This eleven-night route runs west across Uganda in four stays. A first night near Entebbe on Lake Victoria opens the trip, then Kibale Forest brings chimpanzee tracking among thirteen primate species. Queen Elizabeth National Park follows with savanna plains, the Kazinga Channel and the forested Kyambura Gorge, before Mgahinga Gorilla National Park at the foot of the Virunga Volcanoes closes the route.
You travel overland between the regions, mornings given to tracking on foot and afternoons to game drives, boat trips or the crater lakes around Kibale. The three park lodges are hand-built and small, each with eight bandas and a personal butler; the opening night sits at a golf and spa resort on the lakeshore, twenty minutes from the airport.
You begin near Entebbe International Airport, roughly twenty minutes away, with a night on the shores of Lake Victoria before the drive west. The papyrus groves and wetland margins here draw a wide range of birdlife, from grey crowned cranes and marabou storks to egrets, kingfishers and herons, while African fish eagles hunt over the open water. Lake Victoria Serena Golf Resort & Spa steps down a terraced hillside to a marina, with an eighteen-hole course laid out along the water and Mediterranean-style villas under terracotta roofs.
The drive west brings you to Kibale Forest, called Uganda's primate capital, where more than 1,500 chimpanzees and thirteen primate species move through moist evergreen rainforest. Treks set out each morning to find the habituated families, while a longer habituation experience places you alongside the researchers who study them. Afternoons can take in the Ndali-Kasenda crater lakes or the Bigodi wetland. Kibale Lodge holds a ridge at some 1,430 metres about thirty minutes from where trekking begins, its eight hand-built bandas looking towards the Rwenzori Mountains, with a personal butler for every guest.
From Kibale you continue south to Queen Elizabeth National Park, which straddles the equator between Lake Edward and Lake George. The chimpanzee trek begins at the lodge itself, on a private footpath down the Fig Tree Trail into Kyambura Gorge, where Uganda Wildlife Authority guides track the isolated community on foot. Game drives cross the Kasenyi plains for general game and lions, and into the Ishasha sector where lions rest in the branches of fig trees, while boat trips run on the Kazinga Channel. Kyambura Gorge Lodge stands on the escarpment edge, its eight bandas climbing the hillside on stilts, each named after a chimpanzee from the gorge.
Continuing to Mgahinga Gorilla National Park, the smaller and quieter of Uganda's two gorilla parks, you track the Nyakagezi family, the single habituated gorilla group here, along with golden monkeys that move through the bamboo. Three volcanoes, Sabinyo, Gahinga and Muhavura, give the park its skyline, and with just one gorilla family and far fewer trackers than Bwindi, the forest feels unhurried. Mount Gahinga Lodge sits a short walk from the park gate, its eight circular bandas hand-built from local volcanic stone under papyrus-thatch roofs, each with a fireplace and a private veranda.
Ed Charles, BBC Producer
Fitzroy are true specialists in accessing the wilderness. They know where to go and importantly, when to go there. Highly recommended.
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uganda & rwanda
From Kigali across Uganda's highland lakes to gorillas at Mgahinga, savannah game and the chimpanzees of Kibale Forest.
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uganda
Eleven nights from Kigali across the Kigezi highlands to gorilla treks at Mgahinga, Nkuringo and Bwindi, with two walking legs.
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uganda
Nine nights across western Uganda, tracking chimpanzees at Kibale and mountain gorillas at Bwindi and Mgahinga.
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Every journey starts with a conversation. We take the time to understand your vision before we start planning.
Whether by phone or in person, we work with you directly to shape something that is considered, personal, and expertly delivered.
Every journey starts with a conversation. We favour a direct, personal approach: understanding your vision before anything else.
Whether by phone or in person, we work with you directly to shape a journey that is both thoughtfully considered and expertly delivered.
Get in touch to start planning yours.
