The Pearl of Africa

Uganda Safaris & Gorilla Trekking

Uganda holds encounters found almost nowhere else on earth. Mountain gorillas in the mists of Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, chimpanzees in Kibale, and the Nile forcing itself through the seven metre gorge at Murchison Falls. We arrange every permit and every detail, so you can simply be present for it.

All Destinations

What Uganda Is Known For

Gorilla trekking in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park
Chimpanzee tracking in Kibale National Park
Tree-climbing lions of Queen Elizabeth National Park
Murchison Falls and the Victoria Nile
The remote Kidepo Valley in the far north

Parks and Regions in Uganda

10 places

Bwindi Impenetrable National Park

National Park · Southwestern Uganda

Bwindi Impenetrable National Park covers 331 km² of montane and lowland rainforest in Kanungu, Kabale and Kisoro districts of south-western Uganda, on the edge of the Albertine Rift beside the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Protected as a forest reserve from 1932, it became a national park in 1991 and a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994. Altitude runs from about 1,190 m to 2,607 m, and the steep, mist-covered valleys give the forest its name. The park is best known for its mountain gorillas: the 2018 census counted around 459, close to half of the world's population, and habituated families are tracked from four sectors, Buhoma and Ruhija in the north and Rushaga and Nkuringo in the south. Tracking is on foot with a permit, in groups of no more than eight, and the hour with a family may follow anything from one to six hours of walking. Bwindi is also one of Africa's richest forests for birds, with more than 350 species including many Albertine Rift endemics, plus 120 mammals and some 310 butterflies. Community walks and Batwa cultural visits are offered around the sectors.

Best: June–September and December–February (drier)

Kampala

City · Central

Kampala is the capital and largest city of Uganda, spread over a series of hills a few kilometres north of Lake Victoria at 1,135–1,311 m. Built originally on seven hills, it grew around the Buganda royal capital at Mengo and became the national capital at independence in 1962, replacing Entebbe, whose international airport, about 40 km to the south-west, still serves the city. The 2024 census counted about 1.8 million people in the city proper and several million more in the metropolitan area. Most visitors pass through on the way to the gorilla parks and savanna reserves, but a day is well spent. The Kasubi Tombs, burial place of four Buganda kings and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Uganda Museum, the Uganda National Mosque on Old Kampala hill with its minaret views, and the Namirembe and Rubaga cathedrals are the principal sights, along with the Owino and craft markets. The climate is warm and wet year-round, with drier spells from June to September and December to February.

Best: Jun–Sep

Kibale National Park

National Park · Western Uganda

Kibale National Park protects 766 km² of moist evergreen forest in western Uganda, between Fort Portal and the Rwenzori foothills, at 1,100–1,600 m. It was a forest reserve from 1932 and became a national park in 1993; to the south it joins Queen Elizabeth National Park, forming a wildlife corridor about 180 km long. Tea estates and crater lakes surround the forest, and Fort Portal, some 30 km away, is the usual base. Kibale has the highest primate density in Africa, with 13 species, and is the main place in Uganda to track habituated chimpanzees. Walks leave from Kanyanchu in the morning and afternoon, and a full-day habituation experience is also offered. Red colobus, L'Hoest's monkey, grey-cheeked mangabey and black-and-white colobus are regularly seen, while forest elephant, buffalo and leopard are present but shy. Some 325 bird species have been recorded, and the community-run Bigodi wetland walk just outside the park adds papyrus specials such as the great blue turaco.

Best: June–September and December–February (drier)

Kidepo Valley National Park

National Park · Karamoja (Kaabong District, north-eastern Uganda)

Kidepo Valley National Park lies in the far north-east of Uganda, in the Karamoja region against the borders of South Sudan and Kenya, about 520 km from Kampala. Gazetted as a game reserve in 1958 and made a national park in 1962, it covers 1,442 km² of semi-arid savanna at 910–1,200 m, framed by Mount Morungole and the Lotukei and Napore ranges. Its remoteness keeps visitor numbers low; most guests fly in to the Apoka airstrip. The park is divided by the Narus and Kidepo valleys. The Narus valley holds permanent water and concentrates game in the dry season, with large buffalo herds, elephant, giraffe, zebra, Jackson's hartebeest, lion and leopard; the Kidepo valley to the north is drier, with borassus palms and the Kanangorok hot springs. Kidepo is the only Ugandan park with cheetah, ostrich and other dry-country species such as bat-eared fox, caracal and kudu, and 476 bird species have been recorded, many found nowhere else in the country. Visits to Karamojong manyattas and to the Ik people on Mount Morungole are offered from Apoka.

Best: September–March (dry season)

Lake Mburo National Park

National Park · Kiruhura District, Western Region

Lake Mburo National Park is a 260 km² savanna and wetland park in Kiruhura District, about 240 km west of Kampala on the road to Mbarara and the gorilla parks, which makes it the usual first or last stop on a western circuit. Protected as a controlled hunting area in 1933 and a game reserve in 1963, it became a national park in 1983; the surrounding land is Bahima cattle country, and long-horned Ankole cattle graze right up to the boundary. Lake Mburo itself is the largest of five lakes in the park, ringed by papyrus swamp. The acacia woodland holds the country's largest impala population as well as zebra, eland, topi, buffalo, waterbuck, warthog and, since 2015, reintroduced Rothschild's giraffe; leopard and hyena are the main predators, with no lions. More than 300 bird species include the African finfoot and papyrus gonolek. Boat trips show hippo and crocodile at close quarters. The park's small size and absence of elephant and lion allow walking safaris, horse-riding and mountain-biking alongside the usual game drives.

Best: June–September and December–February (drier)

Mgahinga Gorilla National Park

National Park · Kisoro District, south-western Uganda

Mgahinga Gorilla National Park is Uganda's smallest national park at 33.9 km², on the northern slopes of the Virunga volcanoes in Kisoro District, about 15 km south of Kisoro town. Created in 1991, it forms the Ugandan part of the Virunga Conservation Area together with Rwanda's Volcanoes National Park and the Congo's Virunga National Park, and its three peaks, Muhabura (4,127 m), Gahinga (3,474 m) and Sabyinyo (3,669 m), mark the three-country border. Vegetation rises from bamboo through montane forest to heath and Afroalpine moorland. A single habituated mountain gorilla family, the Nyakagezi group, is tracked here, with fewer permits than Bwindi and gorillas that move between the three countries. Mgahinga is also the main place in Uganda to see golden monkeys, a bamboo specialist confined to the Virungas, on tracking and habituation walks. Day hikes climb each of the three volcanoes, and the Batwa Trail, led by former forest dwellers, ends in the Garama cave. Some 76 mammal species and a number of Albertine Rift endemic birds have been recorded.

Best: June–September and December–February (drier)

Murchison Falls National Park

National Park · Northwestern Uganda

Murchison Falls National Park is Uganda's largest protected area at about 3,893 km², spanning Buliisa, Nwoya, Kiryandongo and Masindi districts in the north-west. Gazetted in 1952, it is bisected by the Victoria Nile on its way from Lake Kyoga to Lake Albert. At the falls that give the park its name the river is squeezed through a gap 7 m wide and drops 43 m, a sight reached by boat from Paraa to the base and on foot to the top. The savanna north of the river holds most of the game: elephant, Rothschild's giraffe, buffalo, Uganda kob, Jackson's hartebeest, oribi, lion and leopard, and the Nile below the falls carries Uganda's largest concentration of Nile crocodile and hippo. Of some 450 recorded bird species the shoebill, sought in the Nile delta at Lake Albert, is the most prized. Budongo Forest on the southern edge offers chimpanzee tracking, and Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary on the road from Kampala is where white rhino are tracked on foot. The park was briefly renamed Kabalega National Park in the 1970s and is a Ramsar site.

Best: December–February and June–September (drier)

Queen Elizabeth National Park

National Park · Western Uganda

Queen Elizabeth National Park covers 1,978 km² of the Albertine Rift floor in western Uganda, across Kasese, Kamwenge, Rubirizi and Rukungiri districts, between Lake George and Lake Edward and below the Rwenzori Mountains. Founded in 1952 as Kazinga National Park and renamed two years later after a royal visit, it is a UNESCO biosphere reserve and one of the country's most visited parks. The Kazinga Channel, the 32 km waterway linking the two lakes, is the park's signature: launch trips from Mweya pass hippo, buffalo, elephant and crocodile on the banks and huge numbers of waterbirds. The Kasenyi plains near Lake George are the main lion and Uganda kob area, and the remote Ishasha sector in the south is known for lions that rest in fig trees. Kyambura Gorge holds a small tracked chimpanzee community, and the Katwe explosion craters and salt lake are visited on a scenic drive. With 95 mammal and more than 600 bird species, the park has one of the longest bird lists of any African reserve. Mweya peninsula and the Ishasha area hold most of the lodges.

Best: June–September and December–February (drier)

Rwenzori Mountains National Park

National Park · Kasese / Bundibugyo / Kabarole districts, western Uganda

Rwenzori Mountains National Park protects 998 km² of the Rwenzori range on Uganda's border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in Kasese, Bundibugyo and Kabarole districts. The range, the Mountains of the Moon of classical geography, is not volcanic but a block of the Rift floor lifted to Margherita Peak on Mount Stanley, at 5,109 m the third-highest point in Africa, with Mounts Speke and Baker also above 4,800 m and small, retreating glaciers. The park was created in 1991, inscribed by UNESCO in 1994 and listed as a Ramsar wetland in 2009. Seventy per cent of the park lies above 2,500 m, and the ascent passes through five vegetation zones, from montane forest and bamboo to the heather and Afroalpine belts of giant lobelia and groundsel that make the range famous among botanists. Wildlife includes forest elephant, chimpanzee, Rwenzori duiker and Rwenzori turaco among Albertine Rift endemics. Trekking is on the Central Circuit from Nyakalengija or the Kilembe trail from Kasese, typically seven to nine days to the summit with huts and porters; shorter hikes reach the lower zones.

Best: June–August and December–February (least rain)

Semuliki National Park

National Park · Bundibugyo District, western Uganda

Semuliki National Park covers 219 km² of the Semliki valley floor in Bundibugyo District, western Uganda, on the Congolese border between the Rwenzori Mountains and Lake Albert. Managed as a forest reserve from 1932 and gazetted as a national park in October 1993, it is the only lowland tropical rainforest in East Africa, an eastern outlier of the Ituri forest of the Congo Basin, and lies at about 670–760 m in a hot, humid climate. The park's interest is what reaches the eastern limit of its range here. More than 400 bird species have been recorded, including Congo-biome birds such as the Nkulengu rail, lyre-tailed honeyguide and several hornbills found nowhere else in East Africa, which makes it a priority for serious birders. Eight primate species, forest elephant, buffalo, leopard and around 460 butterfly species are present but seldom easily seen. The Sempaya hot springs, where the male spring boils and spouts and the female spring pools over a wide area, are reached by a short boardwalk. Around a hundred Batwa live near the forest and offer cultural visits.

Best: June–September and December–February (drier)

Journeys That Visit Uganda

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