$3,689 pp (USD)
2 travelers on Start dateArrival
Arrival
Day 1
Kampala – Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary – Murchison Falls NP
Kampala – Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary – Murchison Falls NP
After an early breakfast, your professional safari guide meets you for a comprehensive briefing before departing for Murchison Falls National Park. The scenic drive north passes through the Luwero Triangle, offering views of rural Uganda's farmlands, trading centres, and the open countryside that gradually gives way to the drier northern landscape.
En route, stop at Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary for a guided walking safari to track Southern White Rhinos in their natural habitat—Uganda's only wild rhino population. After lunch, continue to Murchison Falls National Park and visit the spectacular Top of the Falls, where the Victoria Nile forces through a 7-metre-wide gorge before plunging 43 metres below. Proceed to Heritage Safari Lodge for check-in, dinner, and your overnight stay.
- Main Destination:
- Murchison Falls National Park
- Accommodation:
- Heritage Safari Lodge
Wildlife in Murchison Falls NP
- Meals & Drinks:
Day 2
Game drive & nile boat cruise
Game drive & nile boat cruise
A 6:00 AM departure puts you on the northern bank circuit at dawn — the finest game-viewing time in the park. Expect sightings of Nubian giraffes browsing the acacia canopy, large elephant herds drifting toward the river, lion prides still active from the night, Lake Chad buffaloes, Uganda kob, and the Jackson's hartebeest. Hyenas are frequently seen in the early hours, and the bird life — Goliath Heron, Red-throated Bee-eater, African Skimmer — is outstanding throughout.
After lunch at the lodge, board the afternoon Nile boat cruise for a two-hour journey upstream to the base of Murchison Falls. Both banks are continuously alive: hippos surfacing alongside the boat, enormous Nile crocodiles on every sandbank, elephants and buffaloes at the waterline, and a procession of waterbirds along the reeds. The Shoebill Stork — one of Africa's most sought-after birds — inhabits the papyrus margins and is regularly encountered.
- Main Destination:
- Murchison Falls National Park
- Accommodation:
- Heritage Safari Lodge
- Meals & Drinks:
Day 3
Transfer to Kibale Forest National Park
Transfer to Kibale Forest National Park
After breakfast, depart for Kibale National Park — a scenic five-to-seven-hour drive west through Uganda's agricultural heartland and into the western highlands. The road passes through tea plantation country with its orderly green rows stretching across the hillsides, and through the crater lake district above Fort Portal, where ancient volcanic craters have filled with water to create one of Uganda's most beautiful landscapes. Stop in Fort Portal for lunch before the final approach to Kibale, where the air cools noticeably and the dense forest closes in on both sides of the road.
Arrive at Kibale Forest Camp in the late afternoon for check-in, rest, and a ranger briefing on tomorrow's chimpanzee trekking experience.
- Main Destination:
- Kibale National Park (Chimps)
- Accommodation:
-
Kibale Forest Camp (Camping)
Wildlife in Kibale NP
- Meals & Drinks:
Day 4
Chimpanzee Trekking – Transfer to Queen Elizabeth NP
Chimpanzee Trekking – Transfer to Queen Elizabeth NP
An early breakfast before transferring to the Kanyanchu Visitor Centre for a ranger briefing. Kibale Forest is home to approximately 1,500 chimpanzees — the highest density in Africa — and the habituated communities here are among the most accessible and naturally behaved on the continent. Your ranger leads you into the forest on foot, tracking the group's movements until they are located. The permitted hour with the chimpanzees unfolds entirely on their terms: feeding in the upper canopy, grooming on fallen logs, juveniles chasing through the undergrowth, the whole social complexity of a primate community at close range and in full natural behaviour.
After lunch, transfer south to Queen Elizabeth National Park through the scenic Rwenzori foothills — the snow-capped Mountains of the Moon visible on clear afternoons, their glaciated peaks rising improbably above the equatorial horizon. Arrive at Pumba Lodge for check-in and overnight.
- Main Destination:
- Queen Elizabeth National Park
- Accommodation:
- Pumba Safari Cottages
Wildlife in Queen Elizabeth NP
- Meals & Drinks:
Day 5
Game Drive & Kazinga Channel Boat Cruise
Game Drive & Kazinga Channel Boat Cruise
Begin the day with an early morning game drive on the Kasenyi Plains — Queen Elizabeth National Park's most productive game-viewing circuit. Lions are frequently active in the first hours of daylight, and large elephant herds move between the woodland and the channel floodplain throughout the morning. Uganda kob gather in enormous numbers across the open grassland, alongside topi, waterbuck, warthog, oribi, and the striking crowned crane feeding in the wetland margins.
After lunch, board the afternoon Kazinga Channel cruise — a 40-kilometre waterway connecting Lakes Edward and George that supports one of the highest concentrations of hippos in Africa. The cruise delivers two hours of continuous, close-range wildlife from the water: hippo pods surfacing alongside the boat, enormous crocodiles on every sandbank, elephant and buffalo herds at the waterline, and extraordinary birdlife throughout including the Shoebill Stork in the papyrus margins.
- Main Destination:
- Queen Elizabeth National Park
- Accommodation:
- Pumba Safari Cottages
- Meals & Drinks:
Day 6
Morning Game Drive – Ishasha – Bwindi Impenetrable Forest
Morning Game Drive – Ishasha – Bwindi Impenetrable Forest
After an early breakfast, a short morning game drive before departure gives one final opportunity to catch the park at its best. Then begin the transfer south through the scenic Ishasha sector of Queen Elizabeth National Park — one of only two places on earth where lions have developed the behaviour of climbing and resting in the broad branches of giant fig trees. Your guide navigates the known territories where this extraordinary behaviour is most reliably seen. A lion pride draped across the branches of a lakeside fig tree, silhouetted against the open plains and the distant DRC escarpment, is one of the rarest wildlife sightings in Africa.
Beyond Ishasha, the road climbs into the Albertine Rift highlands and the Kigezi region. Arrive at Bwindi NeckView lodge Lodge in the evening — the forest is close and alive with sound. A ranger briefing covers tomorrow's gorilla trek: your assigned family, the likely trail, and what to expect when the gorillas are found.
- Main Destination:
- Bwindi Impenetrable National Park (Gorillas)
- Accommodation:
- Bwindi Neckview Lodge
Wildlife in Bwindi Impenetrable NP
- Meals & Drinks:
Day 7
Gorilla trekking
Gorilla trekking
After an early breakfast, head to the park headquarters for a briefing before setting off to track your assigned gorilla family in Bwindi's dense rainforest, where towering trees and thick vegetation create a truly unforgettable setting. The trek to find the gorilla family takes anywhere from forty minutes to several hours depending on overnight movements; your ranger team tracks their position from first light. When the signal comes that the gorillas are close, pace slows and voices drop to nothing.
The permitted hour with a habituated gorilla family is the centrepiece of this entire safari. A silverback may sit within meters of you in complete indifference while the rest of the family moves around him — mothers with infants, juveniles at the forest's edge. Your ranger narrates throughout: individual names, relationships, recent events in the group's social life. Return to the lodge for relaxation, lunch, and a well-earned rest.
- Main Destination:
- Bwindi Impenetrable National Park (Gorillas)
- Accommodation:
- Bwindi Neck View Lodge
- Meals & Drinks:
Day 8
Transfer to Lake Mburo National Park & Evening Game Drive
Transfer to Lake Mburo National Park & Evening Game Drive
After breakfast, begin the scenic drive east toward Lake Mburo National Park — a compact, accessible park that surprises most first-time visitors with the quality and uniqueness of its wildlife. Lake Mburo is the only park in Uganda where Burchell's zebras are found, and the open grassland supports large herds moving through a landscape of ancient exposed parent rocks, acacia woodland, and open savannah vegetation that looks entirely different from any other park on this itinerary.
Arrive in time for an evening game drive that takes advantage of the golden afternoon light. Zebras, impalas, topi, elands, buffaloes, and warthogs are reliably encountered across the park's plains. Lake Mburo also holds Uganda's highest concentration of leopards, and while sightings require patience and luck, the evening drive is the best time to try. Proceed to Hyena Hill Lodge for check-in, dinner, and overnight.
- Main Destination:
- Lake Mburo National Park
- Accommodation:
- Hyena Hill Lodge
Wildlife in Lake Mburo NP
- Meals & Drinks:
Day 9
Return to Kampala / Entebbe
Return to Kampala / Entebbe
A final breakfast at the lodge before departure for Kampala or Entebbe. The return journey passes through the Equator crossing at Kayabwe — a rewarding stop for photographs and a brief demonstration of the Coriolis effect, and an ideal place to pick up local souvenirs and crafts. Your driver-guide delivers you to your Kampala hotel or Entebbe International Airport in the late afternoon, marking the end of a safari that has taken you through five national parks, three great ape encounters, and some of the most extraordinary wildlife landscapes in East Africa.
- Main Destination:
- Entebbe (City)
- Accommodation:
- No accommodation (End of tour)
- Meals & Drinks:
