4-Day Kidepo Valley Fly-In Game Drive Safari, Uganda

Day-by-day itinerary

1. Day1
   

   Fly from Entebbe to Kidepo, Afternoon Game Drive in the Narus Valley

   After breakfast our driver takes you to the airstrip for the scheduled light-aircraft flight north to Apoka, the airstrip at the park headquarters. The flight takes about one and a half to two hours, sometimes with a stop on the way, and crosses Lake Kyoga and the dry plains of Karamoja; by road the same trip is around ten hours each way. Our guide meets you at Apoka and drives you a few minutes to the lodge for lunch. Kidepo Valley National Park covers 1,442 square kilometres in the corner where Uganda meets South Sudan and Kenya, and it was made a national park in 1962. In the afternoon you head out into the Narus Valley, the park’s main game area, where permanent pools hold water through the dry season. Buffalo herds, Jackson’s hartebeest, Rothschild’s giraffe, zebra, oribi and elephant are common here, with the Morungole and Napore ranges on the horizon. Dinner and overnight at Apoka Safari Lodge or Kidepo Savannah Lodge.

   • Fly to Apoka, afternoon game drive
   • Apoka Safari Lodge or Kidepo Savannah Lodge
   • Lunch, dinner
2. Day2
   

   Narus Valley Game Drives and a Karamojong Homestead Visit

   You leave at first light for a morning game drive in the Narus Valley, when the predators are most active. Kidepo’s lions are known for resting on the granite rocks above the valley, and the open grassland is good country for cheetah, a cat you will not find in any other Ugandan park. Our guide also looks for leopard in the sausage trees along the Narus River and for spotted hyena and bat-eared fox. Kidepo has about 77 mammal species, more than 20 of them found in no other park in the country. After lunch and a rest, you drive out of the park to a Karamojong manyatta, a family compound surrounded by a thorn fence, where you meet a family of the agro-pastoral Karamojong people, see their granaries and cattle enclosure and, if the moment is right, join in the high-jumping dance. You return to the lodge for sunset. Dinner and overnight at Apoka Safari Lodge or Kidepo Savannah Lodge.

   • Narus Valley drives, Karamojong visit
   • Apoka Safari Lodge or Kidepo Savannah Lodge
   • Breakfast, lunch, dinner
3. Day3
   

   Full Day in the Kidepo Valley and Kanangorok Hot Springs

   Today you go north to the far side of the park, a drive of about one and a half hours to the Kidepo Valley with a packed lunch. The Kidepo River is a wide sand river for most of the year, lined with Borassus palms, and the dry plains around it are home to ostrich, the striking Kori bustard, secretary birds and herds of eland. The road continues to the Kanangorok hot springs, close to the South Sudan border, where hot water comes out of the rock in a small pool and the view stretches across the border hills. Kidepo is also a strong birding park, with about 475 species recorded, including the Karamoja apalis, Abyssinian ground hornbill and several dryland species seen nowhere else in Uganda. In the afternoon you work your way back through the Narus Valley, stopping wherever the game is. Dinner and overnight at Apoka Safari Lodge or Kidepo Savannah Lodge.

   • Kidepo Valley and Kanangorok hot springs
   • Apoka Safari Lodge or Kidepo Savannah Lodge
   • Breakfast, lunch, dinner
4. Day4
   

   Morning Nature Walk or Game Drive and Flight to Entebbe

   You can choose how to spend your last morning: a final game drive in the Narus Valley, or a guided nature walk with an armed Uganda Wildlife Authority ranger, which lets you look at tracks, dung and smaller creatures that are easy to miss from the vehicle. After breakfast our guide drives you to Apoka airstrip for the return flight to Entebbe, about one and a half to two hours. You are met on arrival and taken to your hotel in Entebbe or Kampala, or straight to Entebbe International Airport if you are flying out that evening. Kidepo combines well with gorilla trekking in Bwindi, which can also be reached by air from Entebbe.

   • Nature walk or game drive, fly to Entebbe
   • Breakfast