5 Days Uganda Gorilla & Wildlife Safari

5 Days Uganda Gorilla & Wildlife Safari

Itinerary Overview

This five-day Uganda Gorilla Trekking & wildlife safari gives you great opportunity to breathe and time to feel the gentle gorillas of Uganda in their natural habitat. You’ll track lions across the open plains of Queen Elizabeth National Park, with two full nights to soak in its wild rhythm.

Then, you’ll descend into the mist-wrapped rainforest of Bwindi for your once-in-a-lifetime moment with a mountain gorilla via the famous Isasha sector with a possibility of sightseeing the famed tree-climbing lions only found in Uganda’s Queen Elizabeth & Tanzania’s Lake Manyara National parks. The journey ends softly—at Lake Bunyonyi—where island breezes and silent mornings help you process all you’ve seen.

Summary Itinerary

• Day 1: Transfer to Queen Elizabeth – Evening Game Drive
• Day 2: Full Day Safari – Game Drive & Kazinga Boat Cruise
• Day 3: Scenic Drive to Bwindi – Forest Arrival
• Day 4: Gorilla Trekking – Afternoon Transfer to Lake Bunyonyi
• Day 5: Canoe or Nature Walk – Return to Kigali or Entebbe

Day 1: Kampala to Queen Elizabeth national Park

After a meet and greet by your Friendly Gorillas safari guide, you shall depart the city slowly and start observing it fades in the rearview mirror. You drive past banana farms, roadside markets, and hills blanketed in tea.

By afternoon, you arrive in Queen Elizabeth National Park. The land opens into wild grasslands, scattered with euphorbia trees and by the distance, you can clearly see the blue mountain of the moons also known as the Rwenzori Mountains.

As golden light falls, your first game drive begins. Buffalo stamp along the horizon. Uganda kob graze in the tall grass. If you’re lucky, a pride of lions may be lounging in the branches of a fig tree, tails twitching lazily in the dusk and a few leopard if luck is truly on your side.

Tonight, you settle into your lodge with the hum of the savanna all around you.

Accommodation in Queen Elizabeth:

• Budget: Pumba Safari Cottages
• Standard: Buffalo Safari Lodge / Engiri Game Lodge
• Luxury: Elephant Plains Lodge

Meals: Lunch & Dinner

Day 2: Savanna Adventure and Game Drive & Boat Cruise

You rise with the sun and head back into the park as the world wakes up. Today’s morning game drive is different from the late evening drive you did yester day, keep in mind that morning is the best time to track predators on the hunt—lions moving with stealth, hyenas weaving through the grasses, and maybe, if fortune leans your way, the flick of a leopard’s tail in the thickets.

In the afternoon, you’ll swap wheels for water on a boat cruise along the Kazinga Channel. Crocodiles laze with jaws open. Hippos bubble and bellow. And the shoreline comes alive with storks, pelicans, and elephants who step into the shallows to drink.

This is Uganda at its wildest—raw, alive, and unforgettable, so enjoy the thrill.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner

Day 3: Journey to the Jungle – Welcome to Bwindi

After breakfast, you leave the savanna behind and begin the drive south. The landscape folds and rises, banana plantations give way to mountain slopes, and the air grows cooler with each passing hour.

Alternatively, proceed for an early chimpanzee trekking in the famous Kyambura gorge or Kalinzu (at extra cost) and later depart for your Bwindi transfer via the Isasha sector.

By late afternoon, the mist of Bwindi hangs low over the treetops. You arrive at your lodge on the forest’s edge, where the call of hornbills echoes through the canopy. Tomorrow, you’ll enter the world of gorillas.

Accommodation in Bwindi:

• Budget: Rafiki Safari Lodge / Ride 4 a Woman
• Standard: Buhoma Gorilla Camp / Ichumbi Safari Lodge
• Luxury: Mahogany Springs

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner

Day 4: Gorilla Trekking – The Moment That Changes You

Today is not just another day on safari—it’s the day you have been waiting for (probably the reason why you booked this trip). Wake up early and after an early breakfast, you’re guided into the heart of Bwindi by expert trackers. The forest is thick, alive, and sacred. You shall have a gorilla trekking briefing about the gorilla trekking do’s and don’s and immediately, you depart to track your given gorilla family.

The entire adventure could take two or six hours depending on the last known location of the gorillas. But then—you will see them. Upon locating them, you have one hour to observe them as the mother nurses the baby. A juvenile swinging clumsily through the branches. A silverback sitting in silence, eyes deep and unblinking.

You are no longer an observer. You are a participant in one of the rarest moments in the natural world.

After your trek and a quiet lunch, you drive to Lake Bunyonyi—a lake so still it reflects your soul. You arrive in time to observe it’s beautiful sunset, have a canoe ride in the scenic islands casting long shadows across the water.

Accommodation at Lake Bunyonyi: (Options tailored upon request)

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner

Day 5: Soft Morning at the Lake – Departure

The morning is gentle and depending on your time of flight, you may relax and depart the lake at mid morning. After days of roaring lions and breathless jungle treks, Lake Bunyonyi is your place to chill and relax.

You can glide across the water in a dugout canoe, guided by stories of exile and healing from the lake’s 29 islands. Or choose a lakeside walk, where the rhythm of life is slow, kind, and full of birdsong. After breakfast, it’s time to begin your journey back—towards Kigali or Entebbe. But a part of you stays behind. In the trees. In the roar. In the eyes of a gorilla.

Meals: Breakfast & Lunch

Five Days. Three Worlds. One Deep Connection.

From golden grasslands to ancient rainforest, and finally to a peaceful lake ringed by stories—this safari offers not just sightings, but soul marks.

So—when are you coming?