Uganda Travel Guide

Wildlife: awesome! For Bwindi, mostly, of course, although I can imagine someone interested in birds could have fun in Kabale. I plan to go back there some day for other parks, to see the 'big five', as I didn't get a chance to do a 'regular safari' last time.
Scenic beauty: equally awesome! I wish I could have gone deeper into the forest, but that was up to the gorillas, not me ;) Lake Bunyonyi is also a place not to be missed - I took a 3 day trip in dugout canoes there, and the place as green as Holland. Forget the dust-filled footage you often see on TV... visit the rolling green hills in southern Uganda!
Bush vibe: travelling in a dugout canoe, a muddy motor ride, tracking gorill'as - yeah, there is certainly a bush vibe - even though both the canoe trekking and the gorilla tracking were basically very organised. It's not as if you're alone out there, but you won't be queueing to climb the volcano (another one for the to-do list!) either.

Truly the Pearl of Africa

Uganda is a very interesting safari destination- recently ranked among the top 20 must visit places in 2012 by Lonely Planet magazine, Uganda is still discovered by a few and unspoiled with a wide variety of wildlife species and amazing activities both on water and land. Uganda's star attraction is arguably the mountain gorilla in Bwindi impenetrable forest with other attractive destinations like Murchison falls, River Nile (Africa's longest river), Queen Elizabeth park and activities like white water rafting, bird watching

Uganda is really wild.

Beautiful, people are great and lots of opportunities too experience new things, loved the mountains

My mother and I went and visited the pygmies with Gatatu safaris, and it was an amazing wonderful experience! The scenery was absolutely beautiful and breath taking, transport, guides and accommodation was great, best trip of my life. Can't wait too go back!

Uganda, The ultimate "off the beaten track" destiantion in Africa!

Uganda is often linked with gorillas and chimpanzees. The apes are the countries main attraction and adds something extra compared to other more traditional safari destinations. However, Uganda has so much more to offer with some great game parks, unique boat safari's in 3 different national parks, huge forest areas, waterfalls, matoke (bananas) everywhere, mountains with snow, stunning lakes, volcanoes and the friendliest people in the world! On top of that you can venture off the beaten track by going to unspoiled game parks like Kidepo Valley NP. What about visiting unspoiled tribes in the east of the country (karamajong) or hike the Rwenzori Mountains. For real travelers Uganda is a MUST!

Gorilla trekking Tour

I had wanted to hire a car and drive through Uganda, but after spending over a month trying to secure gorilla tracking permits to no avail, I was told that often the Ugandan Wildlife Authority are uncooperative with individual groups of tourists as they are paid of my tour companies, whether this is true I’m not sure but I tried contacting them by both email and phone for over a month and received no correct info and was just led around in circles with false email addresses etc...
If you are situated in Uganda it’s a different ball game and it seems it’s a simple process to obtain the permits from the UWA office in Kampala. Seeing as I didn’t want to risk arriving and there being no permits left I decided to give up and book through a tour agency. In the end I’m so glad we did, we booked the permits and a driver to take us from Kampala to Queen Elizabeth National Park for a safari, on to Lake Bunyonyi for a night, down to Bwindi Impenetrable Forest to track gorillas and finally across the Rwandan border to Kigali.

All the booking and communication was done through Jackie from Katona, who was extremely helpful and answered all of my questions, gave great advice and put together multiple itineraries based on each new request, for us to look through.

When we arrived in Kampala we found the office easily and paid the balance and made some final arrangements which all went smoothly. (It’s worth noting that USD notes printed before the year 2000 and which are smaller denominations than $50 are not accepted anywhere in Uganda).

We met our driver the next morning and he was quiet but helpful throughout the trip. Overall the value for money was amazing and we got to see so much more and got a lot more packed into the time we had there. You are read about our experience in Queen Elizabeth National Park and our experience tracking gorillas in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest here, we never would have seen so much wildlife both on the safari and on the drive without our driver’s sharp eyes. We also had baggage missing from our flight when we landed and the company arranged for it to be driven down and meet us the day after the tour started, they took away all the worry and did this all completely free of charge

I tend to believe that Uganda is a bit underrated as a safari destination; it's often trumped by it's neighbor Tanzania. However, I do encourage people to take full advantage of Uganda's parks and natural wildlife, it has so much to offer.

Here you will find the most different species of monkeys in whole africa. ( 7-11 if i remember correctly)
Jungles, rainforrest, savanna. Friendly people.
Birding...... one can walk on kingfishers here...

Phantastic experience, lots of animals, amazing views. The best destination in africa. One can see savannah, rain forest, high ,mountains, lots of activities, like rafting, trekking. The people really loving, direct, and don't try to sell everything. A great fusion of being for reform but with keeping the nature, the sources, the animals, like building for the future. I hope the people can keep the conservation of what is really important.

Give me Uganda any day! There is something so magical about it compared to the likes of Tanzania, Kenya and South Africa. You feel as though you are part of a secret when you are there, like you are the first discoverers - but with the added bonus of wonderful guides and hosts and great accommodation to stay in.

The only downside was driving distances - but I loved watching the country from the window anyway. Who needs to pay a masseuse when a 'bush massage' is included?!

It's like being on a really wonderful and special adventure.