5-Day Uganda Gorilla and Chimpanzee Safari

Travel west from Kampala to Queen Elizabeth National Park, arriving for an afternoon game drive across its open savannah.

The park spans open savannah, crater lakes and the channel itself, and the variety across a single day here is unusual. Game drives are productive early and late.

A morning boat cruise on the Kazinga Channel among its dense hippo population, followed by an afternoon drive south to the Ishasha sector in search of the park's tree-climbing lions.

The Kazinga Channel cruise is the reliable highlight: the boat runs slowly along a waterway holding one of the densest hippo populations in Africa, with buffalo and elephant coming down to drink and an extraordinary concentration of waterbirds along the banks. In the Ishasha sector to the south, lions rest in the branches of fig trees, a behaviour seen in only a couple of places on the continent.

Continue to Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, with the afternoon free to rest ahead of the following day's gorilla trek.

Bwindi is genuinely steep and genuinely dense, and the trek is physically demanding. Porters are available at the trailhead and are worth taking, both for the help and because it puts money directly into the local community.

A full day gorilla trekking with an experienced ranger guide, tracking one of Bwindi's habituated family groups through the forest. Afterwards, transfer to Lake Bunyonyi to rest.

Bunyonyi is where the pace drops after the trekking. The lake is free of crocodiles and bilharzia, so swimming is genuinely safe, and dugout canoes can be taken out to the small islands scattered across it. The surrounding hills are terraced with smallholdings right to the waterline.

Cross the border into Rwanda and transfer to Kigali for your onward or international flight.

This is a transit and rest day. There is time to repack, catch up on sleep, and prepare for the next leg, and your guide will confirm the following day's timings with you before you turn in.