Upon your arrival at Kigali International Airport, you will be warmly welcomed by your dedicated guide, who will transfer you into the heart of Rwanda’s capital. You will embark on a guided tour of Kigali City, one of Africa’s cleanest and most orderly capitals, celebrated for its tree-lined boulevards, vibrant markets, and a remarkable story of national transformation. A centerpiece of your tour will be a visit to the Kigali Genocide Memorial, a deeply moving and important site that honors the memory of over 250,000 victims of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide. The memorial provides a sobering yet essential journey through Rwanda’s darkest chapter and its inspiring path to reconciliation and renewal. Following the tour, you will check in at the iconic Hotel des Mille Collines, where you will relax and enjoy dinner.

After a leisurely breakfast, you will depart Kigali and travel east to Akagera National Park, Rwanda’s largest protected area, spanning 1,122 km² along the Tanzanian border. The park’s diverse landscape of savanna, woodland, lakes, and wetlands supports lions, elephants, zebras, giraffes, hippos, and over 500 bird species. On arrival, you will check into your lodge, enjoy lunch, and refresh before setting out on an evening game drive as golden-hour light bathes the grasslands and animals gather at watering holes.

Lunch, dinner and overnight accommodation at Akagera Game Lodge (Full Board).

You will rise early to make the most of the cool morning hours with a sunrise game drive deep into Akagera’s wilderness, searching for giraffes browsing the treetops, elephants at the water’s edge, elusive leopards resting in the acacias, herds of topi and buffalo, and if fortune favors you, lions on the prowl. You will return to the lodge for a midday rest and lunch, and then spend the afternoon on a boat cruise on Lake Ihema, the largest of Akagera’s chain of lakes. Drifting along the papyrus-fringed shores, you will encounter enormous pods of hippos, Nile crocodiles sunning on the banks, and a spectacular parade of water birds including African fish eagles, open-billed storks, and malachite kingfishers. An evening game drive on your return to the lodge will round off a memorable day.

All meals and overnight accommodation at Akagera Game Lodge (Full Board).

Following breakfast, you will bid farewell to Rwanda and cross into Uganda through the Cyanika Border Point, one of the scenic highland border crossings flanked by terraced hillsides and volcanic peaks. Your drive will take you south into southwestern Uganda toward one of the world’s most extraordinary wilderness areas — Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. A UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of Africa’s oldest and biologically richest rainforests. It is home to nearly half of the world’s remaining population of mountain gorillas. After a stop for lunch en route, you will arrive in the late afternoon, check in at Ichumbi Gorilla Lodge, and rest in preparation for the next day’s extraordinary encounter.

This will undoubtedly be one of the most extraordinary days of your life. After an early breakfast, you will transfer to the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) Field Office for a comprehensive briefing by expert ranger guides on gorilla trekking protocols, safety, and etiquette. You will then set out into the ancient, cathedral-like forest of Bwindi — where centuries-old trees rise 30 to 40 meters into the mist — on a trek that may last anywhere from one to several hours depending on the movements of the gorilla family. When you finally come face to face with a habituated mountain gorilla family, you will be permitted a precious time in their presence, observing silverbacks, mothers nursing infants, and playful juveniles at extraordinarily close range. It is a profoundly humbling encounter with one of our closest genetic relatives in their primeval home. After trekking, you will enjoy a packed lunch in the forest before returning to the lodge to relax and reflect. Packed lunch in forest, dinner and overnight accommodation at Ichumbi Gorilla Lodge (Full Board).

After breakfast, you will journey northward through the fertile landscapes of southwestern Uganda toward Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda’s most visited and ecologically diverse protected area. En route, you will stop for an immersive coffee tour experience, tracing the journey of Uganda’s beloved coffee from its cultivation through harvesting, pulping, drying, and roasting. Queen Elizabeth National Park, which stretches across 1,978 km² between the Rwenzori Mountains and the shores of Lakes Edward and George, is renowned for its tree-climbing lions, enormous elephant herds, and extraordinary biodiversity encompassing ten primate species and over 600 bird species. Arriving in the evening, you will enter via the UWA gate for an evening game drive before checking into the magnificent Mweya Safari Lodge, perched on a peninsula with sweeping views over the Kazinga Channel. Lunch will be had at a selected restaurant, dinner and overnight accommodation at Mweya Safari Lodge.

A morning game drive through Queen Elizabeth National Park’s savanna corridors will put you in search of lions, including the park’s famed tree-climbing lions, herds of Cape buffalo, Uganda kob , giant forest hogs, Nile monitors, and elephants. After returning to the lodge for lunch and relaxation, your afternoon highlight will be a boat cruise on the Kazinga Channel, the 40-kilometre natural waterway linking Lakes George and Edward. The channel’s banks are home to one of Africa’s highest concentrations of hippos and Nile crocodiles, while the waters attract a spectacular variety of water birds — African skimmers, pink-backed pelicans, pied kingfishers, and African spoonbills among hundreds of other species. It is one of East Africa’s finest wildlife spectacles, all viewed from the comfort of a cruise vessel.

After breakfast, you will travel northward through the lush agricultural highlands of western Uganda to Kibale Forest National Park, a 795 km² expanse of moist evergreen rainforest that is widely considered the primate capital of the world. Harboring 13 primate species including the world’s highest density of chimpanzees, Kibale is also home to red colobus monkeys, L’Hoest’s monkeys, and the rare grey-cheeked mangabey. En route, you will detour through the breathtaking Crater Lakes region near Fort Portal — a landscape of perfectly circular lakes nestled in ancient volcanic craters, their deep-blue and emerald-green waters rimmed by papyrus and crater walls, creating one of Uganda’s most surreally beautiful landscapes. You will settle into Rubalika Safari Lodge and Farm in time for dinner. Lunch will be at a selected restaurant, dinner and overnight accommodation at Rubalika Safari Lodge and Farm (Full Board).

Morning will bring your chimpanzee trekking experience in Kibale Forest National Park, beginning with a briefing at the UWA field office before heading into the forest with expert ranger guides. Kibale’s habituated chimpanzee communities offer some of the most reliably spectacular primate encounters in Africa — you will observe these highly intelligent great apes as they forage, communicate, groom, and travel through the forest canopy. You may also encounter red-tailed monkeys, olive baboons, and a remarkable diversity of forest birds. After trekking, you will have lunch at the restaurant before engaging with agricultural activities on the lodge’s working farmland — a grounding and authentic experience of rural Ugandan life.

Lunch, dinner and overnight accommodation at Rubalika Safari Lodge and Farm (Full Board).

Following breakfast, you will embark on a scenic drive northward through Fort Portal and the communities of Kyenjojo and Hoima, passing through diverse Ugandan landscapes — from cultivated hills and trading towns to the vast flatlands of the northern savanna. Your destination is Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda’s largest protected area at 3,893 km², and one of the most dramatic safari destinations on the continent. The park straddles the mighty Victoria Nile as it carves its way northward, and takes its name from the awe-inspiring Murchison Falls — where the entire flow of the Nile is forced through a narrow 7-metre gorge with thunderous power before plunging 43 metres into the gorge below. After arriving in the evening, you will check into the legendary Paraa Safari Lodge, overlooking the Nile.

Lunch will be at a selected restaurant enroute, dinner and overnight accommodation at Paraa Safari Lodge (Full Board)

A morning game drive through Murchison Falls National Park’s northern bank will reveal vast herds of Uganda kob and Jackson’s hartebeest, Rothschild’s giraffes (one of Africa’s most endangered giraffe subspecies), Nile crocodiles, Cape buffalo, lions, and elephants moving through classic African bush landscape. After returning to the lodge for lunch, your afternoon will be spent on a boat cruise along the Victoria Nile upstream toward the base of the falls. Drifting between banks lined with hippo pods and enormous Nile crocodiles, and under skies alive with kingfishers, bee-eaters, and African fish eagles, you will approach the thundering foot of Murchison Falls — where the full force of the Nile erupts through its rocky gorge in a towering curtain of white water and mist, one of Africa’s most unforgettable natural spectacles. All meals and overnight accommodation at Paraa Safari Lodge (Full Board).

After breakfast, you will drive to the top of Murchison Falls for a short but exhilarating hike to the viewing point perched directly above the gorge, where the full magnitude of the Nile’s power is felt underfoot and the roar of the falls fills the air. The views of the river winding through the forested valley below are simply magnificent. You will then transfer south to Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary, Uganda’s only wild-living rhinoceros sanctuary. Led by trained ranger guides, you will undertake a walking safari through the sanctuary’s bush to track and approach rhinos on foot — a rare and intimate wildlife encounter that rewards patience with extraordinary proximity. After lunch, you will continue to Kampala, Uganda’s vibrant and sprawling capital, arriving in the evening to check in at the lakeside Speke Resort Munyonyo.

Lunch, dinner and overnight accommodation at Speke Resort Munyonyo (Full Board).

Your final morning will be devoted to a guided tour of Kampala, Uganda’s dynamic and historically layered capital city built across seven hills. You will visit the Kasubi Tombs, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the sacred burial grounds of four Buganda Kabakas (kings), a remarkable example of Buganda architecture constructed entirely from organic materials including bark cloth, reed, and grass. You will also visit the Gaddafi National Mosque, East Africa’s largest mosque, whose towering minaret offers a panoramic view over the city’s hills and the northern shores of Lake Victoria. Following lunch at a selected restaurant, you will transfer to Entebbe International Airport for your outbound flight, departing with memories of an extraordinary journey across two remarkable East African nations.