Bwindi Impenetrable National Park: Gorilla Trekking on a Self-Drive

About Bwindi Impenetrable National Park

Bwindi is a 321 km² block of ancient rainforest on the steep ridges of south-western Uganda, on the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo. It is home to almost half of the world’s mountain gorillas: the last census counted 459 in Bwindi, out of just over a thousand in total. More than twenty gorilla families have been habituated to people, which makes Bwindi the place with the most trekking permits and the widest choice of trekking areas anywhere.

The forest also shelters chimpanzees, L’Hoest’s monkeys, forest elephants and more than 350 bird species, including 23 found only in the Albertine Rift.

The name is earned. The forest covers valleys and ridges between about 1,160 and 2,600 m, and the trails are steep, muddy and often cut fresh through the undergrowth by the trackers. That is part of the experience: you work for the hour with the gorillas.

Gorilla trekking: how it works

Each day, a maximum of eight visitors is assigned to each habituated gorilla family. You report to the sector’s park office at about 7:30 for a briefing, then walk with a ranger-guide and armed escorts while trackers, who left at dawn, radio the group’s position. A trek can take from one hour to most of the day, depending on where the gorillas slept. Once you reach them you have one hour, at a distance of about seven metres, before walking back.

• Gorilla permit: US$800 per person for foreign non-residents at the time of writing, sold by the Uganda Wildlife Authority for a specific date and sector. Permits are not refundable, so plan your driving days around the permit date, not the other way round.
• Gorilla Habituation Experience: four hours with a family still being habituated, with researchers and trackers, offered in the Rushaga sector. It costs US$1,500 per person and there are only a few places a day.
• Minimum age: 15 years.
• Porters: local porters can be hired at the briefing to carry your bag and help on the steep sections. It is money well spent, and the income goes straight to the communities around the park.

The four trekking sectors

Your permit is for one sector, and the sectors are hours apart by road, so the sector decides where you sleep the night before.

If you are coming from Rwanda or from Mgahinga, Rushaga and Nkuringo are the natural choice. Coming from Queen Elizabeth or Kibale, choose Buhoma or Ruhija.

Best time for gorilla trekking in Bwindi

Gorillas can be tracked all year. The drier months, June to September and December to February, are the most popular: the trails are firmer, the roads between sectors easier and photography better. March to May and October to November are wetter, with slippery trails and some lodges offering lower rates, and permits are easier to get at short notice. In a rainforest it rains in every month, so pack a rain jacket, gaiters and gloves for grabbing vegetation whatever the date.

Getting to Bwindi by car

Every route ends on murram roads with steep climbs, and some, like the road from Ruhija towards Buhoma, become hard work after rain. This is where a high-clearance 4×4 such as our Land Cruisers earns its keep; a soft-roader is not a good idea. Plan to arrive at your lodge the afternoon before your trek, never on the morning itself.

From Tanzania, the road trip to Bwindi takes two to three days each way, either through Rwanda via the Rusumo border or along Lake Victoria via the Mutukula border. We arrange the COMESA yellow card and the paperwork for taking our cars across. Read crossing borders with a rental car before you plan the route.

Bwindi on a Tanzania road trip

Gorillas and the wildebeest migration make one of the great East African combinations. Our Tanzania and gorilla trips show sample routes from a short fly-in add-on to a full overland loop around Lake Victoria. Tell us your dates and we check permit availability before you commit to anything.

Forest photo: mist over Bwindi by Giles Laurent, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.