Cross-Border Gorilla and Chimpanzee Safari: Uganda to Rwanda

Your driver-guide meets you at Entebbe International Airport for the drive west to Kibale Forest National Park through tea plantations and past Fort Portal’s crater lakes.

Briefing at Kanyanchu visitor centre, then tracking a habituated chimpanzee community through Kibale’s forest — a gentler walk than the gorilla trek to come — for a strict hour once your group finds them, with an optional afternoon at Bigodi Wetland Sanctuary.

As above

A drive south to Bwindi via Queen Elizabeth National Park’s Ishasha sector, scanning the fig and euphorbia trees for the sector’s famous tree-climbing lions.

7:30am briefing at park headquarters, then the trek itself through dense rainforest — thirty minutes to six hours — followed by a strict hour with your gorilla family.

As above

The drive to the Cyanika border post, a standard land-border process generally under an hour, before a Rwanda-based driver-guide continues you on to Kinigi.

A 6am wake-up for the 7am briefing opening with a performance by the Kinigi intore dancers, then the trek through increasingly misty forest on the volcanic slopes and the strict hour with your second gorilla family.

As above

An optional hike to the Dian Fossey Tomb at Karisoke Research Centre, a steep, roughly six-hour round trip through the same forest Fossey studied for eighteen years until her death in 1985, passing the graves of gorillas she named and monitored alongside her own. Travellers who’d rather take it easier can visit the Iby’Iwacu cultural village instead, for traditional dance and a demonstration of pre-colonial Rwandan homestead life.

As above

The drive to Kigali, transferring directly to Kigali International Airport for your onward flight.