Uganda is a beautiful country and the best way to explore it is by rental car. Uganda has a good road system and we found driving to be very safe throughout the country. Having your own car gives you the flexibility to travel at your own pace and see places that are not easily visited on group tours or public transport, like the many UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Uganda. We’ve explored most of Uganda by rental car and every time we’ve had an amazing experience.
You can also drive anywhere beyond Uganda and cross to Rwanda, Kenya and Tanzania at your own pace. If you’re planning a trip to East Africa, we highly recommend renting a 4×4 rooftop tent car with 4×4 Car Hire Uganda and here we highly recommend our hard and strong engine, solid Land Cruiser GX or V8.
Recommended 4×4 Jeep One way rental Across East Africa
Drive anywhere in Uganda
Uganda has a modest profile among Africa’s top safari destinations. With no parks of the size or popularity of Kruger, Chobe, Serengeti or other such A – listers, its main wildlife draw card has become the mountain gorilla. Alongside Rwanda, the country undoubtedly offers Africa’s best opportunity for close encounters with this impressive and endangered primate. Indeed, many visitors arrive just for this experience, taking the rest of their safari elsewhere.
There is no denying that a gorilla trek in the steep, damp forests of Bwindi Impenetrable National Park is one of the world’s great wildlife experiences –as is the equally thrilling chimp trekking at Kibale. A safari here thus offers both plains game and forest dwellers. Add to this the semi-arid country of the north, and you can end up with an amazing haul of species.
Primates are certainly a top draw card. The two great apes were among an impressive 13 species that I saw on my most recent trip as high a total as you might expect anywhere in the monkey-rich Amazon. Move away from the forests to the Savannah reserves of Murchison Falls and Queen Elizabeth national parks, however, and you’ll also find healthy populations of elephant and buffalo, plus plentiful antelope – including hartebeest, topi and the local special, Uganda Kob.
Large predators, including lion, leopard and spotted hyena, occur in small numbers but are regularly seen in key locations, while Kidepo’s open grasslands in the north are also home to cheetah. On protected waterways, hippos and crocodiles are very abundant, while Mburo National Park has zebra, Murchison Falls has Rothschild’s giraffe, and little-known species such as giant forest hog and potto can also be seen, if you know where to look.
For African birders, Uganda needs little introduction and tops many a bucket list. The profusion of species, from shy rain forest rarities, including many Albertine Rift endemics, to the raptors and songbirds of the Savannah and the pageant of wetland water birds, is unrivalled.
Even Entebbe Botanical Gardens can produce an excellent day’s birding, including species such as Ross’s turaco and African grey parrot that are hard to find elsewhere in East Africa. Pride of place undoubtedly goes to the huge and bizarre shoe bill – relatively easily seen both at Murchison Falls and on Mabamba swamps beside Lake Victoria.
Uganda is small, no larger than the UK, which means that you can take in most of its key destinations on a single safari. The national parks are well set-up for visitors, the welcome famously friendly and the standard of guiding generally excellent. Journeys on the country’s rough roads can be arduous, admittedly, and can take longer than any map might suggest. But the rewards make it well worth your while.
Drive anywhere in Rwanda
There is much more to the ‘the country of a thousand hills’ than initially meets the eye. Small, compact and easy to travel around, friendly Rwanda has well and truly consigned the tragic genocide of 1994 to history. The country has reconciled and rebounded spectacularly from this tragedy and today it is one of the friendliest, safest and most welcoming countries on the continent.
With its many families of habituated mountain gorillas, Volcanoes National Park in the northwest of the country is unquestionably the most famous (and popular) of Rwanda’s protected areas. Sadly, most visitors to Rwanda simply come to spend time with its world-renowned mountain gorillas and then leave without sampling any of the country’s other safari offerings. While gorilla trekking is definitely Rwanda’s top safari attraction, Akagera and Nyungwe national parks are great additions to your Rwandan safari experience.
All three national parks are easily accessible by road, so a country-wide circuit through Rwanda’s gently rolling hills can provide a fascinating and rewarding Rwandan safari experience. It could include Volcanoes National Park (for gorillas, trekking and birding), primate-filled Nyungwe Forest (for chimpanzees, waterfalls, bird watching and hiking) and Akagera (for a typically East African Big Five Savannah safari experience), along with some time on Lake Kivu (for boating, kayaking and hiking) and a couple of days to explore the capital city of Kigali (with its sobering genocide museum).
With its stunning mountain scenery and surprisingly diverse wildlife resources, Rwanda offers far more than Africa’s premier mountain gorilla viewing, and is absolutely worthy of further exploration.
Drive anywhere in Tanzania and Kenya
Kenya and Tanzania are good choices for self-driving safaris but with the vast and rugged routes in the safari parks here we recommend 4×4 car rental with driver. It has everything we image Africa to be: Savannah plains teeming with grazers and predators, views of the snow-capped peaks of Kilimanjaro, palm-fringed beaches, sweaty jungles and a vast inhospitable desert. With the oldest safari industry on the continent, the Kenyans run a smooth operation and most tourists seem to walk away happy and fulfilled. I first went to Kenya in 1995 and I’ve been back many times since. It is easy to see a big variety of animals in Kenya.
You can visit Masai Mara. I’ve been lucky to witness one of the biggest wildlife spectacles in the world here: the annual wildebeest migration. The timing for this is hard to predict exactly, but the Masai Mara offers some of the best all-year game viewing in a big eco – system. It is especially rewarding for big cats.
Amboseli National Park with its big-tusked elephants is another one you can visit on a self-drive. The Rift valley lakes in Kenya are some of the most accessible in East Africa, and seeing big flocks of flamingos in Nakuru National Park is another highlight. Deviating a little bit from the main tourist hotspots, you can also visit Samburu National Reserve. This arid environment is home to many desert-adapted species, not easily seen elsewhere.
Some people might like to end their safari with some time on the beach, and Kenya’s Indian Ocean coastline is one of the finest. I’m not a beach person, but I love heading to some of the pristine coastal forests. Shimba Hills with its sable antelope and many forest creatures is excellent for birding as well.