12 Days Best Of Uganda Safari
overview
Day 1: Arrival in Uganda
Day 2: Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park
Day 3: Gorilla trek and Batwe experience
Day 4: Transfer to Queen Elizabeth National Park
Day 5: Game drive and Boat cruise
Day 6: Transfer to Kibale and Chimp Trekking
Day 7: Chimp trekking and community walk
Day 8: Transfer to Murchison falls national park
Day 9: game drive, hike the top of the falls and boat cruise
Day 10: Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary & Kampala
Day 11: visit to Jinja
Day 12: Travel back to your home country
Detailed itinerary
Day 1: Arrival in Uganda
Our company guide will pick you from the Entebbe international airport and will transfer you to the hotel. He will brief you about the trip; you will have dinner and rest till early morning, and you set off for Bwindi impenetrable national park.
Day 2: Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park
Wake up to the rising sun of Africa, have early morning breakfast and our company guide will pick you for transfer to the home of the endangered mountain gorillas in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park. Have a stopover at the Uganda equator, where you will have a chance to take photos and have refreshment.
Proceed with the journey as you view beautiful rolling hills, local people doing their daily activities, banana plantations, long-horned ankole cattle and much more beautiful scenery. The journey takes 12–13 hours’ drive but with rewarding views.
Upon arrival to Bwindi impenetrable national park, you will drive straight to your booking lodge, where you will have dinner and stay overnight.
Accommodation
- Gorilla safari lodge [luxury]
- Gorilla Mist Camp [mid-range]
- Buhoma community camp [budget].
Day 3: Gorilla trek and Batwe experience
After early breakfast, your tour guide shall drive you to the park’s headquarters, where you will be briefed on how to trek the mountain gorillas. You will be allocated a gorilla family with other tourists, and you will enter the jungle in search of the endangered gorillas.
The trek can take half an hour to full day depending on the previous sighting, weather, accessing the gorilla family, feeding location and other factors. The lodge will therefore ensure you set off with lunch boxes in the morning because we can’t tell how fast we will allocate the gorillas.
After trekking gorillas and getting your certificate, you will head for Batwe experience, where you learn about the Batwe culture and way of life. Return to lodge and meet other trekkers, share gorilla trekking experiences with them and get refreshed from gorilla trekking expedition. Have dinner and overnight
Day 4: Transfer to Queen Elizabeth National Park
You will transfer to Queen Elizabeth National Park after breakfast with packed lunch and start off with the game drive in Ishasha sector on the lookout for tree-climbing lions resting in the tree branches, elephants, topis, waterbucks, Uganda kobs, savannah baboons and different species of birds.
Enjoy your picnic lunch in the grassland plains close to tree-climbing lions. You will then proceed following the flow of the Kazinga channel to Lake Albert on to Mweya peninsular with scenic views of Lake Albert and Rwenzori Mountains in the background. You will check in at the Lodge for dinner and overnight stay.
Accommodation
- Mweya safari lodge [luxury]
- Enganzi game lodge [midrange]
- Tembo safari lodge.
Day 5: Game drive and Boat cruise
In the morning, you will head to Kasenyi track area on the base of rift valley with savannah grassland and dotted with thorny Acacia trees. Here big herds of all species of mammals, birds, reptiles, insects, vegetation, and other beautiful wildlife species await your keen eyes.
You will see plenty of wildlife; among them are lions, leopards, elephants, buffalos, and a host of big swarms of beautiful birds. Return back to the lodge for late breakfast and early lunch.
Later, you will proceed on an exciting 2-hour boat cruise on Kazinga Channel and have very rare glimpses of wildlife cooling off the heat of the day in the cool waters. Later on, you may do a brief evening game drive to check out missed opportunities in the morning or top up on wildlife sightings.
Day 6: Transfer to Kibale and Chimp Trekking
You will take an early morning breakfast and, with packed lunch, check out of lodge. You will transfer to Kibale National Park and drive past the equator line crossing area with clear views of Mount Rwenzori in the background on your way to Fort Portal, a beautiful town surrounded by stunning tea estates.
Drive to the lodge, check in, and relax as you wait for dinner and chimp trekking the following day.
Accommodation
- Primate Lodge [luxury]
- chimps guesthouse [mid-range]
- Isunga lodge [budget]
Day 7: Chimp trekking and community walk
You will take your early breakfast and proceed to Kibale forest park headquarters, where you will be briefed on chimpanzee tracking dos and don’ts. After briefing, proceed into the thick equatorial rainforests to track chimpanzees. Tracking starts at 8:00 am and may take you to early afternoon depending on your interest and duration; it takes about 8hours hours to see chimpanzees and weather conditions.
You will get back to the lodge in time for lunch and later proceed for a community walk in the nearby communities. Return to the lodge after community experience, relax, have dinner and stay overnight.
Day 8: Transfer to Murchison falls national park
Enjoy your morning sleep and take breakfast at leisure before resuming your journey to Murchison Falls National Park.
You will have packed lunch and the drive will take you through steep escarpments descending to the floor of the Albertine rift valley, with western arm of the escarpment very visible beyond the Congo region in the background.
You will visit and enjoy your picnic lunch at the top of Murchison Falls and thereafter cross the Nile with a ferry at Para and check in at the lodge for accommodation.
Accommodation
- Chobe safari lodge [luxury]
- Pakuba safari lodge [mid-range]
- Red chili camp [budget]
Day 9: game drive, hike the top of the falls and boat cruise
Morning game drive starts before the first light of the day when all mammals are still very active before the heat of the sun sets in. Big attractions here are lions, leopards, elephants, buffalos, giraffes, hyenas, Jackson hartebeest, elephants, Uganda kobs, patas monkeys, and lots of savanna bird species.
Transfer to the excitements of the day all the way to the Lodge in time for lunch. Continue the excitement of the day with a 3-hour launch cruise on the Nile to the bottom of Murchison Falls and encounter big schools of hippos you never imagined before: giant crocodiles sun bathing, other mammals cooling off the heat of the day, and lots of water birds.
You will sleep to the roars of lions, howls of hyenas and many other strange sounds in the background.
Day 10: Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary & Kampala
After breakfast, you will check out, heading to Kampala, crossing the Karuma Bridge and sloping.
You will make a detour to Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary for lunch and later on rhino tracking. At the end of this exciting exercise, you will view the white Rhinos in the wilderness.
You will then resume your journey, arriving in Kampala late evening for dinner at a fancy restaurant, and may opt to sample Kampala city nightlife as you wait to travel to Jinja.
Day 11: visit to Jinja
Journey to Jinja starts at 6:30am after morning breakfast, so as to avoid Kampala traffic jams. You will start your adventurous trip to some of the tourist attractions along Jinja Highway with your first stopover at a historical site called Sezibwa Falls, which is one of Uganda’s hidden cultural treasures.
One part of the Sezibwa Falls cultural site is owned by the Anglican Church of Uganda, and another part is owned by the Buganda Kingdom. You will take approximately 1:30 minutes’ drive from Kampala to Sezibwa falls.
Proceed with your journey to Mabira Forest, where you will do a forest hike with high chances of viewing plenty of bird species, mammals, and plant species. Mabira forest is the largest forest in Uganda, covering about 300 square kilometers and the forest is located in Buikwe District between Lugazi and Jinja.
Mabira Forest is home to over 300 bird species and many primates that you will see on the way, like baboons and monkeys.
Proceed to Jinja town with a beautiful view of tea plantations, sugar cane plantations, and local people doing their daily activities. Upon arrival in Jinja, you will have lunch at any local restaurant or hotel, where you will try out our local dishes. After you will head to the source of the Nile for an afternoon boat cruise, and you will see where the Nile originates from.
During the boat cruise, you will head to the point where the Nile River dramatically separated from Lake Victoria; at that point, the stream of water started running towards the north, forming the Victoria Nile, co-joining with the Albert Nile at Murchison Falls National Park, and connected to the southern Sudan to meet the Blue and White Nile; the same continues through Egypt to the Mediterranean Sea.
Source of the Nile is the best place for all bird lovers to watch different species of birds and to enjoy the cool breeze of the waters.
If time is on our side, you will do whitewater rafting, breath-taking activities, and enjoy the waves of water dancing to the tunes of the winds.
Travel back to Kampala.
Day 12: Transfer back to the airport.
Depending on your flight time, you will have a nature walk around Kampala Street before heading to Entebbe International Airport, where you will board a flight back home. End of the 12-day Uganda safari.
