towards the Virunga Volcanos' majestic chain.

You'll drive through Mbarara and Kabale towns before branching off onto the 32-km countryside dirt road to the edge of Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, where you'll spend the next three nights.

Keep your eyes out on the rugged Tuscany-like landscapes: the views are to die for! On the edge of Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, on a magnificent ridge, sits Nkuringo Lodge’s ten luxurious cottages.

The private cottages we've booked you in on this Uganda primates and wildlife vacation safari have a distinctive elegance and surprising luxury amid forest trees, flowers, and shrubs. Locally styled furnishings grace the spacious rooms, and light fills the space from your private viewing deck over the forest swath and beyond the entire Virunga Volcanoes chain.

Main Destination: Lake Mburo National Park

Accommodation: Rwakobo Rock
Mid-range to luxury lodge outside Lake Mburo National Park.

Meals & Drinks: Full Board (Breakfast, lunch & dinner)
Drinking water included

Wake up early, have your breakfast, and be at the visitor center in time for the gorilla tracking briefing. Your cottage could be just a 10-meter walk to the trekking center—nonetheless, our driver will be available to transfer you to the trekking center.

The gorilla tracking briefing usually starts at 8:00 am. You’ll be assigned the gorilla group for tracking with six other trekkers and given the general observable rules in the jungle. You’ll be escorted into the African wilderness with two gun-baring rangers (for your security) and a tracker/guide with a machete to lead your way.

Once you have found the gorillas, you can spend an hour with them. Keep your camera silent (no shutter sound of flash photography), observe a 10 meters distance from the gorillas, and keep your mask on. Your time in the forest cannot be pre-determined as every day differs from the previous.

When you return (usually between 1-2 pm), there are great activities at the lodge to engage you the rest of the day, or stay at your cottage, order-in and enjoy the enchanting views of the dreamy landscape.

Main Destination: Bwindi Impenetrable National Park

Accommodation: Nkuringo Bwindi Gorilla Lodge

Meals & Drinks: Full Board (Breakfast, lunch & dinner)
Drinks included (soft and house wines)

Optional Activities on this day include;

1. Canoeing on Lake Mutanda - your driver will transfer you 30 minutes to Lake Mutanda to join local fishermen in a traditional dug-out canoe (mokoro) and peddle across the calm waters of the volcano lake with chants from the fishermen and local guides. The views of the landscape from the lake are incredible, and it can last for up to three hours.

2. Join the walking guides on a walking trail to Suma Waterfall, located on the edge of a village. It's not just the waterfalls that would take you here, but also experiencing the rural landscape on foot, meeting the locals, and visiting Suma Village is an incredible way to explore Uganda's rural scene.

3. Take a walk with the native Batwa forest tribe on a hiking trail through Buniga Forest. The Batwa are an interesting hunter-gatherer tribe that used to occupy the forest and now showcase their ancient cultures on an entertaining cultural trail. The experience can last about 3 hours and is guided by an elder and translator.

4. Visit the local. communities surrounding the national park, interact with locals and meet the traditional blacksmith, local beer brewer, and herbalist on a discovery expedition.

Main Destination: Bwindi Impenetrable National Park

Accommodation: Nkuringo Bwindi Gorilla Lodge

Meals & Drinks: Full Board (Breakfast, lunch & dinner)
Drinks included (soft and house wines)

You'll be up early to join the local walking guides on an ancient hiking trail through the misty Impenetrable Forest, from the Nkuringo south side to the Buhoma visitor center in the north. This part of the Uganda Tour will immerse you in the enchanting beauties of Africa's oldest tropical forest, enough to make you forget your city estimates of great and small, wise and foolish.

For 4-5 hours, you’ll be guided by a local expert who’ll furnish you with ancient tales and incredible forest knowledge and bring you close to being one with the forest trails. If you’re lucky, you’ll meet some wild forest inhabitants like chimps, forest elephants, duikers, forest buffalo, and more.

At the other end of the walking trail, your Uganda Tour driver will be ready to whisk you off through the Ishasha savannah plains, where he’ll lazily drive for you to catch sight of the incredible tree-climbing lions. You’ll be at Kataara Lodge in time for dinner.

Main Destination: Bwindi Impenetrable Forest and Isashasha Sector

Accommodation: Katara Lodge

Meals & Drinks: Full Board (Breakfast, lunch & dinner)
Drinking water is included

Get close to the big game animals on an early morning game drive and a boat safari on Kazinga Channel, famous for hosting the largest population of hippos.

While on a game drive on Kasenyi tracks, you will encounter animals like enormous herds of elephants and buffalo. You’ll also spot many interesting antelope species, such as Uganda kob, topi, and bushbuck. The giant forest hog is unusually easy to spot. Search around the Kasenyi tracks for the elusive leopard, and you can spot lion prides hunting in antelope breeding grounds.

You'll take a boat safari on the Kazinga Channel after lunch at 14:00 to can catch sight of Uganda's iconic savannah wildlife like elephants, buffalo, waterbuck, Uganda kob, and large hippo pods daily. Keep an eye open for the enormous water monitor lizard, which is common in the riverine scrub, as well as crocodiles.

You'll head back to your lodge for the evening.

Main Destination: Queen Elizabeth National Park

Accommodation: Katara Lodge

Meals & Drinks: Full Board (Breakfast, lunch & dinner)
Drinking water is included

On this day, your Uganda Tour takes you back into the rainforest but this time in lower altitudes on flatter terrain. However, you'll start the day with another wildlife viewing experience game driving through the northern sector of Queen Elizabeth National Park before you get onto the highway to drive towards Kibale National Park.

It's a scenic drive in the shadows of the Rwenzori Mountains with incredible sights of crater lakes, blue mountain ranges, cattle ranches, and farm lands until you reach Kibale via Fort Portal city.

In the afternoon, trek to the ‘Top of the World’ to enjoy fantastic views of the Rwenzori Mountains, crater lakes, tea plantations, and local villages.

The drive takes about 3 hours (180 km).

Main Destination: Kibale Forest National Park

Accommodation: Turaco Treetops Lodge

Meals & Drinks: Breakfast (Lunch & dinner not included)
Drinking water in included.

Wake up early and be at the visitor center by 7:30 am for the chimp trekking briefing. Kibale is the best place to watch chimpanzees up close in their natural setting, with over 1500 chimpanzees under the park’s rainforest canopy and a dozen other primate species.

On your morning trek to find the chimps, it’s common for other primates to cross your paths, like the rare L’Hoest’s monkey, red colobus monkey, black & white colobus, red-tailed monkey, blue monkey, olive baboon, and grey-cheeked mangabey.

Your trekking group will set out to find a troop of human-habituated chimpanzees. Guided by an expert tracker, you’ll head into the jungle in small groups, looking out for tale-tale signs of the chimp’s direction and listening for loud calls. Visitors are allowed from 1 hr to almost the whole day with the chimpanzees, and the quality and intimacy of each sighting can vary highly.

Main Destination: Kibale National Park

Accommodation: Turaco Treetops
Mid-range lodge bordering Kibale NP without fences

Meals & Drinks: Breakfast (Lunch & dinner not included)
Drinking water (Other drinks not included

Break camp early for another drive across the rugged landscape northbound to Murchison Falls National Park, another one of Uganda's top tourist destinations for wildlife viewing safaris.

Located at the northern end of the Albertine Rift Valley, where the sweeping Bunyoro escarpment tumbles into the vast palm-dotted savannah and the Victoria Nile meanders on, Murchison Falls National Park is a wonder we thought you shouldn't miss on this epic Uganda Tour.

The Park has a "mythical" river Nile plunging 45m from the rift valley wall, creating the dramatic Murchison Falls, the centerpiece of the park and the final "event" in an 80km stretch of the Nile rapids. The mighty cascade drains the last energies from the river and transforms it into a broad, placid stream flowing quietly across the rift valley floor into Lake Albert. This stretch of river provides one of Uganda's most remarkable wildlife spectacles.

Main Destination: Murchison Falls National Park

Accommodation: Murchison River Lodge
Mid-range lodge located just outside Murchison Falls NP

Meals & Drinks: All meals included
Drinking water (Other drinks not included

Full day dedicated to discovering this unique national park and its wildlife endowment.

Early morning game drives en route to the Victoria Nile Delta for a boat trip in this spectacular area teeming with birds and wildlife - several endemic species like the Rothschild's giraffe, the Shoebill stork, and the red-throated bee-eater. Water level permitting, short walk accompanied by the ranger guide.

In the afternoon, we scheduled a boat trip to the Murchison Waterfalls (with the possibility to disembark and walk to the top of the falls – walk included) - amazing for the panorama and the possible encounters with the local fauna: elephants, giraffes, buffalos, crocs, antelopes … Game drive on the way back to the lodge.

Main Destination: Murchison Falls National Park

Accommodation: Murchison River Lodge
Mid-range lodge located just outside Murchison Falls NP

Meals & Drinks: All meals included
Drinking water (Other drinks not included

Have an early breakfast and join your Uganda Wildlife Tour guide to drive about three hours to Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary for a rhino tracking experience on foot.

In 1983 both black rhinos and northern white rhinos were declared extinct throughout Uganda and in 2005, the Rhino Ranch was opened to return rhinos back into Uganda's wild, through a program of breeding and release. The sanctuary started with 6 rhinos translocated from Kenya USA and now has over two dozen rhinos.

At the ranch, you'll join a local tracker on foot and head into the heavily fenced 27-square-mile sanctuary to locate the rhinos using their spoor and the intelligence of your guide. Once you find the giant mammals, you'll spend about an hour watching them. Also, you could bump into some of the ranch inhabitants like Leopard, Aardvark, Oribi, Uganda Kob, Bushbuck, Duiker, Waterbuck, Pangolin, Colobus & Vervet Monkey, and Mongoose. Just keep an eye out.

You'll have lunch at the Ranch, then get onto the highway to Entebbe International Airport, arriving at about 5:00 pm.

Main Destination: Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary

Accommodation: No accommodation (End of tour)

Meals & Drinks: Breakfast (Lunch & dinner not included)
Drinks not included