The gorillas are the reason. The rest of Uganda is the surprise.
What a permit week really adds up to. Which Murchison safari puts you on the launch to the falls. Whether Kibale or Kalinzu is the better chimp forest. Reviews of the tours you can book in Uganda.
A permit day, a falls day, a channel day, a city morning.
The four bookings a first Uganda itinerary gets built around, what each one costs and who takes it.
- 01The permit day3 Days gorilla trekking Safari tour in UgandaThree days south from Kampala to Bwindi and back with the gorilla permit already paid. Everything else on the itinerary bends around this one.
02The falls day3-Day Ultimate Big Five Safari – Murchison Falls & RhinosMurchison with the Ziwa rhinos on the drive north. Elephants at the delta, then the launch up to the gap in the rock.
03The channel day2 Days Safari To Queen Elizabeth National Park with CruiseTwo days for Queen Elizabeth with the Kazinga cruise included. Hippos at arm’s length and the crater lakes on the way in.
04The city morningKampala Walking City Tours (Women Guided)Three hours through Kampala with a guide who lives in it. Cheap, early, and the best briefing you will get on the rest of the country.
Gorillas in the south, chimpanzees in the west. Pick the ape you came for.
Uganda sells two great primate treks and they happen at opposite ends of a long drive. Here is what it costs to join each one, and how many days it takes out of a fortnight.
Ten national parks, and the three that carry a safari week.
Murchison for the Nile and the delta game drive, Queen Elizabeth for the Kazinga Channel and the tree-climbing lions at Ishasha, Lake Mburo for zebra close enough to photograph from the road.
Uganda’s most booked days out.
Every Uganda tour we have reviewed →The trips more travellers take than anything else in the country, from a permit week in the south to a thirty-dollar walk through the capital.
1
3 Hours Guided Cycling Tour Across Lake Victoria
Start at Beach House Gardens in Ggaba at 8:00 am, cross Lake Victoria by local boat, then ride 20 to 25 km on narrow dirt trails with an English-speaking guide. Bikes, helmets, a soft drink, and a Ugandan Rolex snack are included.
From · $60
Read the review →
2
Kampala’s Best Experience walking tour
from $33
3
3 Days gorilla trekking Safari tour in Uganda
from $2,600
4
Lake Victoria Island Cycling Tour from Kampala
from $62
5
Kampala Walking City Tours (Women Guided)
from $34
6
Kampala Walking Tour (3 Hours) with Optional Gaddafi Mosque Visit
from $32
7
1 Day Sipi falls hike
from $20
8
8-Day Murchison Falls, Chimp and Epic Gorilla Trekking Safari
from $3,598
A Uganda day out costs twenty dollars or two thousand, and not much in between.
The gap is the permit. Anything that reaches the gorilla sectors carries a fee the wildlife authority sets; everything else is priced like the city it leaves from.
City walks, boda circuits, the Sipi Falls hike and a dawn boat into the Mabamba papyrus.
Full days out: the Lake Victoria island ride, the Sezibwa run, Entebbe with the botanical gardens.
The safari weeks. Vehicle, driver, lodges, park fees and, where it applies, the trekking permit.
Bwindi, Murchison, Kibale: where the vehicle is actually going.
Operators shelve nearly everything under Kampala because that is where the vehicle collects you. These are the places at the other end of the road.
Three things Uganda has and its neighbours do not.
Half of Africa can show you elephants. A shoebill at boat level, a rhino tracked on foot and a lion asleep in a fig tree are Ugandan addresses.
The shoebill, at boat level
A prehistoric-looking stork stands motionless in the papyrus west of Entebbe, and Mabamba is the one swamp where a dugout gets close enough that the binoculars stay in the bag. The boats leave at first light because the bird stops hunting once the sun is up. It is an hour from the airport, which makes it the best possible use of a morning before a flight.
- 1Mabamba Swamp Shoebill Tracking Boat Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 8 reviews
- 21-Day Mabamba Shoebill Birding Tour in Lake Victoria Entebbe★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 7 reviews
- 31/2 Mabamba Swamp Shoebill Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 7 reviews
Rhino tracking on foot
Uganda’s wild rhinos were shot out by the early eighties. Every one in the country now lives at Ziwa, a fenced ranch on the road north to Murchison, and rangers walk you in until you are standing thirty metres from a grazing white rhino. It adds an hour to a long drive, and it is the only part of the safari spent outside the vehicle.
- 1Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 40 reviews
- 2Day Tour Of Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary and Wildlife Ranch – ZIWA RHINO TREKKING★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 10 reviews
- 3Zziwa Rhino Sanctuary Walking Safari★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 7 reviews
Lions in the fig trees
In the southern sector of Queen Elizabeth the lions climb. Nobody agrees why — tsetse flies, the breeze, a better view of the kob — but they spend the hot middle of the day draped along the branches of the big figs, and the drivers know which trees. Ishasha sits on the road down to Bwindi, which is how most people end up seeing it.
- 12 Days Safari To Queen Elizabeth National Park with Cruise★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 54 reviews
- 23 Days Wild Tour Queen Elizabeth National Park Safari Uganda★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 36 reviews
- 3Queen Elizabeth Open Safari Jeeps for game drives.★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 14 reviews
Four Uganda bookings that will not wait for you.
Most of this country can be arranged over breakfast in Kampala. These four run on permit quotas, dawn departures and a drive long enough that the day is decided before it starts.
- 013 Days gorilla trekking Safari tour in UgandaGorilla permits are capped per family per day and sold by the wildlife authority months ahead. The trek is the one thing that cannot be added to the itinerary later.
- 025 Days Uganda Gorilla, Chimpanzee and Wildlife SafariChimp permits work the same way on a smaller quota, and Kibale is a full day’s drive from the gorilla sectors. The two treks have to be planned as one route.
- 03Mabamba Swamp Shoebill Tracking Boat TourThe shoebill is found at dawn and gone by mid-morning, so the boat leaves the Mabamba landing before sunrise. There is no second run.
- 048-Day Murchison Falls, Chimp and Epic Gorilla Trekking SafariThe launch to the foot of the falls sails on a fixed timetable and the north-bank game drive needs the early ferry. You are booking a morning, not a day.
March to May the murram turns red and everything takes longer.
Uganda has two wet seasons and neither of them cancels a trip, but both change it. Forest trails go heavy, park tracks slow the vehicle down, and a three-hour gorilla trek becomes a five-hour one. The answer is the one Kampala already uses: take the morning, let the afternoon rain pass under a roof.
Kampala is the departure lounge. Give it a morning anyway.
Nearly every safari on this site leaves from here, so nearly everyone sleeps a night in the city and books nothing in it. Three hours on foot covers the Owino market lanes, the minaret at the Gaddafi mosque and a plate of matoke, and it costs less than the ride in from the airport.
- 1Kampala Walking City Tours (Women Guided)from $34
- 2Kampala Walking Tour (3 Hours) with Optional Gaddafi Mosque Visitfrom $32
- 3City Guided walking sightseeing Tourfrom $22
Kampala, Ziwa, Murchison, Kibale, Queen Elizabeth, Bwindi: the circuit almost everybody drives.
ZiwaThe newest Uganda tour reviews.
The rest of the new ones →
1-Day Murchison Falls Park Safari with Boat cruise
Read the review →
3-Day Mind Refreshing in Murchison Falls National Park
Read the review →
Three Days Murchison Falls National Park Tour in Uganda
Read the review →
12-Day Moderately Priced Pearl of Africa – Uganda Private Safari
Read the review →
Mountain Rwenzori Trekking Uganda 9 Day Safari
Read the review →