Uganda Gorilla & Big Five Safari

Your Good Earth Tours driver meets you at Entebbe International Airport and transfers you to your accommodation. Depending on your arrival time, the afternoon is free to rest before the journey begins tomorrow.

After breakfast, a four-hour drive north through Uganda’s central corridor brings you to Zziwa Rhino Sanctuary, the only place in Uganda where wild rhinos can be found. Southern white rhinos were reintroduced here as part of an ongoing program to restore a species that was poached to extinction in the country by the 1980s. After a safety briefing from sanctuary rangers, you track the rhinos on foot through the open terrain. In the evening, a conservation talk with a sanctuary expert covers the history of the program and what recovery looks like on the ground.

A three-hour morning drive through market towns and open savannah brings you to Murchison Falls National Park. On arrival, the hike to the top of the falls: the point where the entire volume of the Nile forces itself through a gap seven meters wide before dropping 43 meters to the pool below. The roar is audible from a long distance. The spray and scale at the top are a different experience from any photograph. Dinner and overnight at the lodge.

A full day in the park. The morning game drive runs the northern bank of the Nile, where Rothschild’s giraffe, elephant, lion, buffalo, and hartebeest move in open terrain with the river as backdrop. In the afternoon, a boat cruise from Paraa jetty travels upstream to the base of the falls. Hippos surface close to the boat, Nile crocodiles line the sandy banks, and the falls from below, seen from the water, are a completely different perspective from the top. Shoebill storks are sometimes spotted in the papyrus along the river.

A five-hour drive southwest through Uganda’s tropical interior. The landscape shifts progressively as you leave the open north. From savannah into forest, through market towns and terraced farmland, arriving in Kibale’s dense rainforest by late afternoon. Check in, rest, and prepare for tomorrow’s early start.

An early departure at 6:30am for Kanyanchu Park Headquarters and the chimpanzee habituation experience. Unlike the standard chimpanzee trek (which offers a one-hour encounter), the habituation experience involves extended time with a chimpanzee community that is still in the process of being accustomed to human presence — meaning the time in the forest is longer, the observations more detailed, and the experience more immersive. Kibale has one of the highest primate densities of any forest in Africa; l’Hoest’s monkeys, red colobus, and black-and-white colobus are also commonly encountered during the walk. Return to the lodge for lunch and a free afternoon.

A two-hour drive south brings you to Queen Elizabeth National Park and an afternoon game drive across the Kazinga plains. Buffalo, elephant, and Uganda kob gather at the water in the late afternoon, and Queen Elizabeth is one of the only places in the world where tree-climbing lions can be reliably sighted, a behavior specific to the lion populations in this park and in Ishasha to the south.

A full day in the park. Morning drives target the fig tree areas where the tree-climbing lions are most reliably found — a pride that regularly ascends into the branches to rest above the plains. The afternoon boat cruise on the Kazinga Channel follows the water between Lake Edward and Lake George, where hippos congregate in large numbers and the birdlife is extraordinary: over 600 species recorded in the park, with African fish eagles, pelicans, kingfishers, and herons all common along the channel edge.

A five-hour drive south via the Ishasha sector, home to a second tree-climbing lion population that lives in the large fig trees along the river, and worth a slow pass-through en route. Arrival at Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in the afternoon. Time to rest and prepare for tomorrow’s gorilla trek. A short guided forest walk is available for guests who want a first look at Bwindi’s terrain before the main event.

Breakfast at 6:00am, then to the park headquarters for the gorilla trekking briefing. The trek follows a habituated gorilla family into the forest (duration ranges from two hours to a full day depending on where the gorillas have moved overnight). Once you locate them, you have one hour. Mountain gorillas eating, resting, and moving through the forest at close range, with infants in the canopy and the silverback tracking through the undergrowth nearby. Bwindi holds roughly half of the world’s remaining mountain gorilla population, fewer than 1,100 individuals. Return to the lodge for lunch and a quiet afternoon.

Breakfast at the lodge, then transfer to Kihihi Airstrip for the domestic flight back to Entebbe International Airport. The flight takes just over an hour and connects directly to the main terminal for international departures. An overland return to Entebbe (approximately 9-10 hours) is also available for guests who prefer not to fly