Although Uganda’s mega bucket-list highlights of adventures are topped by mountain gorilla and chimpanzee trekking experiences, the country offers a true African classic wildlife safari experience! Uganda’s 10 national parks are some of the best wilderness places on the continent, diverse and untamed, offering a variety of activities from game drives, boat cruises and walking safaris. The country’s low-volume of tourists allow an almost exclusive game viewing experiences while here. Wildlife enthusiasts will be impressed by Uganda’s unique fauna of over 340 mammal’s including the iconic African Big 5 and over 1080 birds species across a plethora of habitats ranking this small East African nation; the most ecological diverse destination .
Top Highlights on a Uganda Wildlife Safari
Epic Wildlife Game Drives
Top of highlights on a Uganda Wildlife safari in Uganda is a game drive experience across vast savanna and wooded grasslands for a chance to get close to majestic species. Game drives experiences are done in 4WD open-roofed safari that offer you best viewing experience including capturing photographic moments. As you explore far and across diverse habitats, highlights will be; savanna elephants, rhino, cape buffalo, Nubian giraffe, and various antelopes. This array of herbivores is tamed by healthy prides of Lions, including the unique tree climbing lion prides of Ishasha, the elusive Leopard, Cheater, Spotted Hyena with its iconic laugh, Jackals and other small invertebrates. Primates include the charismatic Patas and Vervet Monkeys and Olive Baboon.
On game drives across the plains, take it slow, watch the interaction and coexistence of diversity, watch an army of carrion cleaners Vultures tearing away left overs, observe the gigantic Ground Hornbill pairs hunt away crickets in the grasslands, identify several large eagles and other grassland and woodland restricted bird species occur.
Boat cruise Wildlife Safaris
Uganda’s savanna national parks are diverse in nature protecting large stretches of lakes and rivers where wildlife abound and flourishes away from human population. Boat cruise safaris offer exclusive access and close encounters to a cast of wildlife along these otherwise hard to reach habitats.
On a boat cruise experiences one comes into close quarters of Africa’s several big giants giving one a perspective into a typical natural world of several wildlife and their interaction and relationship with each other and their surrounding environment. Watch the croc mother bask in tropical hot sun, watch the hippo beach master defend his patch, and watch several fishing techniques applied by master fishing birds that call these waters home.
Boat cruise safaris occur in the following National Parks in Uganda;
- Murchison Falls NP, popular for that cruise to the bottom of the falls and shoebill watch downstream at the delta.
- Queen Elizabeth National Park most popular for the Kazinga Channel with it’s a million strong herds of hippo and prolific birdlife.
- L. Mburo National Park for its quite waters whose edges hosts large pods of hippos and crocodiles, with a prolific birdlife.
Walk along the Rhinos at Ziwa Sanctuaray
One of the major highlights on a Uganda safari is a guided walk along the rhinos at Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary which host the only population of Rhinos in Uganda today. On a sanctuary, a guided 2hr guided walk experience gets you up-close and personal along these endangered species in their natural habitat. Along, the ranger guides will point out markings and tracks and shares great insights about the social behavior of this second biggest land mammal including its ecological importance, while stressing the need to protect and support the survival of these species. On locating the rhinos, the rangers and visitor can only get as close as it is safe, for these are wild animals however the feeling of up close with these giants remains for a lifetime.
The species under the breeding program here is a southern white rhino race (Ceratotherium.s.simum), a close relative of the northern white rhino race that once roamed these grasslands. The wooded grasslands in the complex supports other local residents like kob, beautiful and tame bushbuck, warthog, vervet monkey and rich bird species checklist unique to these woodlands where a breeding program is being run to restock this once abundant species.
Walking Safaris in the Wilderness
Explore the natural world on foot to get close and personal to several local fauna and flora an experience beyond the comfort of the 4WD vehicle throughout Uganda’s wild parks. Most of our parks protects incredible land forms created by the same geographical forces that shaped the great lakes region several millennia ago, these features include explosion lakes, gorges, mountain ranges including the highest on the continent, lava damned lakes and rift valley walls. On foot you get a totally different perspective of the natural world, here your senses are fully awake as your guide points out fresh tracks, local geology, scratches, markings and calls in the wild.
You get noticed by the local wildlife probably as a competitor. As you draw near and past herds of elephants, zebra, impala, kob, waterbuck and giraffes you notice the alertness, hoots, warning and alert calls by several scouts, a rare feeling that can only be encountered on foot.
Encounters are not limited to big game, but the smaller wildlife often bypassed while on game drives; here you watch the continuity of life, interdependence, inter-relationship and coexistence and come to appreciate the natural world and our place in the entire ecosystem. It could be a million army of safari ants on move, a warthog mud-bathing, a slender chameleon hurrying to cross an open trail, a rock python sunbathing, a dung beetle rolling away his ball, dashing bushbuck, a fierce mating right by male kobs or….! It’s another world out there.
Other nature walks are offered throughout Uganda’s tropical forests for primate and birdwatching experience.
Wilderness Camping Experience
Pitch your own tent in the midst of Uganda’s golden savannas roamed by wildlife, watch millions of stars as they light the dark sky and come evening by campfire and away from the modern busy world, enjoy story-telling, catchup on your childhood dreams, reflect on life and be motivated at the future as you get warmed up by fire flames consuming away dry wood. As you retire to your tents, hear the roars and other spine-chilling and heart piercing calls by local residents and enjoy the loneliness of this typical African wildness.
From our own and other adventure’s experience, Uganda’s remote and best wildness park of Kidepo Valley NP offers the best wildness camping. Hemmed in by mountain ranges, this wilderness host incredible diversity of flora and fauna unique to this region and rarely found in other parks.
The sunset and sunrises over Kidepo’s savanna plains and mountain ranges is the most memorial of this wilderness. Uganda’s smallest savanna park of L. Mburo NP in the central south Uganda is another incredible area for its varied wilderness camping, with its great scenery and wildlife.
Note: These gazetted camping grounds in protected national parks are provided with the very basic of amenities, an armed escort for your security. Planning ahead is crucial.