The equator runs through Uganda. Almost everything worth booking is within two degrees of it.
What a Bwindi permit morning costs against three days at Murchison, which trek you can still reach from Kampala, and where the Nile actually starts.
A permit for Bwindi, three days at Murchison, a morning in Kampala, the Nile at Jinja.
The four bookings a first Uganda trip is built around, and what each one costs.
01The permit morning3 Days gorilla trekking Safari tour in UgandaThree days built around one hour with a habituated family. Book the permit before the flights, not after.
02The northern run3-Day Ultimate Big Five Safari – Murchison Falls & RhinosMurchison in a long weekend, with the rhino sanctuary broken into the drive up. The cheapest way to see the Big Five here.
03The city morningKampala: City Guided walking sightseeing TourMarkets, the Kabaka trail and the matatu chaos on foot, for the price of lunch. Do it on your first day, not your last.
04The river afternoonTubing the NileThe White Nile a few kilometres from where it leaves Lake Victoria. Tubing if you want the water without the rapids.
Bwindi for the gorillas, Kibale for the chimps. One permit each, one morning each.
Two forests, two permits, and a decision about which side you approach from. What each morning costs to board, and how far you have to get before you can start walking.
★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 8-Day Murchison Falls, Chimp and Epic Gorilla Trekking Safari
Gorilla trekkingOne hour with a habituated family, after a walk that can take all morning.
Chimp trackingKibale has the densest primate population in east Africa. Earlier start, far easier ground.
In from KigaliBwindi’s southern sectors are nearer Rwanda’s airport than Entebbe, so many treks sell as Kigali departures.
All 79 primate treks →
Six places, and what each one is actually for.
A capital that runs on motorbikes, a waterfall the whole Nile is forced through, a channel with more hippo in it than water, the one park you are allowed to walk in, three falls off the side of Mount Elgon, and the only rhinos left in the country.
Ten national parks. Four of them carry almost everything you can book.
Murchison for the falls and the river under them, Queen Elizabeth for the Kazinga Channel and the lions that climb trees at Ishasha, Lake Mburo for zebra and the only park you can walk in. Three days is the honest minimum, because the driving is.
Uganda’s most popular days out.
Every Uganda tour we have reviewed →The tours more travellers take than anything else in the country, and what earns each one the slot.
1
3 Hours Guided Cycling Tour Across Lake Victoria
Cycle Lake Victoria from Kampala on dirt trails, cross by local boat, enjoy a Rolex snack, and explore Uganda with a guide for $60.
From · $60
Read our review →
2
3 Days gorilla trekking Safari tour in Uganda
from $2,600
3
Lake Victoria Island Cycling Tour from Kampala
from $62
4
Kampala Walking City Tours (Women Guided)
from $34
5
1 Day Sipi falls hike
from $20
6
Steve Kampala Walking tours (Airpals Safaris tour)
from $28
7
8-Day Murchison Falls, Chimp and Epic Gorilla Trekking Safari
from $3,598
8
Tubing the Nile
from $55
The Nile starts in Uganda, and the best hours of a safari are spent on water.
It leaves Lake Victoria at Jinja and is throwing grade five within the hour. Two hundred miles north it is forced through a seven-metre gap at Murchison and drops into the gorge. In between sits the Kazinga Channel, where the game comes down to drink, and the papyrus edges of the lake itself.
Kampala is worth two days, and most people give it two hours.
Everything in Kampala →
Seven hills, a market you could lose an afternoon in, and the fastest way across town is on the back of somebody else's motorbike. These three carry more travellers than anything else in the city.
The half-day walk through the middle
Owino market, the Gaddafi mosque minaret for the view over all seven hills, and the taxi park from above, which is the single best thing to look at in the city. Most guides are from the neighbourhoods you walk through.
Boda boda, with a helmet and a plan
The boda is how Kampala actually moves, and a guided ride covers in two hours what walking covers in two days. The tour operators use trained riders and give you a helmet, which the street ones will not.
Rolex, matoke and a kitchen you sit in
A rolex is an omelette rolled into a chapati and it is the national street food. The tours run through the stalls that make it well, then into a home kitchen for matoke steamed in banana leaf.
A morning in Kampala or a fortnight in the parks. Same country, wildly different money.
Every tour on the site, grouped by what it costs. Uganda has one of the widest ranges in Africa, and the middle of it is thinner than you would expect.
City walks, boda rides, the food tours, tubing the Nile, and a hike up to Sipi.
Two and three-day runs: Murchison, Queen Elizabeth, Lake Mburo, Ziwa on the way north.
- 13-Day Safari Murchison Falls Safarifrom $780
- 23-Day Ultimate Big Five Safari – Murchison Falls & Rhinosfrom $995
- 3Ziwa Rhino Sanctuaryfrom $580
Gorilla permits, the chimp forests, and the long circuits that string the parks together.
Three things you can only really do in Uganda.
Savanna and waterfalls turn up all over east Africa. Half the world’s mountain gorillas, the densest chimpanzee forest on the continent, and the exact stretch of water the Nile starts on do not.
Mountain gorillas on foot
There are around a thousand mountain gorillas left in the world and roughly half of them live in Bwindi. A permit buys one hour with a habituated family, and the walk to reach them runs anywhere from forty minutes to seven hours through wet, near-vertical forest. Eight visitors per family per day, no exceptions, which is why the permits go months ahead.
- 13 Days gorilla trekking Safari tour in Uganda★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 121 reviews
- 28-Day Murchison Falls, Chimp and Epic Gorilla Trekking Safari★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 72 reviews
- 35-Day Pearl of Africa Chimps and Gorilla Trekking Safari★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 52 reviews
The chimp forest, at close range
Kibale holds around fifteen hundred chimpanzees and the highest density of primates anywhere in Africa — thirteen species in one forest. The standard trek gives you an hour once the group is found; the habituation experience puts you with the researchers from the moment the chimps wake until they build their night nests, and there are only a handful of those permits a day.
- 18-Day Murchison Falls, Chimp and Epic Gorilla Trekking Safari★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 72 reviews
- 25-Day Pearl of Africa Chimps and Gorilla Trekking Safari★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 52 reviews
- 315-Day Gorilla and chimps Trekking, Big 5 and Nature Sighting Safari★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 31 reviews
The first rapids of the Nile
The river leaves Lake Victoria at Jinja and is throwing grade-five water inside an hour, which makes this one of the few places on earth you can raft big volume in warm water. The dams have taken some of the old rapids and the operators are straight about which. If whitewater is not the point, the same stretch runs flat enough to float down on a tube.
- 1Tubing the Nile★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 69 reviews
- 2Private Whitewater Tubing in Bujagali Hydropower Plant★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 21 reviews
- 3Family Float Trip★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 8 reviews
Four Ugandan bookings that will not wait for you.
Most of this country can be arranged the night before from a bar in Kampala. These four run on permits, daily caps and a road network that has opinions about the weather.
- 013 Days gorilla trekking Safari tour in UgandaEight people a day per gorilla family, and the permit is dated and named. In the June-to-September window they are gone months in advance.
- 025 Days Uganda Gorilla, Chimpanzee and Wildlife SafariKibale caps its chimp permits the same way, and the habituation experience — the all-day one — releases far fewer of them than the standard morning.
- 038-Day Murchison Falls, Chimp and Epic Gorilla Trekking SafariThe launch to the foot of the falls runs to a fixed timetable and fills up. Miss it and the park is a six-hour drive you made for the game drives alone.
- 04Uganda Jungle RaftingRafting runs to a daily departure and the water level decides the grade. After heavy rain the operators re-route, and the low-season days sell out first because there are fewer of them.
The whole Nile through a gap you could jump across.
Uganda’s biggest park sits either side of the river in the northwest. The launch trip runs up to the foot of the falls; the game drives on the north bank hold the Rothschild giraffe you will not see anywhere else in the country. It is a six-hour drive from Kampala, which is why almost nobody does it in less than three days.
- 18-Day Murchison Falls, Chimp and Epic Gorilla Trekking Safarifrom $3,598
- 23 Days Murchison Falls Adventure Wildlife Safari Uganda Tourfrom $1,300
- 33-Day Safari Murchison Falls Safarifrom $780
The last corner of Uganda, and the reason most people come.
Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, Mgahinga under the volcanoes, and Lake Bunyonyi terraced into the hills behind them. It is a two-day drive or a light aircraft from Entebbe, and the ground is steep, wet and worth it. Nearly every gorilla permit in the country is used down here.
All the gorilla treks →
Uganda has two wet seasons, and they matter less than you think.
March to May and September to November, it rains most afternoons. The forests do not care — gorillas and chimps are found in the wet as reliably as the dry, and the ground is quieter. What the rain actually costs you is the murram roads, which turn, and the long park transfers, which get longer. Plan the walking and the sitting-down days for those months and keep the driving short.
By place — capital, parks and the far southwest
By kind of day — forest, savanna, water or street
Entebbe, Jinja, Murchison, Kibale, Queen Elizabeth, Bwindi: the loop almost everybody drives.
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