10-Day Uganda Luxury Safari

Arriving at the airport you will be warmly welcomed by a representative of Empathy Tours, and transferred to your hotel in Kampala.

Optional Activities:

1. City Tour: Depending on the time of your arrival, explore the vibrant and chaotic city of Kampala. Discover historical and political sites including the ancient tombs of the Kabaka, where the Buganda tribe laid their kings to rest or the Bahai Temple, etc.

Emin Pasha Hotel (High end) is located in the heart of Kampala, close to the busy city centre and for instance the Uganda Museum. The hotel has a wonderful garden full of flowers, palm trees and of course a swimming pool. All rooms have different decorations; all in an African/colonial atmosphere and all luxury you need. The restaurant offers a mix of continental and Indian food. Its privacy and amenities make it a perfect base for each traveller.

Today after an early breakfast, your guide will come to your hotel to brief you about the safari and will transfer you to Fort portal, close to Kibale National park. The drive is incredibly scenic, passing through villages, lush green forests and hills dotted with tea plantations.

You will stay at a wonderful lodge, just outside Fort Portal town, with spacious rooms and amazing views over one of the crater lakes in this area.

Journey Time: 5 hours

Accommodation: Papaya Lake Lodge

Meal plan: All meals

Papaya Lake Lodge (High-end) is between Kibale Forest NP and Fort Portal town, and offers nine spacious cottages which are all situated on the extinct volcano crater’s slope and have breathtaking views of the Lyantonde Lake. Each of the cottages offers complete privacy, hidden from view by a green wall of sympathetic treetops. 

Today you will wake up early to go to the park head offices to be briefed about your chimp tracking experience. Kibale Forest National park boasts the highest number of primate species in the world, including chimpanzees.

An experienced ranger will take you chimp tracking chimp in the morning or afternoon; you might also see other monkey species that live here. Once you locate the chimpanzees you will have a full hour of eye-to-eye contact with them. Since they are wild animals, we can never guarantee you to see them and might have to settle with hearing their hoots and hollers.

In the afternoon after lunch, you will go for the guided community walk. The walk (2-3 hours) will take you through grassland, small communities and some beautiful scenery, where the locals are likely to greet you with enthusiastic waves. It is usual to spot three to four different primate species during this walk, though the highlight is catching a glimpse of the great blue turaco!

After breakfast, your guide will drive you to Queen Elizabeth National Park, home to a high concentration of Uganda’s mammals that include tree climbing and savanna lions, elephants, warthogs, Uganda kob, waterbuck, cape buffalo, hippos, leopards, as well as more than 600 species of birds that include the African spoonbill, pied kingfishers, fish eagles, pelicans, vultures.

After breakfast, we head out for a long game drive in time to see the first rays of light. You will search for all the wildlife in the park and are likely to come across elephants, Buffalo, Lion, Waterbuck, Leopard, Uganda Kob, and many Warthogs.

A well-deserved breakfast will be served back at the lodge in the late morning.

In the afternoon you will take a boat safari along the Kazinga Channel which joins Lake George and Lake Edward.

Here, you will see a lot of hippos (more than you can possibly imagine!), as well as a variety of other animals which come to the channel to drink or bathe. You can expect to see buffalo, crocodiles, bathing elephants, and a range of beautiful birds. This will undoubtedly be one of the highlights of your tour. 

After breakfast, you will be transferred to the southern part of Queen Elizabeth National Park, Ishasha sector which is famous for its tree-climbing lions. To escape from the heat during the day, the lions learned how to climb the fig trees. If you’re lucky you might spot a few during your afternoon game drive.

After the game drive, you will be taken to Ishasha Wilderness Camp, a very nice and luxurious lodge with wonderful views over the savanna and a river packed with hippos.

Today morning you will go for another game drive for a chance to see the tree-climbing lions. After lunch at Ishasha Wilderness Camp, you will be transferred to Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, home of the mountain gorillas.

You will stay in a very luxurious lodge with stunning views of Bwindi Forest

Buhoma Lodge (High end) commands spectacular and uninterrupted views of Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park.

The comfortable cottages have been carefully built, each with its own private veranda, allowing wonderful views of the forest canopy of the National Park. Inside the spacious cottages, you will find comfortable beds, a well-appointed en suite bathroom with a flushing toilet and a hot shower and also some rooms with bathtubs. An elevated lounge area, complete with bar and dining facilities, offers a cozy, comfortable environment, to discuss the day’s activities around the fireplaces which add atmosphere and warmth in the cool evenings. 

Today after early breakfast, you will be transferred to the park headquarters for a briefing about gorilla tracking. You will encounter one of the world's most iconic safari animals the mountain gorillas in their natural habitat. For most people, this is the absolute highlight of their tour in Uganda.

Bwindi Impenetrable national park boasts both mountain gorillas and chimpanzees - the only forest in Africa that can make this claim. It also hosts five other species of primates, 113 species of mammals, over 200 species of butterflies and 360 species of birds.

The time taken to track the gorillas can be as few as 2 hours to as many as 7 hours. Once the gorillas have been located, your group will be allowed a maximum of one hour with them. Coming face-to-face with a mountain gorilla is a truly humbling and emotional experience. This is a fantastic and privileged opportunity to get up close and personal with Uganda’s very own ‘Gorillas in the Mist’.

After breakfast, you will travel to Lake Mburo National Park, one of Uganda’s smallest parks, but certainly not to be underestimated. It is the only Ugandan national park (besides Kidepo Valley N.P.) which is home to zebras, elands and impalas, as well as to an abundance of other wildlife - not to mention the lake itself, which has lots of hippos and crocodiles. Last but not least: The Uganda Wildlife Authority recently brought 15 giraffes from Murchison falls to lake Mburo.

Today after breakfast, you will go for a guided bush walk. Lake Mburo N.P is one of the two parks in Uganda where bush walks with an experienced ranger are permitted. This opportunity should not be missed. From footprints and animal droppings the ranger will be able to tell you which animal has left it and how long ago. It is exciting to approach wildlife at such close range.

Note: Instead of going for the bush walk, you can go on a horseback riding safari in the park (US $100 p.p. extra for 2 hours).

After, you will drive back to Kampala or Entebbe (Airport) stopping at the equator for the requisite snapshot and a bit of souvenir shopping.