Arrival in Entebbe & Kampala Orientation

Your driver-guide meets you at Entebbe International Airport and drives you along the shore of Lake Victoria to Kampala, about 45 minutes away. Depending on your arrival time, the afternoon is a relaxed city orientation. Options include the Gaddafi National Mosque on Old Kampala Hill, views over the city from Kololo Hill, and the Uganda Crafts 2000 cooperative, where artisans make bark cloth, beadwork and carvings. If time allows, you can also visit the Kasubi Tombs, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the burial ground of the Buganda kings.

Over a welcome dinner, your guide walks you through the 14 days: permits, packing for each terrain, border logistics and what to expect. Go to bed early, because tomorrow's drive to Lake Mburo starts at 7:00 am.

• Airport pick-up and transfer to Kampala
• Afternoon city orientation, depending on arrival time
• Welcome dinner and itinerary briefing

Kampala to Lake Mburo National Park

You leave Kampala at 7:00 am and drive southwest on the Masaka highway, past banana plantations and the rolling plains of central Uganda. At the Equator monument near Kayabwe you can take photos on the line between the northern and southern hemispheres and see a local demonstration of water draining on each side. Further on, the road passes through Ankole cattle country, where Banyankole herders graze their long-horned cattle along the roadsides.

You reach Lake Mburo National Park, Uganda's smallest savannah park, in the early afternoon and check in at your lodge. Then you go straight out on a game drive across the open, acacia-dotted plains. Lake Mburo is known for its zebras, and you can expect to see Burchell's zebra, impala, topi, eland and warthog.

• Morning drive southwest from Kampala
• Equator monument stop at Kayabwe
• Afternoon game drive in Lake Mburo

Lake Mburo: Game Drive, Boat Cruise & Bush Walk

The dawn game drive covers the Warukiri and Rwonyo tracks, the park's most productive routes for zebra, impala, eland and buffalo. After breakfast at the lodge you take a boat cruise on Lake Mburo. Hippo pods surface beside the boat, Nile crocodiles bask on the mud banks, and fish eagles call from the lakeshore trees. Herons, kingfishers and open-billed storks work the shallows.

In the afternoon you go on a guided bush walk with an armed ranger. On foot you track impala and zebra through the low acacia scrub, reading spoor and droppings. Reedbuck, oribi and bushbuck are often seen on foot in the evening light.

• Dawn game drive on the Warukiri and Rwonyo tracks
• Boat cruise on Lake Mburo
• Afternoon bush walk with an armed ranger

Lake Mburo to Queen Elizabeth National Park

After breakfast and check-out you drive west through Mbarara, the commercial heart of the Ankole region, then northwest through tea and eucalyptus highlands. The road then drops into the Albertine Rift Valley. Queen Elizabeth National Park opens out below you, with Lake George to the east, the Rwenzori Mountains on the western horizon, and the volcanic craters of the Bunyaruguru field dotting the landscape.

You check in at your lodge on the Mweya Peninsula, a headland between Lake Edward and the Kazinga Channel where hippos wade below the terrace. Then you go on an afternoon game drive across the Kasenyi plains. These open grasslands are the park's best area for lion prides and large elephant groups, with buffalo herds in the hundreds.

• Drive via Mbarara into the Rift Valley
• Check-in on the Mweya Peninsula
• Afternoon game drive on the Kasenyi plains

Kazinga Channel Cruise & Ishasha Tree-Climbing Lions

A sunrise game drive on the Kasenyi plains is the best time for predator activity. After a hot breakfast you board the launch for the two-hour cruise on the Kazinga Channel, a 40-kilometre waterway with one of the highest concentrations of hippos in the world. Hippos barely make way as the boat idles past, and large Nile crocodiles lie on the banks. Elephants and buffalo wade at the margins. Great white pelicans, African skimmers, pied kingfishers, fish eagles and goliath herons work the shallows.

After a packed lunch you drive south to the Ishasha sector, a different landscape of fig trees and open grass plains along the Ishasha River, which forms the border with the DRC. You spend two to three hours searching the big fig trees for Queen Elizabeth's tree-climbing lions, a rare behaviour seen in very few places in Africa. You overnight in the Ishasha area.

• Sunrise game drive on the Kasenyi plains
• Two-hour Kazinga Channel boat cruise
• Afternoon search for tree-climbing lions in Ishasha

Ishasha to Bwindi Impenetrable Forest

You can start with an optional pass through the Ishasha fig trees at dawn, for one more chance to see the tree-climbing lions before breakfast. Then the drive east climbs from the flat rift valley floor into the Kigezi highlands, where Bakiga farmers have terraced every hillside. At the forest boundary the farmland stops abruptly and Bwindi's ancient rainforest begins. Bwindi shelters roughly half of the world's mountain gorillas.

You reach your forest-edge lodge in the early afternoon. After lunch, a thorough briefing covers tomorrow's trek: the 7-metre rule, etiquette, what to wear, how to move in the forest and the physical demands.

• Optional dawn lion search in Ishasha
• Drive to Bwindi through the Kigezi highlands
• Gorilla trekking briefing at the lodge

Gorilla Trekking in Bwindi

After an early breakfast and a final kit check, you go to the Uganda Wildlife Authority headquarters. Rangers brief you and assign each visitor to one of Bwindi's habituated gorilla families. You can hire a local porter, which is strongly recommended on the steep terrain, and porters are included in your price. The trek goes through montane rainforest on narrow trails, over streams and up muddy slopes. The lead ranger stays in radio contact with trackers who have been following the family since before sunrise.

The trek can take from 45 minutes to a full day, depending on where the family has moved. When you find the gorillas, you spend one hour with them, watching a mother nurse an infant, juveniles wrestling and the silverback resting nearby. Each trekker receives an official Uganda Wildlife Authority trekking certificate.

In the afternoon you can join the optional Batwa Cultural Trail, led by members of the indigenous forest community. They show fire-making, medicinal plants and their long relationship with the forest and the gorillas.

• Ranger briefing and gorilla family assignment
• Trek of 45 minutes to a full day, then 1 hour with the gorillas
• Optional Batwa Cultural Trail in the afternoon

Bakiga Village Visit & Drive to Kibale Forest

The morning starts with a guided visit to a nearby Bakiga village. Women demonstrate traditional basket weaving with papyrus reeds and natural dyes, you watch the energetic Ekizino dance, and you can buy baskets and beadwork directly from the makers. All proceeds stay in the community.

After lunch at the lodge you drive north towards Kibale. Near Fort Portal you stop at the Nyinambuga viewpoint, which looks over a dozen round crater lakes in the tea-estate highlands. You reach your lodge near Kibale Forest in the late afternoon. A short guided walk along the forest edge introduces you to red-tailed monkeys and black-and-white colobus. At dinner your guide briefs you on tomorrow's chimpanzee tracking.

• Bakiga village visit, with weaving and dance
• Drive north via the Fort Portal crater lakes
• Evening forest-edge walk and chimpanzee briefing

Chimpanzee Tracking in Kibale Forest

After an early breakfast you go to the Kanyanchu Visitor Centre for the 7:30 am ranger briefing. Groups are capped at eight visitors per habituated community, and trackers have already found the community's overnight position. You trek through lowland rainforest, which has 13 primate species and more than 1,500 chimpanzees, and spend up to one hour with the Kanyanchu chimpanzees.

The experience is very different from gorilla trekking. Chimpanzees are fast, loud and constantly on the move, racing through the canopy and dropping to the forest floor close to you. Their screams, pant-hoots and tree-drumming can be heard from far away. After a packed lunch at the forest edge, you spend the afternoon at the community-run Bigodi Wetland Sanctuary. A guided walk through the papyrus swamp is excellent for birds and often shows grey-cheeked mangabeys and L'Hoest's monkeys.

• Ranger briefing at Kanyanchu
• Chimpanzee tracking, up to 1 hour with the group
• Afternoon walk in the Bigodi Wetland Sanctuary

Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary & Drive to Murchison Falls

This is the longest drive of the trip. After an early breakfast you drive northeast through Fort Portal and onto the main northern highway. About halfway, you stop at Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary, Uganda's only white rhino reintroduction site. A guided walk takes you close to the sanctuary's southern white rhinos. They are used to walking visitors, and sightings are very reliable.

After a packed lunch at the sanctuary you continue north into Murchison Falls National Park. You cross the Victoria Nile on the ferry at Paraa, with hippos surfacing alongside, and reach your lodge on the northern bank at dusk.

• Drive from Kibale towards Murchison Falls
• Guided walk with white rhinos at Ziwa
• Paraa ferry crossing of the Victoria Nile

Murchison Falls: Nile Cruise, Falls Hike & Game Drives

A game drive at dawn on the Buligi circuit crosses open savannah with large herds of Uganda kob, Jackson's hartebeest, Rothschild's giraffe and buffalo. Lions, spotted hyena and leopard sometimes work the grassland edges. After breakfast on the Nile terrace you board the launch for the three-hour upstream cruise to the base of Murchison Falls. On the way you pass many crocodiles, hippo pods, wading elephants and a steady stream of waterbirds.

You disembark near the falls, where the whole Victoria Nile is forced through a rock gap about seven metres wide. A steep 45-minute trail leads to a viewpoint at the top of the falls, with rainbows in the spray below. An afternoon game drive completes the day.

• Dawn game drive on the Buligi circuit
• Three-hour upstream cruise to the falls
• 45-minute hike to the top of the falls, then an afternoon drive

Murchison Falls to Kampala and Kigali

A last game drive before breakfast gives you one more hour on the Buligi plains, with giraffes and buffalo moving to water in the early light. After breakfast, check-out and the Nile ferry, you drive south through Masindi and central Uganda to Kampala. At lunch your guide gives you time to browse Nakasero market, have coffee at a local roastery, or visit the Uganda Museum.

Depending on routing, you continue by road to the Uganda-Rwanda border, or take an evening flight from Entebbe to Kigali. Your guide advises on the best option for your confirmed flight times. You arrive in Kigali in the early evening for check-in and a light dinner.

• Final dawn game drive
• Drive south to Kampala, with lunch and free time
• Onward to Kigali by road or by flight from Entebbe

Kigali: A Full Cultural Day

The day starts at the Kigali Genocide Memorial, the burial site of more than 250,000 victims of the 1994 genocide. It documents the country's history honestly and gives essential context for Rwanda's transformation since then. Allow at least 90 minutes.

A guided walk through Nyamirambo follows. It is Kigali's oldest neighbourhood, a mostly Muslim quarter with tailors' workshops, rooftop tea houses and lively street food. After a Rwandan lunch you visit the Inema Arts Centre, a contemporary art gallery showing paintings and sculpture by Rwandan artists. The last stop is Kimironko Market, Kigali's largest open-air market, for imigongo geometric art panels and agaseke peace baskets. Tomorrow's gorilla briefing is at 7:00 am, so you will leave Kigali at 4:45 am.

• Kigali Genocide Memorial
• Guided walk through Nyamirambo
• Inema Arts Centre and Kimironko Market

Gorilla Trekking in Volcanoes National Park & Departure

You leave Kigali at 4:45 am and drive northwest to Musanze. At the Rwanda Development Board briefing at Kinigi, at 7:00 am, rangers confirm permits, assign gorilla families and hand out trekking poles. You then climb through farmland into bamboo forest and misty woodland on the upper slopes of the Virunga volcanoes, with giant lobelias, old lava flows and volcanic mist.

Treks in Volcanoes National Park are often shorter than in Bwindi, and many groups reach their family within two to three hours, though the steep ground can still be demanding. You spend one hour with a habituated family, your second gorilla encounter of the trip. Each trekker receives a Rwanda Development Board certificate. After lunch near Musanze you drive about two hours to Kigali International Airport, where the safari ends.

• 4:45 am departure and 7:00 am briefing at Kinigi
• Gorilla trek, then 1 hour with a habituated family
• Lunch in Musanze and transfer to Kigali airport