Bwindi, Murchison, the Nile at Jinja
One hour with a gorilla family. Then eight hours back to Kampala.
What a permit costs once the driving is priced in. Which Murchison itinerary gets you on the launch to the foot of the falls. Whether Kampala is worth a morning on foot. Reviews of every tour you can book in Uganda.
A gorilla family, Murchison Falls, a Kampala morning, the Nile at Jinja.
The four bookings a first Uganda trip gets built around, with what each one costs and how far you drive to reach it.
01The permit day3 Days gorilla trekking Safari tour in UgandaThree days out of Kampala for one hour with a habituated family in Bwindi. The hour is the whole trip.
02The savannah leg3 Days Murchison Falls Adventure Wildlife Safari Uganda TourMurchison over three days: a game drive on the north bank at first light, then the launch upriver to the foot of the falls.
03The Kampala morningKampala’s Best Experience walking tourThree hours on foot through the markets and the downtown matatu crush. It costs less than the taxi in from the airport.
04The Nile dayTubing the NileTubing the White Nile at Jinja, where the river leaves Lake Victoria and starts its four-thousand-mile run north.
Gorillas in Bwindi, chimps in Kibale: which trek, and what it comes to.
Uganda caps how many people walk in to each primate family every day, and that permit is the largest number on the price. Three ways in, priced with the driving included.
The tours more people book in Uganda than anything else.
The whole Uganda catalogue →A thirty-dollar Kampala morning and a three-thousand-dollar safari sit side by side on this list, because that is genuinely how the country sells.
1
3 Hours Guided Cycling Tour Across Lake Victoria
Cycle Lake Victoria from Kampala on a guided boat-and-bike tour with dirt trails, local life, snacks, and lake views.
From · $60
Read our review →
2
Kampala’s Best Experience walking tour
from $33
3
3 Days gorilla trekking Safari tour in Uganda
from $2,600
4
Lake Victoria Island Cycling Tour from Kampala
from $62
5
Kampala Walking City Tours (Women Guided)
from $35
6
Kampala Walking Tour (3 Hours) with Optional Gaddafi Mosque Visit
from $32
7
1 Day Sipi falls hike
from $20
8
8-Day Murchison Falls, Chimp and Epic Gorilla Trekking Safari
from $3,598
Bwindi in the south-west, Murchison in the north, Kampala in the middle.
The forest that holds the gorillas, the gap the entire Nile is forced through, a channel with lions in the fig trees above it, the small park where the zebra are, and the two cities everyone flies through.
Murchison and Queen Elizabeth: the half of Uganda that is not forest.
North and west of the rainforest the country opens out into borassus palm savannah. The Nile is squeezed through a seven-metre gap, hippo line the Kazinga Channel in the hundreds, and the lions at Ishasha lie along the fig branches instead of under them.
Uganda runs from twenty dollars to three thousand.
Every tour on the site sorted by price. The gap in the middle is real: a morning out of a city, or a week with a permit in it, and not a great deal between the two.
A Kampala walk, the Sipi Falls hike, an inner tube on the Nile, a bike out along Lake Victoria.
Two and three-day runs: Murchison, Lake Mburo, the Ziwa rhinos, Queen Elizabeth with the channel cruise.
- 13-Day Safari Murchison Falls Safarifrom $780
- 2Ziwa Rhino Sanctuaryfrom $580
- 32 days Murchison Falls and Wildlife Game Viewingfrom $690
The permit weeks. Gorillas in Bwindi, chimps in Kibale, and all the driving that joins them together.
Kampala is a day, not the place the drive starts.
Most itineraries treat the capital as a departure point and lose it entirely. Give it a morning: the stalls stacked four deep in Nakasero market, the minaret at the Gaddafi mosque for the view over all seven hills, and the back of a boda through traffic with no intention of moving.
Every Kampala day →
The entire Nile, forced through a gap seven metres wide.
Uganda’s largest park sits either side of the river, five hours north of Kampala. Mornings belong to the game drive on the north bank, where Rothschild’s giraffe stand among the borassus palms. Afternoons belong to the launch upstream, which stops where the spray starts and the noise makes talking pointless.
- 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
Bwindi, Ziwa, Jinja: three things Uganda alone can sell you.
Savannah and sundowners are on offer right across East Africa. A mountain gorilla, a rhino tracked on foot, and the exact spot the Nile begins are not.
Bwindi Impenetrable Forest
Around a thousand mountain gorillas are left alive, and roughly half of them live in this one forest along Uganda’s south-western edge. Eight people per family per day walk in, and the hour with them starts the moment the lead tracker says it does. Reaching them takes twenty minutes or most of a morning, and nobody can tell you which the night before.
- 13-Day Tour to Uganda – Gorilla Trekking Bwindi Forest★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 51 reviews
- 23 Days Bwindi Gorilla Trekking tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 22 reviews
- 33-Day Gorilla Trekking safari in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 17 reviews
Tracking Ziwa on Foot
Poaching had wiped rhino out of Uganda by the early eighties. Every one in the country now lives inside a fenced sanctuary on the Gulu road, descended from a handful of reintroduced animals, and you track them the way the rangers do: on foot, downwind, until you are near enough to hear them breathing. It is the standard stop on the drive north to Murchison.
- 13-Day Ultimate Big Five Safari – Murchison Falls & Rhinos★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 55 reviews
- 2Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 40 reviews
- 3Day Tour Of Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary and Wildlife Ranch – ZIWA RHINO TREKKING★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 10 reviews
The Source of the Nile at Jinja
The White Nile leaves Lake Victoria at Jinja and does not reach the Mediterranean for another four thousand miles. The water coming out is flat, cold and moving fast, which is why the rafting outfits set up here, and why the calmest way to meet it is face-up in an inner tube letting the current do the work.
- 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
The four Uganda bookings decided months before you land.
Most of a trip here can be arranged from a Kampala hotel lobby the night before. These four cannot. They run on daily caps, ranger rosters and a ferry timetable that has never once been moved for a tourist.
- 013 Days gorilla trekking Safari tour in UgandaEight permits per gorilla family per day, nationwide. Through the June-to-September window they go months ahead, and the one you buy has your name printed on it.
- 028-Day Murchison Falls, Chimp and Epic Gorilla Trekking SafariKibale sends out a morning tracking party and an afternoon one, each capped. The morning walk fills first, because the chimps are loudest before the heat arrives.
- 038-Day Murchison Falls, Chimp and Epic Gorilla Trekking SafariReaching the northern bank means the Paraa ferry, which runs to a printed timetable, and the launch to the foot of the falls leaves at a set hour each afternoon.
- 042 Days Safari To Queen Elizabeth National Park with CruiseThe Kazinga Channel launch goes out twice a day. The afternoon sailing is the one the elephant come down to the water for.
March to May in Uganda, and what still works in the mud.
Two rainy seasons, roughly March into May and again through October and November. Bwindi’s forest trails go heavy, the murram park tracks turn greasy, and every drive time you were quoted stops being true. The cities, the lake shore and the tarmac day trips do not notice.
By park, forest and city
By kind of day — forest, savannah, water or street
Entebbe, Ziwa, Murchison, Kibale, Queen Elizabeth, Bwindi — and the hours in between.
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