Make your way to Uganda today. Flights are not included. Quotes can be provided in August 2023 when the airlines publish their fares. Estimated cost $1700-$2000 from NYC area. 

Plan to arrive in Entebbe at the Entebbe International Airport. On arrival, meet your driver and guide from the Tourism Foundation and travel to the K Hotel. 

Relax this evening and settle into your hotel.

K Hotel is a newer boutique hotel in the heart of Entebbe offering view of Lake Victoria, Africa’s largest “Great” lake. Guest rooms are comfortable and offer every needed amenity for your stay including air conditioning. The hotel has onsite dining, meeting space, a bar, gym, swimming pool, spa and is located close to the business district.

All travelers will gather this evening with your national guide and receive further information on the program.

Dinner will be provided this evening at the hotel.

Overnight: K Hotel (or similar)

Included meals: Dinner

After breakfast, check out and make your way to Kahangi Village which is near the town of Fort Portal and the nearby Kibale National Park. 

Your driver guide will share information with you about the country as you make the 3–4-hour drive (stopping in route as needed to stretch your legs and use the restrooms). Upon arrival, you will check in at your lovely eco lodge where you will be staying for the next few days. 

Home Bliss Hotel is just outside Fort Portal, a tourist city known as the Pearl of Uganda as it is situated at the base of the Rwenzori Mountains in Western Uganda. It is the gateway to Uganda’s many adventures due to its proximity to various national parks in the region. The hotel has onsite dining, a terrace bar, 24-hour front desk, and a terrace in a delightful garden setting. Guest rooms have free wi-fi, bathroom amenities, room service, kettle and tv. Breakfast is available every morning and includes full English/Irish options.

After a provided lunch, you will have a guided tour of Fort Portal including a visit to the Tooro Kingdom Palace where you might get a chance to meet the youngest King in the world. The current Omukama of Toro is King Oyo Nyimba Kabamba Iguru Rukidi IV. He took the throne in 1995 at the age of just three after the death of his father. After a visit to the palace head to the local markets to interact with the vendors and learn about Ugandan foods and spices.

Enjoy a special welcoming dinner at the hotel this evening. 

Overnight: Home Bliss Hotel (or similar)

Included meals: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner

After breakfast at the hotel, you will head to the village to volunteer alongside the local people working on an environmental conservation initiative to construct nurseries tree beds or help transplanting trees to a degraded forest site. 

Your participation will ensure support toward climate change adaptation and management and will plant native and productive tree species to increase farm incomes, restore degraded soils, protect water sources, and increase habitat for biodiversity ecosystems.

After lunch in the village, you will visit the local markets to taste some of the best juicy Ugandan purely organic fruits such as the mangoes, guavas, pineapples and much more.

Dinner will be provided at a local restaurant this evening. 

Overnight: Home Bliss Hotel (or similar)

Included meals: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner

After breakfast, you will join a village women’s cooperative to take a journey into the heart of the rural village to experience authentic Uganda villages lifestyle. Take part in their daily activities including time to visit small farms, learn about their indigenous crops, visit the local tea plantation, and to try picking tea with the local villagers. 

You will have time today to participate in cultural activities such as basket weaving, local textile crafting and preparing of local dishes, participate in banana wine making and traditional coffee processing and at the end of it all you will taste some of the banana wine, carry some of the produced coffee with you and have a chance to purchase some of the crafts made by the women cooperative. 

After lunch in the village you will wind up your day by being entertained to the traditional music and dances by the women cooperative groups. This will highlight the lives of these rural women, the custodians of traditions and indigenous knowledge. Their resilience and commitment to extended family and community have kept the African family intact through centuries of adversity. 

Dinner will be provided at a local restaurant this evening. 

Overnight: Home Bliss Hotel (or similar)

Included meals: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner

After an early breakfast head out for Kibale Forest to meet with a wildlife ranger who will share the rules and process for going on your 2 to 3-hour Chimpanzee trek. Beside the estimated 1500 chimps that call this area home, there are twelve other species of primates like red tailed monkey and a plethora of birds that will be encountered. You will have an hour to watch the chimps before making your way back to the visitor center. A special permit will be obtained on your behalf for this activity as access to the chimps is limited. Your guides will share a plethora of information about the flora and fauna of the region. 

Depending on the trek time you will have a chance to visit the crater-lake area to view the magnificent scenery of Kibale National Park. Lunch will be provided in the park this afternoon.

At the end of your day head to the Kahangi Village and participate in the preparations for a traditional village banquet where you will join the locals in the cooking, making of traditional banana wine, coffee roasting and get into the traditional cultural music and dancing.

Overnight: Home Bliss Hotel (or similar)

Included meals: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner

After breakfast check out and depart this morning for the domestic airport in Kasese for your flight to the Rift Valley.  {NOTE: many other Uganda safaris travel overland. For your comfort and superior experience flights have been included in your journey.}

Upon arrival you will be met and make the drive from the airport to the Bwindi National Park where your accommodations are located for the next two days.

This park is famous for the rare mountain gorillas and the drive to the park is incredibly scenic, passing through various local villages and the lush green countryside & hills which characterize so much of southwestern Uganda. Once there, the forest park is one of the richest ecosystems in Africa and the diversity of species is a feature of the park. It provides habitat for some 120 species of mammals, 348 species of birds, 220 species of butterflies, twenty-seven species of frogs, chameleons, geckos, and many other species. Floristically Bwindi is among the most diverse forests in East Africa, with more than 1,000 flowering plant species including 163 species of trees and 104 species of ferns.

Lunch will be provided.  

Buhoma Lodge is a charming property that commands spectacular and uninterrupted views of the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. One of only two lodges situated within the National Park it has free Wi-Fi, an open-air lounge and bar, and onsite dining. Guest chalets has insect proof window screens, a safe, and private bath with bathroom amenities.

Dinner will be provided this evening at the lodge.

Overnight: Buhoma Lodge (or similar)

Included meals: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner

After breakfast at the hotel your guide will drive you to Bwindi National Park headquarters for your briefing on the gorillas from Uganda Wildlife Authority guides.

An advance party of guides will have gone ahead into the forest to locate where the gorillas slept the previous night and will have begun to track their movements. These guides will communicate with their team via a walkie talkie and the trek into the forest will begin. Locating the Gorillas can take a few hours or the whole day depending on how far they have moved from the place they spent the previous night. For conservation purposes, time allowed to view the Gorillas is one hour. 

As you trek in the forest, you will appreciate why the forest is called impenetrable. There are also a multitude of other animal that you might encounter including antelopes and rare monkeys not to mention the beauty of the forest itself. Once you have completed the trek you will return to the lodge for a well-earned rest and time to reflect a truly magical experience. 

Later in the afternoon (time permitting) you will take on a guided journey into the famous Batwa Pygmies community to learn and experience their lifestyle.

The Batwa are hunters and gatherers who used to get their food, shelter, medicine, and tools they needed from the forest. Explore the incredible traditional norms, music, dance, food, and their cultural lifestyle of the Batwa tribe. Learn more about their rich history, cultures, and traditions. You can envision days spent with the Batwa women, cooking, beading, dancing, telling, and listening to their stories, fetching water. 

A packed lunch and dinner at the lodge are included.

Overnight: Buhoma Lodge (or similar)

Included meals: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner