$21,110 pp (USD)
2 travelers on Start dateArrival
Arrival
Day 1
Arrival in Entebbe
Arrival in Entebbe
Your guide meets you at Entebbe International Airport and transfers you to the hotel on the shore of Lake Victoria. The afternoon is free - swim, walk the botanical gardens next door, or simply sleep off the flight. Over dinner your guide runs through the journey ahead: what to pack for the gorilla trek, what the altitude feels like, and how the internal flights work.
- Main Destination:
- Entebbe (City, Uganda)
- Activities:
- Accommodation:
- Protea Hotel Entebbe
- Meals & Drinks:
Day 2
Shoebill Search at Mabamba Swamp
Shoebill Search at Mabamba Swamp
An early start for Mabamba Swamp, a maze of papyrus channels on the edge of Lake Victoria. You glide out by dugout canoe with a local poler in search of the shoebill, a prehistoric-looking bird a metre and a half tall, found in very few places on earth. Herons, jacanas, malachite kingfishers and weavers line the way. The rest of the day is deliberately unhurried.
- Main Destination:
- Mabamba Swamp (Uganda)
- Activities:
- Accommodation:
- Protea Hotel Entebbe
- Meals & Drinks:
Day 3
South-West to Lake Mutanda
South-West to Lake Mutanda
A long, scenic drive south-west through the terraced highlands of Kigezi, past hills farmed to their summits and roadside markets, to your lodge above Lake Mutanda. You arrive in time for sunset, with the Virunga volcanoes standing on the far shore. An early night: tomorrow starts before dawn.
- Main Destination:
- Lake Mutanda (Uganda)
- Activities:
- Accommodation:
- Chameleon Hill Lodge
- Meals & Drinks:
Day 4
Gorilla Trekking in Bwindi and the Batwa Trail
Gorilla Trekking in Bwindi and the Batwa Trail
The morning you came for. After a briefing at the park headquarters you trek into Bwindi Impenetrable National Park to find a habituated mountain gorilla family, and spend one hour in their company once they are located. Trekking time runs from one to six hours depending on where the family moved overnight. After a picnic lunch you join the Batwa Trail in neighbouring Mgahinga, walking with Batwa guides to Garama Cave, their former refuge.
- Main Destination:
- Bwindi Impenetrable National Park (Gorillas)
- Activities:
- Accommodation:
- Chameleon Hill Lodge
Wildlife in Bwindi Impenetrable NP
- Meals & Drinks:
Day 5
Lake Mutanda by Boat and North to Kibale
Lake Mutanda by Boat and North to Kibale
A dawn boat trip on Lake Mutanda, threading between its islands with the volcanoes behind you, opens the long drive north. You cut through the Ishasha sector of Queen Elizabeth National Park to look for its tree-climbing lions draped along the fig branches, then continue to your lodge on the edge of Kibale Forest, arriving in the evening.
- Main Destination:
- Kibale National Park (Chimps)
- Activities:
- Accommodation:
- Chimpundu Lodge
Wildlife in Kibale NP
- Meals & Drinks:
Day 6
Chimpanzee Trekking in Kibale Forest
Chimpanzee Trekking in Kibale Forest
A ranger leads you into Kibale Forest, one of the best places in Africa to see chimpanzees, and you have an hour with the troop once they are found - feeding above you, grooming, screaming across the canopy. The afternoon turns to village life: a banana-beer brewer and a smallholding growing coffee, both run by the community around the forest.
- Main Destination:
- Kibale National Park (Chimps)
- Activities:
- Accommodation:
- Chimpundu Lodge
- Meals & Drinks:
Day 7
Bigodi Wetland, Hot Springs and Tea Country
Bigodi Wetland, Hot Springs and Tea Country
The day is spent walking. First the Bigodi Wetland Sanctuary, a community-run swamp where eight primate species and more than two hundred bird species live, then the forest trail to the hot springs, where the water comes out hot enough to boil an egg. You finish at a working tea factory to see the leaf go from field to cup.
- Main Destination:
- Kibale National Park (Chimps)
- Activities:
- Accommodation:
- Chimpundu Lodge
- Meals & Drinks:
Day 8
Ziwa Rhino Tracking and on to Murchison Falls
Ziwa Rhino Tracking and on to Murchison Falls
Heading north-east you stop at Ziwa Rhino and Wildlife Ranch, the only place in Uganda where southern white rhino roam, and track them on foot with rangers before lunch. The drive continues into Murchison Falls National Park and to your lodge on the north bank of the Nile, where the river runs past the terrace.
- Main Destination:
- Murchison Falls National Park (Uganda)
- Activities:
- Accommodation:
- Paraa Safari Lodge
Wildlife in Murchison Falls NP
- Meals & Drinks:
Day 9
Delta Game Drive and the Nile Launch Cruise
Delta Game Drive and the Nile Launch Cruise
A morning game drive on the Delta road circuit turns up elephant, giraffe, buffalo, Jackson's hartebeest and the park's lions on the open grassland. In the afternoon a launch runs upriver to the boiling foot of Murchison Falls, past hippo pods, crocodiles on the sandbanks and elephant coming down to drink.
- Main Destination:
- Murchison Falls National Park (Uganda)
- Activities:
- Accommodation:
- Paraa Safari Lodge
- Meals & Drinks:
Day 10
Nile Delta Cruise and the Top of the Falls
Nile Delta Cruise and the Top of the Falls
Today the boat goes the other way, down to the Nile Delta and Lake Albert - a second chance at the shoebill, and the best birding on the river. Afterwards you climb to the top of the falls, where the whole Nile forces through a seven-metre gap and drops into the gorge below.
- Main Destination:
- Murchison Falls National Park (Uganda)
- Activities:
- Accommodation:
- Paraa Safari Lodge
- Meals & Drinks:
Day 11
Back to Entebbe and Lake Victoria
Back to Entebbe and Lake Victoria
A long drive south with a packed lunch brings you back to Entebbe in the afternoon, and to the hotel on the lake shore. The evening is free to repack, swim, or sit on the terrace and watch the fishing boats come in. Your guide confirms tomorrow's flight details over dinner, before the Uganda half of the journey gives way to Tanzania.
- Main Destination:
- Entebbe (City, Uganda)
- Activities:
- Accommodation:
- Protea Hotel Entebbe
- Meals & Drinks:
Day 12
Flight South to Arusha
Flight South to Arusha
A transfer to Entebbe airport and a flight south across the lake and the Serengeti bring you to Arusha, the gateway to Tanzania's northern circuit. You are met and taken to your hotel, set in gardens with Mount Meru filling the skyline behind it. The rest of the day is yours, and deliberately so: what follows is early starts and long hours in the vehicle. Your Tanzanian guide joins you for dinner to walk through the route ahead.
- Main Destination:
- Arusha (City, Tanzania)
- Activities:
- Accommodation:
- Gran Meliá Arusha
- Meals & Drinks:
Day 13
Elephants and Baobabs in Tarangire
Elephants and Baobabs in Tarangire
Tarangire is the baobab park, and in the dry months its river draws the densest elephant herds in northern Tanzania. You spend the day on game drives among them, with a picnic lunch under a tree and more wildlife viewing through the afternoon, when the light turns and the animals move back to the water. Lion, giraffe, zebra and the park's dry-country antelope are all regulars here.
- Main Destination:
- Tarangire National Park (Tanzania)
- Activities:
- Accommodation:
- Mwamba Lodge Tarangire
Wildlife in Tarangire NP
- Meals & Drinks:
Day 14
Lake Burunge, Mto wa Mbu and a Maasai Boma
Lake Burunge, Mto wa Mbu and a Maasai Boma
A nature walk at Lake Burunge opens the day, then Mto wa Mbu village, where dozens of Tanzanian ethnic groups live side by side and the market sells produce from all of them. You call at a Maasai boma in the afternoon before settling in at a working coffee farm on the crater highlands.
- Main Destination:
- Karatu District (Tanzania)
- Activities:
- Accommodation:
- Ngorongoro Farm House
- Meals & Drinks:
Day 15
The Hadzabe and Datoga of Lake Eyasi
The Hadzabe and Datoga of Lake Eyasi
The morning starts in the dark for Lake Eyasi, to join the Hadzabe on a hunt at first light - one of the last hunter-gatherer peoples in East Africa, speaking a click language unrelated to any other. Afterwards you call on the Datoga, who forge the Hadzabe's arrowheads from scrap metal over an open fire. The afternoon is free at the farm house.
- Main Destination:
- Lake Eyasi (Tanzania)
- Activities:
- Accommodation:
- Ngorongoro Farm House
- Meals & Drinks:
Day 16
The Ngorongoro Crater Floor
The Ngorongoro Crater Floor
You descend into the Ngorongoro Crater at dawn, onto a caldera floor that holds somewhere near 25,000 large animals inside its walls, including the black rhino that are so hard to find anywhere else. Lunch is taken on the floor before you climb out and drive north-west into Serengeti National Park, reaching camp in the late afternoon.
- Main Destination:
- Ngorongoro Crater (Tanzania)
- Activities:
- Accommodation:
- Kubu Kubu Tented Lodge
Wildlife in Ngorongoro Crater
- Meals & Drinks:
Day 17
The Seronera Plains
The Seronera Plains
A full day on the Seronera plains, the most reliable big-cat country in the Serengeti. You work the river circuits for lion prides on the kopjes, leopards draped in the sausage trees along the watercourses, and cheetah hunting on the open grass, with a picnic lunch out in the park and no fixed timetable.
- Main Destination:
- Serengeti National Park (Tanzania)
- Activities:
- Accommodation:
- Kubu Kubu Tented Lodge
Wildlife in Serengeti NP
- Meals & Drinks:
Day 18
North to the Serengeti Wild Frontier
North to the Serengeti Wild Frontier
A half-day in the central Serengeti is followed by the long transfer north, game viewing the whole way as the landscape opens out and the vehicles thin. You reach camp near the Kenyan border in the late afternoon, in the quietest and least-visited corner of the park.
- Main Destination:
- Serengeti National Park (Tanzania)
- Activities:
- Accommodation:
- Mara Mara Tented Lodge
- Meals & Drinks:
Day 19
The Mara River Crossings
The Mara River Crossings
The day belongs to the Mara River. You take up position on the banks with a packed lunch and wait, because a crossing cannot be scheduled: the herds gather, hesitate, turn back, gather again, and then pour over all at once with the crocodiles waiting below. It is the most dramatic thing in African wildlife, and it rewards patience.
- Main Destination:
- Serengeti National Park (Tanzania)
- Activities:
- Accommodation:
- Mara Mara Tented Lodge
- Meals & Drinks:
Day 20
Hot Air Balloon and Bush Breakfast
Hot Air Balloon and Bush Breakfast
You lift off before dawn by hot air balloon and drift low over the plains as the light comes up, with the herds moving beneath you, landing to a champagne breakfast laid out under an acacia. The rest of the morning returns to the river for another attempt at a crossing, before the last night in the Serengeti.
- Main Destination:
- Serengeti National Park (Tanzania)
- Activities:
- Accommodation:
- Mara Mara Tented Lodge
- Meals & Drinks:
Day 21
Fly to Zanzibar
Fly to Zanzibar
A transfer to the Kogatende airstrip and a flight east drop you on Zanzibar, and a little over an hour later you are on the north-east coast. What follows is deliberately unstructured after three weeks of early starts. The reef is close enough to swim to at the right tide, and the afternoon is yours.
- Main Destination:
- Zanzibar Island (Tanzania Beaches, Tanzania)
- Activities:
- Accommodation:
- Diamonds Mapenzi Beach
- Meals & Drinks:
Day 22
Zanzibar at Your Own Pace
Zanzibar at Your Own Pace
Nothing is scheduled. Diving, snorkelling, a dolphin trip, deep-sea fishing, a spice tour or a day in Stone Town among the markets and carved doors can all be arranged locally as optional extras, at extra cost. Or you can do none of it and stay exactly where you are, which is what most people end up doing.
- Main Destination:
- Zanzibar Island (Tanzania Beaches, Tanzania)
- Activities:
- Accommodation:
- Diamonds Mapenzi Beach
- Meals & Drinks:
Day 23
A Final Day on the Indian Ocean
A Final Day on the Indian Ocean
A last full day on the Indian Ocean. The tide here goes a long way out and comes a long way in, which changes the beach twice a day: at high water the swimming is excellent, and at low water you can walk out across the flats among the seaweed farmers. Dinner on the final night is served on the beach when the weather allows.
- Main Destination:
- Zanzibar Island (Tanzania Beaches, Tanzania)
- Activities:
- Accommodation:
- Diamonds Mapenzi Beach
- Meals & Drinks:
Day 24
Departure from Zanzibar
Departure from Zanzibar
Breakfast at the hotel and a last morning by the water before your transfer to Zanzibar airport for the onward flight. Your guide handles the check-in formalities and sees you through, with timings arranged around your departure so there is no unnecessary waiting. Later flights can usually be matched with a day room at the hotel on request, at extra cost.
- Main Destination:
- No major destination visited
- Activities:
- Accommodation:
- No accommodation (End of tour)
- Meals & Drinks:
