Direct Ugandan Operator·Kampala & Entebbe
Uganda's speciality
No country puts this many habituated primate species within one week's driving. Gorillas, chimpanzees and golden monkeys on a single itinerary is a Uganda-only proposition.
Mountain gorillas in Bwindi or Mgahinga, at $800 for one hour. Chimpanzees in Kibale at $250, or $300 for the full day with researchers. Golden monkeys in Mgahinga's bamboo at $100, an Albertine Rift endemic that most visitors have never heard of and almost everyone rates as the surprise of the trip.
Because Kibale sits between Murchison and Queen Elizabeth on the western circuit, adding chimpanzees to a gorilla trip costs an itinerary one day and no detour at all.
Gorillas are quiet, grounded and slow. You sit; they carry on. The hour has a stillness to it that people are unprepared for.
Chimpanzees are the opposite: loud, fast, high in the canopy, and socially chaotic. You hear the pant-hoots long before you see anything, and the hour is spent with your head back. Anyone who assumes the second is a lesser version of the first has not done both.
Two habituation experiences are worth the extra days: the four-hour gorilla habituation in Rushaga at $1,500, and the full-day chimpanzee habituation in Kibale at $300. Both replace a timed visit with actual observation.
Add Kyambura Gorge in Queen Elizabeth for a second chimp community in dramatic terrain, and Bigodi Wetland Sanctuary for red colobus and grey-cheeked mangabey on a community-run walk.
Ready-made routes
Kibale chimpanzee trekking, Kazinga Channel cruise and Queen Elizabeth game drives.
Murchison Falls, Kibale, Queen Elizabeth and Bwindi: the complete Uganda story.
Where you'll go
Chimpanzee trekking in the primate capital of East Africa
Gorilla trekking Uganda, home to roughly half the world's mountain gorillas
Three volcanoes, one gorilla family, and the golden monkeys
Kazinga Channel cruises and the tree-climbing lions of Ishasha
Other ways to travel
Permits are limited
Tell us your dates and we'll confirm live permit availability and lodge allocations, then send a costed, tailor-made itinerary, usually within the hour.
