Uganda · national park since 1952
The Victoria Nile crosses 3,840 square kilometres of northern Uganda, then forces its entire volume through a cleft barely six metres wide and drops 45 metres into the gorge below. Above and below that point live about 2,250 Nubian giraffe, the largest population left anywhere in the world.
Photo: Yakov Fedorov (CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons)
Murchison Falls sits 305 km and four to five hours north-west of Kampala, reached across the Nile on the Paraa Bridge rather than the old ferry. The Buligi game-viewing triangle and the falls themselves both sit close to Paraa, with Masindi the usual town on the way in.
This guide is written by someone who overlanded much of Africa in his own Land Cruiser with a rooftop tent, and for whom the national parks were what stayed. The information about them online was usually missing, wrong or years old: fees from three tariff sheets ago, camps that had closed, roads described by people who had never driven them.
So this guide runs on the park authority's own tariff document rather than a copied operator page, on thirty-year climate normals rather than brochure weather, and on what the camps tell us directly. Every claim carries a date. Where UWA is silent, so are we, apart from saying that it is silent.
Nothing here is for sale. Listing a camp is free and no position on any page can be bought. Some outbound links earn us a small commission, and that changes neither the order of a list nor a single figure on these pages.
Found something out of date? Tell us and it changes the same week.
Two boats leave the same jetty in opposite directions, and the game drives on the north bank hold Uganda's biggest giraffe population. That is most of a Murchison itinerary right there.
UWA's oldest excursion, upriver from Paraa to where the Nile pours out of Fajao gorge, past hippo, crocodile and a dense band of waterbirds the whole way. $30 for foreign non-residents, about two and a half hours.
Photo: Visit Africa Publishers
The triangle between the two Niles holds the giraffe herds, the kob concentrations and the highest lion and hyaena densities in Uganda. A guide costs $25 for the whole vehicle, not per person.
Photo: Visit Africa Publishers
A slower boat from the same jetty, heading downstream into the Nile delta rather than up to the falls, and the best place in the park to find the shoebill.
Photo: Visit Africa Publishers
Twenty places to stay, from a UWA dormitory to the fly-in end of the market. These four are not the best four; they are the four that mark out the range.
The cheapest way in
UWA's own dormitory and campsites at North Paraa, self-catering, with camping also permitted at the Top of the Falls.
Community-owned, at the gate
A village women's cooperative that turned itself into a guesthouse, its bandas set in a garden of weaver birds near the Kichumbanyobo entrance.
The sensible middle
Four room types on one plot of the Victoria Nile, off grid, with full board rates published openly and hippos in front of the terrace.
The top end
Eight bandas on a wooded bank downstream of Paraa, each with a private deck and outdoor tub, and rates that cover meals and a cruise.
Murchison sits alone in UWA's top price band at $45 a day, and it adds a vehicle surcharge no other park charges.
See the fees →Where to sleep on the north bank, the south bank and outside the gates, with what each property actually publishes.
Browse lodges →The drive north from Kampala, which gate suits your route, and why the old advice about the Paraa ferry no longer applies.
Plan the route →The world's biggest Nubian giraffe population, most of Uganda's lions, and a delta with extraordinary predator numbers.
What you'll see →Two dry windows carry the game viewing, and January to March is quietly the best month range for birds.
Pick your month →The launch to the foot of the falls, the delta shoebill cruise, Buligi game drives and the climb up Fajao gorge.
See activities →Our own research
We collect the official tariff of every park we cover, convert it, and hold each one to the same standard day. Twenty-nine parks are in the index now, the famous ones included. These three pages come out of that table.
Ngorongoro charges $278 for a standard day and $148 of that is the descent into the crater. The ranking straight down, with the line item behind each number.
See the ranking →One person, one car, no one to split the vehicle fee or the campsite with. Uganda's foreign-vehicle tariff turns the order upside down.
See the self-drive ranking →The highest nightly rates any camp in our network puts in writing, and why the real top of the market names no price at all.
See the rates →Every change to this guide, dated.
