Travel

Book with 4×4 Car Hire Uganda for a self-drive safari in Uganda. Uganda is the place to go for a self-drive trip. The experience of driving yourself around Uganda is exciting. With a self-driving safari in Uganda, you will be the one behind the wheel driving through what is often a national park or a reserve.

This type of trip is good if you’re adventurous, when you want to have the freedom to plan your own route, go at your own pace and be in the company of people of your choosing. And as an added benefit; self-drive safaris are a lot cheaper than guided safaris or organized tours. If this is supposed to be a relaxing holiday, consider a guided safari.

On a self-drive camping safari, you’ll spend quite a bit of time each day setting and packing up camp, and cooking, not to mention sleeping on what are usually thin mattresses which is a great experience. Uganda’s list of gazetted conservation area contains ten national parks and several other game reserves and forest reserves for which you can choose to visit.

Knowing your route, the best places to stop, how to stay safe, and how to get the most out of your experience can help make your self-drive safari successful and memorable. Uganda in particular support a wide variety of mammal and bird species which are not present elsewhere in eastern and southern Africa. The accessibility of Uganda’s forests when compared with those in West Africa means that, practically speaking, Uganda is almost certainly the best place to see a wide variety of African animals in their natural habitat.

When it comes to more conventional game viewing, Uganda is not a safari destination to bear comparison with Tanzania or Kenya, or for that matter the majority of countries in southern Africa. Nevertheless, Queen Elizabeth, Murchison Falls, and Kidepo National Parks support a good range of plains animals and if you are on a tight budget, the first two reserve are among the easiest and cheapest to visit independently anyway here in Africa.

With an overall wonderful experience filled with friendly helpful people, never forget wildlife and scenery which will leave you breathless. Whether it is the falls at Murchison Falls National Park, do the hike it is so worth it. Of more interest to tourists are Uganda’s forest reserve in particular the Budongo and Kanyiyo Pabidi Forest Reserves south of Murchison Falls National Park, both of which have tourist sites with camping facilities and trained guides who can take visitors on chimp tracking excursions and bird walks.

Track the Chimps of Kibale or the Gorillas of Bwindi you will have memories to cherish for the rest of your life. Your greatest challenge will be trying to keep up. And that is only a glimpse of what could await you in this adventure.

Always eat a good breakfast, you will need it!!!!! Bring a mask to see the chimps and the Gorillas, for their safety not yours!!! Enjoy lots of the local fruits, it is excellent. Buy Ugandan coffee, I did, and it is excellent. Whether your thing is Elephants or Giraffes or Hippos or Lions you will see them all. I saw more butterflies that I have ever seen in the most beautiful colors and to many little birds to even count never mind name.

Queen Elizabeth National Park is home to great numbers of animals and one is sure to spot them very soon into their safari. I particularly loved the misty mountains and the gorilla trekking activity in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. A short but intense adventure that still respects and protects the amazing gorillas. Lake Bunyonyi is definitely worth a stopover for relaxation, very serene and picturesque after tracking the mountain gorillas.

Man and nature can co-exist in harmony and that is something we need to think of and try to practice more. And this is why I keep returning to Africa.

Food was excellent (loved rolex!!), no stomach issues although tap water is to be avoided. The weather varied depending on the itinerary, it was hot in the savanna but quite cold up in the misty mountains so t shirts and fleeces would all serve well. Changing money to local currency is not very easy so you best change at the airport (we tried changing at a bank and they refused saying they would only change 50usd bill or higher!).

Bring dollars in large bills ($50 or $100) as you get a better exchange rate for local currency. Charging can be challenging in the more remote lodges so bring power banks fully charged if you can. Always carry your passport as many parks will look for it or at least the number of it.

Do you fancy a safari in Uganda? Then be sure not to miss the Bwindi Impenetrable National Parks, Murchison Falls National Park, Queen Elizabeth National Park or Kidepo Valley National Park nestled in the north eastern trip of the country.

Our family of 4 booked a round trip with 4×4 Car Hire Uganda together with two close friends, so we had a private tour with six. Our friends visited Uganda before, also with 4×4 Car Hire Uganda, so Maike arranged another round trip: From Jinja, to Sipi, Moroto, Kidepo, Murchison falls, Queen Elizabeth, Bwindi Forest and back to Entebbe. We had to have patience: the trip was postponed 2 years, due to the Covid lock downs. This was no problem with 4×4 Car Hire Uganda, since we had a private visit of a school project the week before our tour, we were picked up by our guide/driver Caleb at our hotel in Kampala.

The car was a huge four-wheel drive safari car, where we fitted in all six. Emma was a skilled and safe driver. One day we had to drive a very wet and muddy slippery road, and he managed to get us through safely. Emma could tell us really much about the country and its history, culture and the different people inhabiting Uganda. He drove us around spotting game really skillfully, with a very sharp eye, and visibly enjoying it himself. 4×4 Car Hire Uganda can be happy to employ good dedicated guides like Emma.

Uganda is a beautiful country to see, experience and photograph. Winston Churchill, the former British leader who famously toured it in 1907 as a widely traveled young British minister was so impressed, he wrote a book on it. He called it the ‘Pearl of Africa’ to encourage others to come enjoy it. Some of the treasures on offer are the country’s highlights and just a hop from the airport.

When it comes to mountain gorillas, they are the largest of the great apes and share 97% of their biological make up with humans. Gorillas used to inhabit a swathe of land that cut right across central Africa, but the last remaining eastern mountain gorillas’ number just over 1063, divided between two 459 plus population in the forests of Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable National Park and on the slopes of the Virunga Volcanoes, encompassing Uganda’s Mgahinga Gorilla National Park.

Trekking to see the fabled mountain gorillas is something everyone should get to experience at least once in their lifetime. Gorilla permits are certainly not cheap ($700) and the hour you get to spend with these gentle giants whizzes by in a flash, but the experience will linger for a lifetime. When a family of gorillas permits you to enter their safety zone and their guardian silverback allows your group of eight privileged tourists to sit quietly in their presence, it’s the ultimate honor.

Be prepared for some steep, muddy climbs on indiscernible tracks that frequently demand machetes to hack a way through the vines, thorns and shrubs. Bwindi currently has 12 groups fully habituated for tracking, with only eight visitors allowed to visit a group on any one day. A very different encounter – the Gorilla Habituation Experience – has recently started involving the Bikingi group that isn’t fully habituated: they’re used to their trackers but not to seeing different people every day. It’s an exciting alternative – instead of just one hour, we had four hours starting from when we reached their previous night’s nests.

Aside from the chance to chill with our distant relatives, Bwindi also offers a whole host of picturesque forest walks and half-day birding safaris.

We visited see are tree climbing lions of Ishasha. Lions are one of the most sought- after safari species. The shaggy mane of the male, blonde or brunette, in its natural environment is unforgettable. In Queen Elizabeth National Park in western Uganda, the lions offer an added spectacle they climb trees. The prides of around 15 individuals adhere to strict social structures. They communally raise cub which are often born around the same time but lionesses are responsible for 90% of the hunting. They hunt in coordinated groups which allow them to purse larger species like buffalo and giraffes.

We did a game drive at the queen’s pavilion and katwe and on the northern bank of the impressive Kazinga Channel we did a boat cruise. Many guests enjoy the pleasurable two hour luxury 20 seater boat cruise along the channel from the Mweya peninsula. It offers splendid views, including the Rwenzori Mountain.

We visit Uganda’s largest national park Murchison Falls which features on most safari itineraries because of its mix of beauty and wildlife. Four of the Big Five are here (only rhinos are absent, but they can be seen at the Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary on the drive from Kampala) and lions and leopards’ sightings are pretty common.

There are two things every visitor should do at the park. First is taking a boat trip up the Nile River. You will travel past plentiful hippos, crocodiles, and buffaloes stopping near the base of the park’s awesome namesake waterfall. But you can only really appreciate the power of the falls from the top, and going there is the other must-do. The mighty river explodes through a tiny gap in the rock and drops 45 meters down a narrow gorge. It’s far from one of the world’s biggest waterfalls, but it’s definitely one of the most impressive.

With sprawling savannah and soaring mountains, Kidepo Valley National Park might be the most picturesque park in all Africa. Sharing borders with South Sudan and Kenya’s Northern Frontier District, it is Uganda’s most remote and least-explored park. Apoka Lodge is one of Uganda’s finest accommodation options and, although game-driving from here can be unforgettable, you have a good chance of spectacular sightings without even stepping off your veranda.

Kidepo was once the playground of Idi Amin, and the haunting ruins of a lodge that could just as easily have been designed as a massive bunker is currently (although slowly) being converted into a lodge.

Kidepo Valley was the traditional hunting territory of the mysterious Ik tribe, one of Africa’s most culturally-intact communities. The 3-hour trek up to the Ik villages high on the slopes of Morungole Mountain offers an unforgettable opportunity to make friends among the charming people who were (inexplicably) portrayed as the world’s nastiest people in the 1973 best-seller The Mountain People by Colin Turnbull.

For people who yearn to get up close with wild African big cats, while on your Uganda tour you can join researchers on a Lion Tracking project in Queen Elizabeth National Park.

This is not just an activity created for visitors, it is scientific research that is recorded and gives the researchers a better understanding of the habits of the lions found in Queen Elizabeth Park. The cats’ populations are steadily decreasing in the wild.

In just two decades, Africa’s population has decreased 43 percent and it is estimated that as 23,000 remain. One of the main causes is the alarming rate at which they are losing their habitats due to expanding human populations and the resulting growth of agriculture, settlements and roads.

Due to habitat loss, lions are being forced into closer quarters with humans. This is coupled with decrease in their natural prey, causes them to attack livestock. In turn, farmers often times retaliate and kill these majestic big cats.

The Uganda Carnivore Program bases its core activities in the northern sector of Queen Elizabeth National Park and works in close collaboration with the Uganda Wildlife Authority to monitor research and conserve the large predators in the area (lion, leopard and hyena). Senior research assistant James Kalyewa is responsible for the day-to-day monitoring of the park’s predators.

In his spare time, James offers his expertise to the Uganda Wildlife Authority’s Experiential Tourism initiative in Queen Elizabeth National Park. James goes out with tourists into the park, where he shows them how predator tracking is done and also provides them with first-hand knowledge of the challenges involved in research and conservation by introducing them to the area’s wildlife and people.

Lions (Panthera Leo) are one of the species that every tourist wants to see when they come to Uganda. They are the largest and most imposing carnivore in Africa.

They are the only true social cats and have special cultural significance in most countries on the continent. In Uganda, lions enjoy a reputation as King of the jungle and popular symbols of royalty, strength and bravery.

The lion typically inhabits grasslands and Savannah. It can also inhabit forests, but absent in the dense forests. It is usually more diurnal than other big cats, but when persecuted adapts to being active at night and at twilight. A lion pride consists of a few adult males, related females and cubs.

In Uganda, lions are mainly found in three large Savannah park and they include; Murchison Falls National Park, Kidepo Valley National Park and Queen Elizabeth National Park.

In Queen Elizabeth National Park, the Ishasha lions are known for their unique behaviour of climbing trees and have been branded the Ishasha Tree Climbing Lions by tourists.

Lions are after mountain gorillas; they are the most sought-after species by tourists visiting Uganda. The lion is one of the most widely recognized animal symbols in human culture. It has been extensively depicted in sculptures and paintings, on national flags and contemporary films and literature.

The Uganda Carnivore project does research on lions in the northern sector of Queen Elizabeth National Park. Queen Elizabeth National Park is located in the south-western part of Uganda. The park is also a world biosphere reserve, it has a RAMSAR protected wetland, is classified as an Important Birding Area. The park is home to elephants, lions, leopard, hyena, hippos, crocodile’s warthogs and 10 species of primates including the chimpanzee, over 600 bird species are also found in this park.  The Uganda Carnivore program is dedicated to the monitoring, research and conservation of predators in Uganda and you can join them on one of their research outings. 

You can spend four days with a lion research expert assisting with important tasks such as going on patrol with the lion scouts to identify spoor tracks, tracking and monitoring the movements of radio-collared lions, investigating predatory attacks, and visiting schools and homesteads to educate lion conservation efforts. The number of participants is limited.

Each morning and during the late afternoon you can take part in a Lion Tracking Research Experience in Queen Elizabeth National Park. The tracking at times may last between one to four hours and are done twice a day.

You have to book a head of time in order to take part in this unique lion tracking experience in this park. The cost for Lion Tracking permit costs $150 USD per person including daily day park entrance.

Katunguru, is a settlement in Rubirizi District, Ankole sub-region, in the Western Region of Uganda. Katunguru is just south of the equator, on the Kikorongo–Ishaka Road. The town is approximately 18 kilometres (11 mi), by road, north of Rubirizi, the location of the district headquarters.

This is on the southern banks of the Kazinga Channel, which links Lake George with Lake Edward, and forms the border between Kasese District to the north and Rubirizi District to the south. Katunguru is located approximately 41 kilometres (25 mi) south of Kasese, the nearest large town.

Katunguru, which lies within the boundaries of Queen Elizabeth National Park, is located about 383 kilometres (238 mi), by road, west of Kampala, the largest city in Uganda and the capital of that country. This village used to be so low and it was a place that used to offer budget accommodation to safari guides that used to drive travelers visiting the Queen Elizabeth National Park.

Today, when you visit this village you will find that after a period of time and the benefits that the park return back to the nearby villages achievements have been put up in this village development. Before, the safari lodges in this village were so remote with the local standards but today there are several safari lodges that have been put in the area and are very suitable to international tourists visiting the park.

As far as social – economical impact development in this village have improved as good restaurants are in place and the  employment bases have increased, from Katunguru village the youth have woke up and have started various businesses like boat cruise, game drive vehicles and guiding and from these businesses flow of money is good and other businesses are coming up.

This village is so much recommended to backer packers travelers who are always on limited travel budget. While staying in this village it is much ease to enter the park and do the activities like game drive and boat ride and later take an overnight in the village. You can stay in any of the new developed safari camps or for travelers with 4×4 rooftop tent vehicle still you can find space for setting up the tent and have an amicable overnight stay.

From Katunguru village you can take more other activities like the fishing experience along the Kazinga Channel and this experience is done by professional safari guides and it is always limited to half day. Then you can spend your visiting the nearby villages and you can experience activities like the home stay tourism, drama and dance and if too you want to do cycling experience it is much possible. Some of the activities like the cycling wouldn’t be organized by the local but if you arrange it with any your Uganda tour operators you can make your holiday perfect.

Want to enjoy a great car rental in Uganda this year (2022 or next year – 2023)? These quick and easy car hire hacks will help you enjoy all the fun and freedom of renting a car without any stress, while exploring Uganda’s, Kenya’s, Tanzania’s, and Rwanda’s adventurous places.

1) Check ratings and reviews

Always book your rental car from a rental company that has been rated well by other travelers. The good ones may not be the cheapest, but avoiding bad service makes paying that little bit extra worthwhile.

2) Cut yourself some slack

Choose pick-up and drop-off times that allow room for manoeuvre. If you’re flying in, give yourself an hour to get through passport control and collect your baggage. If you’re flying to a popular destination in peak season, allow yourself two hours just in case.

When you’re flying out, book your drop-off time as around two-and-a-half hours before your flight departs. Some rental companies do charge late fees, so check your journey time, allowing for traffic, before you set off.

3) Tot up the cost in advance

Comparing prices online means you know you’re getting a decent deal. Add on any extras you want, such as an additional driver, and you’ll have a reasonable idea of your total rental cost well before you set off.

4) Don’t fixate on the car

Some people like to drive a car they’re familiar with, but cars are hired out on an ‘or similar’ basis. This means you could get any car of a similar type to the one that you booked. So, it’s not worth worrying about whether you pick a Rav4 or Land Cruiser – you could easily end up with the other one, or neither.

5) Check your hire car’s Ts & Cs read the info, take the stuff

Check your car’s Ts & Cs so you know what to take with you when you pick it up. You’ll need your driver’s license and other documents, like proofs of ID. The only way to be 100% confident about exactly what you need is to check those Ts & Cs well before you set off.

6) Bring your own kit

Rental companies don’t guarantee you’ll get the extra equipment you need, such as a baby or child seat, or a GPS – and even when they offer them to you, they will need you to be an extra charge. So to avoid any last-minute crises and extra charges, take your own [possible] equipment. You’ll save the daily hire fee and be confident on quality.

7) Be deposit savvy

You’ll be asked to leave a deposit before you get the car keys, so check how much it will be before you set off. (In fact, you can even check the amount before you book.) The rental company will block the deposit on your credit card (this reserves the deposit amount, but doesn’t take it), so make sure your credit card has enough funds too.

8) Don’t be shy

When you’re at the counter, don’t hold back from asking anything you’re not sure about. Make sure you’re clear on how to bring the car back, what the fuel policy is, whether there are any local tolls, and whether you’re being charged for anything else. Then you’re all set, enjoy a wonderful trip!