Before I traveled to Uganda for safari, I knew you could trek to see chimpanzees and gorillas, and that’s it. After visiting, I discovered much more about this land-locked country, including hassle-free tips. It is known as “The Pearl of Africa” because you can see everything Africa has to offer in this one country: volcanic hills, savannahs with herds of animals in National Parks, lakes including Lake Victoria, the world’s largest freshwater lake, forests with chimpanzees, gorillas, and other monkeys, mountains, and lowlands. There are also significant natural resources and fertile land where tea, papyrus, and banana trees are grown, to name a few. Ugandan people are some of the most welcoming and enjoy teaching you about the country.
Here are some insider Uganda safari tips I’ve learned from my trip that can make your next adventure in this beautiful country more enjoyable and hassle-free.
Before the Journey
Embarking on a safari in Uganda requires careful planning and preparation. It’s essential to ensure you have all the necessary items, as your tour schedule may not allow for impromptu shopping for everyday items or safari gear. This meticulous planning will make your journey smoother and enhance your overall experience and is guaranteed to be hassle-free.
Here are some essentials to pack and do before you leave:
- Hair conditioner (We stayed in 6 different lodges, and only one had it)
- Downy wrinkle release (none of my hotels had an iron)
- Masks or a bandana that you can use as a mask. (The road kicked up a lot of dust, and breathing it in on our first tour caused allergies and asthma symptoms in my sister and me. We wore them in Tanzania on safari, a trip we took after Uganda, which significantly helped.)
- Pack wet wipes, but you can buy toilet paper while you are there and support the locals. (Some of the toilets along the ride to our lodges were nothing but a hole in the floor.)
- Bring comfortable, worn-in, waterproof, or water-resistant hiking boots. (We bought ours close to our trip and paid the price. We ended up purchasing a 1/2 size too large, and on the gorilla and chimpanzee trekking, the steep terrain caused my feet to slide to the front of the boot and hurt my toes)
- Some tour companies may want you to bring soft-sided luggage, especially if you have 4-6 people in your group. (your luggage travels with you to each lodge and has to fit in the safari jeep)
- Only bring tan, khaki, brown, white, or green clothing. If you have animal print, that’s okay if it’s not black, blue, or bright colors. (The Tsetse Fly is attracted to black or blue clothing, and you are likelier to get bit.)
- Bug spray is not necessary to bring, and it is known to attract wasps on our gorilla trek. (A few of the lodges had a can in the room.)
- Buy a safari hat, preferably one with ventilation and a tie that holds the hat on. (When the top lifts up on the safari truck, the sun can beat down on you, and it gets incredibly windy.)
- Malaria Medications: This is a personal preference between you and your Doctor, but if you decide to take them, ask your Doctor for the one you take once a week. It reduces the chance of getting an upset stomach. I took that kind of and did not react to it.
- Buy Pepto Bismal. My Doctor recommended taking one tablet (or chewable) every morning before your first meal. Pepto contains an ingredient that reacts with the harmful bacteria in your gut and helps prevent food reactions, such as food poisoning. I also did this, and thank goodness I had no food poisoning.
- Americans need a Visa and a Yellow fever vaccine to enter Uganda. Apply at least one to two months in advance to ensure you have enough time. We had to resubmit our visa three times to correct the photo size on our passport photo. Get the Yellow fever vaccine at least one month before you leave. **TIP** If you book a round trip out of Uganda home but decide to head to Tanzania (like we did) and book a round trip so you can return to Uganda and fly home, YOU NEED ANOTHER VISA! Once you leave Uganda, your original visa will be null and void. You must purchase an additional visa for $50 to walk through customs and through a door that takes you to the airport entrance. It’s best to buy this before you leave.
- Get plenty of sleep – I know it’s vacation, and you may want to party most of the night, but many days start with early mornings. You will arrive in Kampala before you head out to the lodges. It’s a 6-7 hour drive to your first safari lodge, so you can nap then, but think of all you will miss. Some of my fondest memories are of the landscapes of papyrus and banana tree fields, how green everything was, the children waving to us, and the animals.
- Wear comfortable clothes and dress in layers. The mornings are cooler; then it warms up during the day as the sun is overhead.
- Avoid water from the faucet (the lodges left safe water in our room to drink and brush your teeth with). Showering with your back to the water is also an excellent way to avoid ingesting. I avoided ice, cut-up fruit, fruit you couldn’t peel (I did have freshly squeezed juice), salads, dairy (milk and yogurt), and anything the restaurant staff could have washed. Also, be wary of the water for tea or coffee. The day my sister had two cups of tea, she did have some stomach problems.
What Not To Miss
1.Kibale National Park
On our safari drive, the landscape changed from towns and villages with a smoky burning smell to dense green hilly forests with very windy roads. At times, I didn’t think another vehicle could pass us coming the other way. It was beautiful, smelled of flowers, and was so fresh. Orange blossom came to mind. We were lucky to spot a black colobus monkey with a baby with their long tails hanging below the branch on the drive into the park. We stayed at Papaya Lodge for the night before starting the next day in Kibale National Park, trekking to experience the chimpanzees and other monkey species in the wild.
The area is a mixture of hills and flat land, so be prepared to hike both. Most YouTube videos showed people hiking on flat land or even wooden paths. The trackers relay back to the rangers where the chimps are, and basically, this determines where you will start your hike; sometimes, you have to jog a little to keep up with the chimps in the trees. My hike was up and down three very steep hills before we found the chimps high up in a tree. We were lucky to see one of them come down to the ground.
The best part of the trip to Kibale was back at the ranger station. My sister and I were waiting for the washroom, and a whole family of baboons came out of the forest, walking toward us before running into the forest again. There must have been at least 20 babies and adults. It was sensational.
2. Queen Elizabeth National Park
We crossed the Equator on our way, and when we arrived at Queen Elizabeth National Park, it was what I envisioned Africa to look like. Instead of dense forest, it was vast savannah land with tall grasses, sparse acacia trees, and surprisingly still smelt of flowers. There was also a noticeable difference in the air temperature. It was humid and cool in Kibale, but as we entered Queen Elizabeth Park, it was hot and dry.
Some great things about the drives to the new lodges are that they are hassle-free because you aren’t driving, and you could always be actively looking for animals. Just so you know, because of this, you may be in the safari car longer than the scheduled time. If a lion is near the road, you will not pass it by, right? The drives are part of the experience; you never know what you might find. This park did not disappoint. We saw elephants, waterbucks, a leopard, buffalos, giraffes, a lion in the park, and at least 50 hippos on our Kazinga Channel boat cruise. We stayed at Mweya Lodge—our home for the next two nights. Warthogs grazing on the grass greeted us, and we awoke to mongoose-eating bugs dead on the ground from the night before.
3. Bwindi Impenetrable Forest
Leaving Queen Elizabeth National Park, we again passed through towns and villages, but this time, we also passed beautiful fields of papyrus and tea as we started to gain altitude up the mountains to Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. Eucalyptus trees lined the drop-off side of the hill with their long trunks, making for a breathtaking drive. The forest on the hillside got even thicker as we climbed. We were here to trek into this impenetrable forest to see mountain gorillas. Now, the videos of people trekking here do not show you the reality of what you will see. This experience was like nothing I had prepared myself for.
My sister and I did not think we could handle this trek and opted to pay for the porters to carry us in what they called the Ugandan helicopter. For $300 US each, 15 porters will take you in a car seat welded onto metal poles. The chairs have a makeshift seatbelt attached. Although 15 porters guide you in, only six carry you at once. Occasionally, they switched, with one man keeping notes of who took their turn. I suspect he was the foreman or boss. I was hoping it would be hassle-free. It was far from that.
Two men were in the front, one on either side of me in the center and two behind. The front and back poles rest on the porter’s shoulders. Some made impromptu shoulder pads of moss; others had sweatshirts to reduce the pressure. I thought that all 15 porters would be carrying the chair at once. As a plus-size woman, I was worried I would be too much for them.
Nothing prepared me for what it was like being carried in this IMPENETRABLE forest. The terrain was flat 10% of the time. The porters were climbing over thick fallen vines and fallen logs, hacking through shrubs and other plants with loose dirt under their feet. Subsequently causing my chair to lean into that incline. At one point, the porters on my left side slipped, and I fell out of my chair.
We came to an area where we had to go down a very steep incline, the kind that you think one step and roll head over foot down. Not surprisingly, my brain was screaming, hell no! The obvious choice was to get out of the chair and walk it with porters holding onto me. I wasn’t going to stop. I was going to see a wild gorilla. We slid down most of it, then traversed a very narrow pathway. Getting stuck in the fallen vines, I would’ve fallen several times if not for the excellent porters. We came to an area where we had to go steeply down again. I nearly cried and asked how long, knowing the ranger could not tell me. We were at the mercy of the gorillas.
I was ready to give up when the ranger told me to look to my right. Slowly walking out of the forest into view was my first sighting of a mountain gorilla. I turned around to see my sister Delia arriving and crying happy tears. Relief and disbelief came over me, then amazement because one by one, the family of gorillas walked out of the forest and in front and behind us.
Then the rest of our tour group appeared, and we all sat on the hill with seven to eight gorillas, including two silverbacks and babies, lying in front of us. They played and went about their daily lives as we all watched. The silverback sat close to me, and a baby grabbed Emily, our host’s boot. The hell that was the three or four-hour hike instantly melted away as I looked into a young gorilla’s beautiful brown eyes.
You need to wear a mask to protect the gorillas from disease during the entire hour’s stay. The gorillas should never be touched, antagonized, or even mimicked in any way. Respect these beautiful gorillas; you’re in their home. It’s a trek that you need to decide for yourself. Even after this challenging trek, I highly recommend it. We ended our night at the Birdnest Resort.
4. Lake Mburo National Park
We saw picture-perfect manicured hill fields on our next game drive to Lake Mburo National Park. The landscape was a mixture of savannah lands, farms, and forests. Here, we saw Ugandan people with herds of Ankole cattle and goats. They move them from field to field, ensuring enough food and water. These cows have extremely long horns. Some cows have such long horns that it makes you wonder how they can hold their heads up. We also saw herds of zebra and impala. In case you were wondering, I learned that zebra are white with black stripes.
We stayed at one of the most beautiful lodges, Kigambira Safari Lodge. That night, Dee woke up to an animal sound. She woke me up; we looked outside and didn’t see anything. Back in bed, we heard the loudest roar from a hippo who turned out to be under our tent. We jumped up and went outside onto our raised deck just in time to see the hippo walking out from under our tent. It was a moment in time that I will never forget.
Leaving the lodge to go on our last safari before heading back to Kampala, we headed into the park. Today was our walking safari to see giraffes. We walked over to the watering hole with our AK47 holding ranger and were shocked and ecstatic to see a family of giraffes on the other side. It was unbelievable to be walking among them. Hippos were in the water, and behind us were herds of zebras and elands. We spent an hour with them as they played, fed, and drank water. It was awe-inspiring.
Fun Fact If you are a Twin like me: We learned that they treat you, your sibling, and your Mom as unique, like a blessing. We had so many people give us hugs and wishes of blessings in some way. It was unexpected and wonderful.
Conclusion
Embarking on a safari in Uganda is a journey into the heart of Africa’s untamed wilderness, where each moment offers the chance to witness nature at its most raw and breathtaking. Following these essential tips, from packing wisely, bringing the right gear, and respecting wildlife, you’ll be well-prepared to immerse yourself fully in this incredible adventure. Uganda’s National Parks and reserves are teeming with life. Proper preparation will make your safari memorable and respectful of the environment and the communities that call it home. Whether tracking gorillas in Bwindi or exploring the savannahs of Queen Elizabeth National Park, these tips will help you make the most of your Ugandan safari experience. Safe travels and happy exploring!
