Seeing Africa by Road with 4×4 Rooftop Tent Jeep for 03 months covering Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania. Africa is a big continent and divided into five blocks and that is East, North, Central, West and then Southern. Today there are so many travelers that take trips to Africa and each traveler go to the region of the best interest.
Before the escorted trips were so much opted but today with the new innovations in the tourism industry new services have been introduced and self-drive holidays are so common especially in the Southern and Eastern Africa.
For travelers looking at the deep experience of African wildlife, birds and undulating landscapes do visit the East Africa. Though East Africa, today has so many countries but there is a list of those that are much loved and suitably easy to visit on a self-drive road trip with a rooftop tent car. Among them includes Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya and then Tanzania.
Exploring East Africa is so much interesting that you will encounter the primates, birds, wildlife, culture, landscapes and much more depending on your travel plan. Well with our professional travel experts we will help you to customize a very suitable road trip journey across the region.
Before, travelers used to explore the region with only the 4×4 jeeps but today with the modernity and new innovations car rental agencies offers these 4×4 jeeps with the rooftop tents that can easily offer you an opportunity to camp anywhere designed for camping on the trip.
If you are to explore East Africa on a round route you can either start from Rwanda – Uganda – Kenya and then Tanzania or either way. We as a service provider we kindly advise that you take a route of this sort or vice versa.
With our 4×4 jeeps we can deliver them to our travelers in any location of start just that you only provide the logistics that will deliver the jeep to you before your arrival and starting date.
Rwanda
Self-drive in Rwanda will offer you the opportunity to explore the whole of Kigali city visiting to the historical religious landmarks, local markets, genocide memorials and museums. Thereafter, visit to the Akagera game park where you will have an opportunity to game view the wildlife, birdlife and undulating landscapes.
On your entry to the Akagera National Game Park you will take en-route game drive looking for the African big five and other wildlife and bird species. Evening you can take scenic boat ride along Lake Ihema and you will see more wildlife and birds that you missed on the game drive at the bank of the Lake.
After exploring this Rwanda – Tanzania wildlife corridor we left to the other part of this country and we drove to the Kibuye (Huye) and we visited the great museum experiencing the Intore Dance which is ranked as the best performance of Rwanda and recognized on international level.
Later, we drove through the green plantations to the Nyungwe Forest National Park and with our 4×4 rooftop jeep we stayed at the Gisakura Campsite. Early morning, we went for chimpanzee trekking in the mist and then evening we did the canopy walk and this offers clear view of the birds, primates and canopies. Take scenic drive alongside the sides of the Lake Kivu in Kibuye towards to Gisenyi.
Here we stayed at Discover Guest House gardens and since we arrived here early enough, we took evening walk around the town visiting to the borders between Rwanda – Democratic Republic of Congo.
Here you find some of the interesting places to visit like the Gisenyi Museum and the Dancing pots where you will see and experience the history of Rwanda and some interesting artisans. After through the Karongi tea plantation we drove to Ruhengeri and with our 4×4 jeep camped at Muhabura Hotel gardens.
Here you can go to Volcanoes National Park and here you can do gorilla trek, golden monkey tracking, visit Dian Fossey and Karisoke research center and museum, Iby’Iwacu guardian village. Our choice was the golden monkey and then visit to the museum to experience the great work that Dian Fossey did towards the conservation of the mountain gorillas and the Virunga massifs at large.
Nearing the foot slopes of Volcanoes National Park is the twin lakes “Ruhondo and Burera” and they are worthy interesting to visit and activities to experience include the boat cruise and bird watching at the banks of the Lake.
Uganda
After we crossed to Uganda via the Cyanika border and had stay at the Kisoro Travelers Hotel gardens and here we joined other travelers in the restaurant for dinner and we found so many people from Netherlands and others.
Leaving at this hotel on escorted or self-drive trip in Uganda you will experience more information about Dian Fossey since this is her home of stay during her conservation work in the Virunga massifs. Since much is said about the mountain gorillas in the Virunga, we arranged our traveler expert to purchase us gorilla permits for the Mgahinga Gorilla National Park which is part of Virunga but on the Uganda side.
The gorilla experience is so amazing walking in the downs and ups of the undulating landscapes of the park. Meeting with the gorillas we spent one hour with them taking photos and images and after we had to descend back to the starting point and pick our gorilla trekking certificate.
After gorilla trekking in the Mgahinga Gorilla National Park we later continued to the beautiful Lake Mutanda and from our friend Rose the manager to Mutanda Lake Resort we had nice welcome and she was so happy to see and she was highly recommending the company we were traveling with 4×4 Car Hire Uganda that is managed by Nature Adventure Africa and she was like the gentleman of that company is very professional and the next day we did another gorilla trek this time in Bwindi Forest National Park and when you compare both parks are awesome and if you are doing double gorilla safari in Uganda as your operator to arrange this program.
After the two gorilla trekking experiences we spent an extra day here relaxing and took some interesting boat ride and memorable walks at the shores of this volcanic Lake. Descend to Lake Bunyonyi and have more relaxing days cruising along the shores of the Lake to the dotted beautiful islands.
From the beautiful Lake Bunyonyi we visited to Queen Elizabeth National Park, Kibale Forest National Park, Murchison Falls National Park and then to Kidepo Valley National Park. Visiting all the above-mentioned parks you will experience the interesting wildlife safari, boat ride and the other primates like chimps and monkeys.
Thereafter, from Kidepo Valley National Park we drove down wards through Kotido – Kaabong and Moroto and en-route we managed to visit some interesting places like the Nakapelimuro villages which is among the biggest villages in East Africa, nature walk in the IK forest and then we had to retire in the Moroto town.
Moses had already briefed us with few experiences to take in the area and we had overnight camping at Kara-tunga with our jeep and then we had to arrange one overnight in the community and we made and we found it amazing as we were in group of 06 tourists we arranged and bought a goat for roasting.
Later on, we drove via the Pian Upe wildlife reserve and looking for more rare wildlife species that are spotted here and looking at our back and sides we enjoyed the beautiful undulating green cover landscapes. After with lunch en-route we drove to Mount Elgon and at Moses’ campsite we had to raise up our rooftop tent for an overnight as we wait for more local experiences the next day.
Thereafter, we had more other 02 days in the area and we were deeply shown the region has to offer to tourists like the coffee tour is so amazing as you get to engage with the locals and the experience is so good, you learn how to harvest coffee, prepare it until you taste it in the cup with the nice aroma.
Kenya
Once again us having prepared our road trip with a very organized service provider we had all the paper work that we needed to clear our crossing from the Uganda – Kenya customs and it did not take us to much time to clear the jeep to enter Kenya and our Visas we came with them already processed and from the border we straight drove to Nairobi and Jungle Junction Camp and here we had nice time catching up with new travelers and those from our country.
During the dinner time we had nice stories that guys after their Kenya trips were narrating and this was so motivational and inspiring to love more the Kenya route and we also narrated our Uganda route and one couple instantly booked a 4×4 road trip rooftop tent from there from Mike a great representative of 4×4 Car Hire Uganda.
Our Kenya route started with the visit to the Shendrick elephant orphanage center, Giraffe Manor center and then visit to the Nairobi National Park and we closed our day visiting the Carnivore Restaurant and here we were just for meat chewing and if you want to enjoy various variety of meat this is the place to go while in Nairobi – Kenya.
On our 09-day spent in Kenya we managed to explore the beautiful tourism places up to down Mombasa and enjoyed the white sand beaches and the sunshine hear is nice. Then from the beach hub we had en-route stopovers to Tsavo East and West and from both parks we were so lucky seeing a lot of wildlife and birdlife species. Very soon we shall be publishing our gallery album to the audience to see what you miss and what you enjoy once you decide to visit Africa.
After this we had to go to the Amboseli and here we enjoyed the scenic view of the Mount Kilimanjaro plus the big elephants in the Savannah wilderness. On so many game drives we had in this park we spotted so many wildlife and the birds as well since my husband was so much interested in the bird watching experiences.
After the Amboseli we later had to go to Samburu and the Lake Naivasha and few days were spent in both reserves and continued to Maasai Mara Reserve and this was our climax experiencing the Mara crossing of the great wildebeest migration from and to the Serengeti plains – Tanzania.
For the better collection of information about this reserve we spent like 5 days in the area and we had so many day and night game drives and visiting almost all the conservation reserves bordering with the park.
What was with our route is that from Mara we crossed direct to Serengeti – Northern sector and during our travel time (September) it was interesting that at the Kenya side we were experiencing the arrival of the wildebeest and then from Serengeti departure of the wildebeest.
As I said earlier that we traveled with organized company they have well connection through East Africa. In Kenya we met Geoffrey a representative of the company in this country and he helped guiding us well on what to do and have good experience in the parks.
Then when we moved to Tanzania still the team was there to help explore the Serengeti in details and Omega from the team advised us to take 3 nights in the northern Serengeti and we did it and it was so much timely and we experienced various sessions of wildebeest crossing at various points.
After being filled with the migration experience, we drove to the central Serengeti and here we again saw more of the lions, elephants, zebras, leopards, cheetahs among others. What is interesting is that every kopje you will spot a big five especially the lions and leopards relaxing or hiding. Since we had spent much more time in the northern Serengeti, we had only 2-nights in the central and then following other jeeps on the game drives we managed to spot the rhino on way outing the park to Ngorongoro and in this amazing caldera we spent like 4-hours and more of the animals were spotted just few meters aways from our jeep and then drove to Karatu town and here we spent an overnight in the safari camp of our friend doing business in Tanzania from Netherlands.
Today, is our relaxed day and after breakfast we started our journey to Tarangire via the Manyara and before entering the Manyara we took scenic view at the raised landscape of the park and after took short game drive towards the hot springs and then drove to Tarangire National Park.
After the game drive in this park, we again had to hit the road back to Arusha and we stayed at Arusha Back Parkers for one more night waiting for representative from 4×4 Car Hire Uganda to collect the car and transfer it back to Uganda.