Kampala to Gulu

Your driver-guide collects you from your Kampala hotel early in the morning and drives north on the Gulu highway. The hills around Kampala give way to flat farmland and wetlands. You cross the Victoria Nile and enter the Acholi region, where the land is wide and open and the red laterite soil deepens in colour. Your guide makes refreshment and photo stops along the way.

You reach Gulu, northern Uganda's largest city, in the early evening and check in to your midrange lodge. Over dinner your guide briefs you on tomorrow's 4 to 5 hour drive to Kidepo.

• Early pick-up from your Kampala hotel
• Refreshment and photo stops on the way north
• Dinner and briefing in Gulu

Gulu to Kidepo Valley National Park

You leave Gulu early and drive northeast into the semi-arid Karamoja region. The land gets drier and more open, with acacia scrub giving way to rocky outcrops and wide plains. Kidepo Valley National Park sits near the South Sudan and Kenya borders, and its remoteness has kept its wildlife and atmosphere intact.

You enter at the Apoka gate and check in to your lodge, then go straight out on an afternoon game drive across the Narus Valley, the heart of the park's wildlife activity. Elephants, Rothschild's giraffe, Cape buffalo and Uganda kob are commonly seen in the first hour, against a backdrop of granite kopjes and flat-topped acacias. You finish with sunset photography across the valley, then dinner at the lodge.

• Drive from Gulu into Karamoja
• Afternoon game drive in the Narus Valley
• Sunset photography, then dinner at the lodge

Full Day of Game Viewing in Kidepo

You start before dawn for a game drive across the Narus Valley. Lions are most active in the cool morning hours, leopards can be seen along the rocky outcrops and riverbeds, and cheetah are sometimes spotted on the open plains. The drive covers varied habitat: the open Narus floodplain, the denser riverine forest of the Kidepo Valley in the north (reachable in the dry season, when the riverbed is dry), and rocky hillsides where klipspringer, bushbuck and reedbuck pick their way over the boulders.

Lunch is a picnic at a scenic spot with views across the valley. You rest at the lodge through the hottest hours. In the afternoon you can join a guided birdwatching session with a local guide. Kidepo has 475 recorded bird species, including ostrich, secretary bird, Abyssinian roller, black-breasted barbet and Karamoja apalis. The evening game drive in the last light is often when the lions appear.

• Dawn game drive across the Narus Valley
• Picnic lunch, then rest at the lodge
• Optional guided birdwatching and an evening game drive

Karamojong Manyatta Cultural Visit

A morning game drive catches the day's first wildlife activity. Then you visit a traditional Karamojong manyatta, or homestead, arranged through a community liaison so the visit is respectful and benefits the hosts.

The Karamojong are one of East Africa's last largely traditional pastoral peoples. Their culture is built around cattle, which serve as currency, status, spiritual offering and food. Expect to see the women's layered beadwork and ochre body adornment, and the warriors' distinctive dress and ceremonial spears. Your community guide explains how the manyatta is organised, demonstrates fire-making and describes what the beadwork colours and patterns mean. You can join a craft-making or archery activity. Every fee paid for the visit goes into a community fund.

In the afternoon you can buy handmade beadwork, calabash carvings and woven items from community artisans. The day ends with a sunset game drive and dinner at the lodge.

• Morning game drive
• Guided visit to a Karamojong manyatta, with crafts or archery
• Sunset game drive and dinner

Kidepo to Kampala

The last morning starts before sunrise with an optional dawn game drive. The light over the Narus Valley in the first minutes of the day is among the best of the trip, and it is a last chance to look for lions, cheetah and birds.

After breakfast and check-out, you drive southwest through Karamoja and the Acholi plains back to Kampala. The drive takes about 10 to 12 hours with comfort stops, and lunch is in Gulu. Your guide drops you at your Kampala hotel or Entebbe International Airport in the early evening. If you would rather skip the long drive, the optional flight cuts it to about 1.5 hours each way (see Before You Book).

• Optional dawn game drive
• Return drive southwest, with lunch in Gulu
• Drop-off at your Kampala hotel or Entebbe airport