Uganda Top Destinations

Kidepo Valley National Park lies in the rugged, semi arid valleys between Uganda’s borders with Sudan and Kenya, some 700km from Kampala. Gazetted as a national park in 1962, it has a profusion of big game and hosts over 77 mammal species as well as around 475 bird species.

Background Information

Protected Area Type: National Park     When to go: All year round
Park Size:1,442 sq km

Kidepo is Uganda’s most isolated national park, but the few who make the long journey north through the wild frontier region of Karamoja would agree that it is also the most magnificent, for Kidepo ranks among Africa’s finest wildernesses. From Apoka, in the heart of the park, a savannah landscape extends far beyond the gazetted area, towards horizons outlined by distant mountain ranges. During the dry season, the only permanent water in the park is found in wetlands and remnant pools in the broad Narus Valley near Apoka. These seasonal oases, combined with the open, savannah terrain, make the Narus Valley the park’s prime game viewing location.

 

Driving to this park means covering a distance from Kampala of at least 705 kilometers and if you take some different routes as many as 792 kilometers. In other words most people choose to fly instead since it would take a good days at least and the roads go through some rough country. Most people fly here, which at the present petro and diesel prices might even be a lower price than driving, and once you are here, arrangements are made for transportation at Kidepo Valley Park.

 

Game Viewing + Activities

80 different kinds of mammals are found here, 28 of which are found nowhere else in Uganda. Tree Climbing lions are found here during the day as they tend to roam at night, Herds of Elephants, Buffaloes, Giraffes, 5 kinds of primates, bat-eared fox, striped hyena, aardwolf, caracal, cheetah and hunting dog, eland, bush buck, bush duskier, defassa water buck, bohor reed buck, jackson's hartebeest and oribi. The major tourist activities in the park include game viewing by vehicles on dirt roads that crisscross the southern and western parts of the park. A few trunk roads are improved with murram and are passable in all weather.