Safari to Kidepo Valley

one of the least-visited safari areas in East Africa

At 1442 square kilometres Kidepo Valley is a substantial and extremely remote national park, situated in the far northeast of Uganda, bordering onto South Sudan and northwest Kenya.

This is one of those mystical safari locations which tends to appeal most to experienced safari travellers who are specifically searching out the wildest and most remote places.

The landscapes are of sweeping grasslands drained by seasonal rivers and backed by high granite mountains.

Wildlife is surprisingly diverse, with 86 mammal species including spotted hyenas, lions, cheetahs, leopards, wild dogs, elephants, giraffes, buffaloes, bat-eared foxes, hartebeest, waterbucks, bushbucks and warthogs.

There are also a remarkable 463 bird species, including 58 different raptors.

In an ideal world, Kidepo Valley would feature in every trip to Uganda, but the high price, the unusual seasonality and the fact that virtually no one has heard of the place, means that it is a very rare inclusion.

The usual stay duration is 3-4 nights.

Seasonality

Kidepo Valley is usually best visited during the Nov-Feb dry season.

It is important to note that this area has a rather contrary climate to the remainder of the country and, for that matter, to the vast majority of the safari areas in Africa.

This is because conditions here are more influenced by the Sahara weather systems than the usual Indian Ocean monsoon.

Getting around

Up to around 2015 getting around Uganda was something of a mission. The only real option was to travel by guided overland safari, which might sound great, but the reality was that most of the hard miles were on relatively uninteresting main roads rather than interesting safari areas. It was both tiresome, time consuming and, for smaller groups, surprisingly expensive.

Fortunately, there is now a reliable schedule of light aircraft flights connecting the main safari areas, operating out of the hub airport at Entebbe and visiting Bwindi Forest, QENP, Kibale Forest, Murchison Falls and Kidepo Valley.

This has been a particular boon for the Kidepo Valley area, since the drive up here used to be particularly long, arduous and tedious. Flying up is so much better.

The area usually fits in at the end of a trip, after having undertaken a clockwise loop, starting in Entebbe and visiting any or all of Bwindi Forest, QE, Kibale Forest and Murchison Falls, then returning back to Entebbe.

Sometimes the flight connections between Murchison Falls and Kidepo Valley are direct, other times they are routed back through Entebbe, which is a bit of a pain and certainly aesthetically disadvantageous.

Where to stay

There is only one quality lodge in the Kidepo Valley area, namely Apoka Lodge.

There’s also a few simple facilities and campgrounds for overland safaris, but since we do not recommend this kind of travel in Uganda (especially to Kidepo, the distances are huge and the journey very tiresome), this need not concern us.

usually accessed by shared charter flights from Entebbe