Uganda Safari Routes: Gorillas, Chimps and Plains
"How to combine Uganda's gorilla and chimp forests with the savanna, and in what order"
Uganda gives you three very different things: an hour with a gorilla family, a morning among chimps, and the open plains. How you combine them, and in what order, is most of the planning, and I run the forests first, the savanna after.
Uganda gives you three very different things in one trip: an hour with a gorilla family in the forest, a morning among chimps, and the open plains after. How you combine them, and in what order, is most of the decision. These are the three routes I build most, and the thinking behind each. Nights, costs and the best time to travel sit on the Uganda destination guide; this page is about the shape of the trip.
The Three Uganda Routes I Build Most, Forest to Plains
If you’re weighing what to combine with gorilla trekking in Uganda, this is where I begin. Each route starts in the forest and ends on the plains, for a reason I’ll come to. Pick the one that matches how much time you have and how much ground you want to cover.
Gorillas and Chimps: Bwindi and Kibale Forests
Gorilla and chimpanzee trekking in one trip is the core of any Uganda visit, and for some guests it’s the whole trip. Bwindi holds the mountain gorillas, in steep, wet forest in the far southwest. Kibale holds one of the strongest chimpanzee populations in East Africa, in gentler terrain a few hours north. Two forests, two very different mornings.
The gorilla hour is the one you will have pictured. Finding the family can take anything from under an hour to four; then you have your hour with them and walk out. The chimps are quicker to reach and louder to find. The Bigodi wetland walk beside Kibale is the slow half of the day: birds, monkeys, a walk on the flat. I send you the real detail on each trek well before you travel, so the fitness question is answered before you commit.
Forest and Plains: Add Queen Elizabeth or Murchison
The route I build most. You do both forest treks first, while your legs are fresh, and then drop onto the plains for the back half of the trip. After two forest treks and a gorilla hour that takes it out of you, the plains are the right way to wind down: open country, a boat, and game you watch from a seat.
Queen Elizabeth National Park is the natural pairing for the gorilla trekking: close to Bwindi, with the hippo-lined Kazinga Channel by boat and the tree-climbing lions of the Ishasha sector. Murchison is the alternative, further north, built around the Nile forced through a narrow gorge and strong elephant and buffalo country on the plains beyond. One savanna park, chosen to suit the trip, not both.
The hour with the gorillas is the one everyone books for. The days on either side are the ones people come home talking about.
The Full Uganda Arc: Both Treks and Both Parks
The complete picture, when you have the time for it. Both forest treks, then both savanna parks: Queen Elizabeth for the Kazinga Channel and the Ishasha lions, Murchison for the Nile and the northern plains. It’s the fullest Uganda I run, a 10-day Uganda safari itinerary that still holds to the same order, forests first, plains after.
This is not a route to rush. Nine or ten nights lets each place breathe, with the drives between them kept comfortable and a slower day or two built in rather than bolted on. A quiet closer at Lake Mburo, or an adventure day at Jinja on the Nile, can round it off before you fly home from Entebbe.
A Guide to Uganda's Key Safari Areas, Forest and Plains
Four areas carry these routes, with a couple of quiet closers. Nights and costs sit on the destination guide; here is what each one is for.
Bwindi Impenetrable Forest: Mountain Gorillas
Steep, dense, often wet forest in the far southwest, and home to about half the world’s mountain gorillas. Treks set out from four sectors and range from a gentle hour to a hard four, depending on where the family has moved overnight. Your hour with them is fixed and close.
Kibale Forest: Chimpanzees and the Bigodi Walk
Tall, green forest with one of the strongest chimpanzee populations in East Africa, and easier ground than Bwindi. Tracking is a morning affair, and the noise usually finds you before you find them. The Bigodi wetland walk alongside the forest adds birds, monkeys and a slower pace to the afternoon.
Queen Elizabeth: the Kazinga Channel and Ishasha
Uganda’s most-visited savanna park, and the easiest plains to reach from Bwindi. The Kazinga Channel is lined with hippo and buffalo, and best seen from the water. In the southern Ishasha sector, lions rest up in the fig trees, which is as odd to watch as it sounds.
Murchison Falls: the Nile and the Northern Plains
The country’s largest park, split by the Nile as it is forced through a gorge barely seven metres wide and thrown out below. A launch runs up to the base of the falls; the northern plains beyond hold strong elephant, buffalo, lion and giraffe. It is a longer haul north, and the scale is the reward.
Lake Mburo and Jinja: the Quieter Closing Legs
Two ways to end. Lake Mburo is small and walkable, home to zebra, impala and eland, with no big cats to keep you in the vehicle: an easy last night before the drive to Entebbe. Jinja, at the source of the Nile, is the opposite: white water, a bungee, and a faster pulse if you want one.
Treks First, Plains After: How I Pace a Uganda Trip
There is a reason all three routes run forests first, plains after, and it is not the map. The gorilla and chimp treks are the demanding part of a Uganda trip. You want them done while your legs are fresh and the trip is young, not tacked on at the end when you are tired. The savanna is the easy part: long drives, a boat on the Kazinga, and an afternoon that asks nothing of you.
Before you travel, I send you the honest detail on each trek: the terrain, the range of walking times, what the altitude and the mud actually feel like. Uganda’s wildlife authority sets a minimum age for both treks, and porters are there for anyone who wants a hand and the weight off their back. The point is that you decide whether the trek is for you with the real facts in front of you, not a brochure’s version, well before you are standing at the trailhead. The permit and age detail sits on the destination guide.
I also keep the driving humane. The distances across western Uganda are shorter than the map suggests, and where a drive does run long I break it, or build a slower day around it, rather than pretending it isn’t there.
Private or Lodge-Based: How a Uganda Trip Is Guided
A Uganda trip runs one of two ways, and neither is the lesser choice. On a lodge-based safari, the camps’ own guides lead the game drives and the boat cruises. Uganda’s guides are experienced, and the saving over private guiding often buys you an extra night or a better lodge, which is not nothing.
On a privately guided trip, I host and guide you throughout. On the forest treks I am alongside you, with the park’s own trekking guides leading the trail itself, as the rules require. On the plains I guide from the vehicle, with a local driver at the wheel who knows the ground, so my attention is on you and on the sighting rather than the road.
One thing holds either way. Sightings are never guaranteed, and I would not want to guide anywhere they were. What I can tell you is that they’re worked for. I don’t push a vehicle onto an animal for a closer frame, and Uganda’s parks are quieter to begin with than the big northern circuits. You are far more likely to have a sighting to yourselves here.
Beyond Uganda: Adding the Classic East African Plains
Uganda sits next to the classic East African plains, and they join on well, with one thing I’m careful about.
Kenya or Tanzania: the Plains, Away From the Crowds
I’ll build Kenya or Tanzania onto a trip when it suits you, and I do it carefully. The Mara and the Serengeti are extraordinary, and they can also be crowded, a dozen vehicles on a single cat, which is the opposite of how I like to guide. So where I add them, I plan around the pressure: the private conservancies that cap vehicle numbers, and the seasons and hours that thin the crowd. If it can’t be worked around to a standard I’m happy with, I’ll tell you plainly rather than sell you the busy version.
Guests on safari with Moriti
Frequently Asked Questions
A few questions come up more than any others when guests are shaping a Uganda trip. These are the three I answer most, with the short version of what I’d tell you on a call.
For a first visit, the forest-and-one-park route is the one I build most: both treks and a single savanna park, over seven or eight nights. It gives you gorillas, chimps and the plains without a punishing amount of moving. The full arc suits a longer trip, or a second visit.
No. Plenty of guests come for the gorillas alone and skip Kibale, and plenty do both because the chimps are a different morning altogether, not a lesser version of the same one. Bwindi sits in the far southwest; adding Kibale costs you two nights and one more forest walk.
Queen Elizabeth pairs most easily with the forests: it is close to Bwindi, and the Kazinga boat and the Ishasha tree-lions give you two very different afternoons. Murchison means a longer haul north, and earns it with the Nile through the gorge and stronger big-game plains. On a first trip I usually point to Queen Elizabeth.
Occasional notes from the field. Thoughts on planning, places I’m spending time in, and changes that actually matter when you’re thinking about a safari. I send it when there’s something worth saying.