How To Book A Gorilla Safari Online

Here is how to book a gorilla safari online by yourself. Do you want to go for a gorilla trekking safari in Uganda, Rwanda, or D.R.Congo? How to make your safari booking? We have got you covered with the procedure to follow.

Gorilla safaris in Africa are selling like hot cake on the must-African adventures worth adding to several travelers’ bucket lists. The age limit for booking a gorilla safari is 15 years and beyond in each mountain gorilla destination.

Most Popular Safaris

3 day Uganda gorilla tracking

3 day chimp habituation in Kibale

3 day fly in gorilla habituation

5 days chimp and gorilla habituation

3 days Rwanda gorilla tracking

4 days gorillas and golden monkeys

5 day Uganda gorillas and wildlife

5 day gorilla habituation and chimps

5 days gorillas and game safari

5 days gorilla trekking Rwanda

You can make online gorilla safari booking through different companies’ contact forms like Encounter Africa safaris ENQUIRY FORM. Fill in all the necessary details as presented on the form with what you wish your safari package to look like to satisfy your holiday needs.

Knowing where you wish to do a gorilla trekking safari in Africa makes it easy when calculating the necessary safari quotation. You can do gorilla trekking in Uganda, Rwanda, and D.R.Congo.

What Is Included On Our Gorilla Safari Online Form 

The Clients Full Names

For easy identification, we need every client’s name to create a folder with all the necessary details, including the communications our safari consultant exchanges with the clients.

Number Of People Traveling With For Gorilla Safari

Filling in the number of people you hope to travel with for the gorilla safari helps when checking the availability of gorilla permits. Even when making accommodation bookings to use during the gorilla safari, you need to know the number of people on the safari to make room allocations.

Number Of Days On Gorilla Safari

Most safari holiday service providers charge costs like accommodation, vehicle hire, driver guide, and others per day. The higher the gross safari cost, the more days on a gorilla safari.

We Have Gorilla Safari Packages Like

3 Day Gorilla Trekking Safari

5 Day Gorilla And Chimpanzee Trekking Tour In Uganda

6-Day Gorilla And Chimpanzee Trekking Safari

7-Day Gorilla, Chimpanzee Trekking, And Wildlife Safari

We can also tailor our itineraries to soothe our clients’ needs. We aim to provide value for money and create memories of your gorilla safari experience in Africa.

Gorilla Safari Package

We package our gorilla safaris according to luxury, midrange, and budget. Each safari package contains different inclusions and exclusions. The more inclusions in a gorilla safari package, the higher the cost.

Nationality

Knowing the nationality of our clients assists us when analyzing where we can put our marketing strategy. When acquiring the gorilla permit, the details of where a client comes from are required before it is issued.

Date, Month, And Year When You Wish To Do Gorilla Safari

Providing the date when you wish to start your gorilla safari, possible departure date, month, and year assists in planning your gorilla safari. Misfiring with these dates may cause you to miss gorilla trekking and miscalculate the flow of the gorilla safari. This is why we do briefings of our clients before starting the gorilla safari so that we are all on the same page.

Where To Do Gorilla Safari

In the entire world, mountain gorilla trekking can only be done in three destinations that is Uganda, Rwanda, and D.R.Congo. Each of these countries has its own 

In Uganda

Bwindi Impenetrable National Park

This ancient national park lies in the South Western part of Uganda, celebrating over 25000 years of existence. About 18 gorilla trekking families are residents of Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, plus 2 gorilla families open to gorilla habituation experience in the southern part of this park.

Bwindi’s impenetrable national park is partitioned into areas for administrative reasons:

• Buhoma area in the North
• The Ruhija area in the East
• Rushaga and Nkuringo areas in the South 

The huge list of fauna and flora that Bwindi Impenetrable national park hosts has accumulated over time. Bwindi forest is home to 10 primate species, including mountain gorillas, chimpanzees, blue monkeys, grey-cheeked mangabey, vervet monkeys, olive baboons, and others.

Over 350 bird species are residents of Bwindi Impenetrable National Park; the Ruhija area, especially the Mubwindi swamp, is a birder’s destination. You may spot a number of birds like the Red-Faced Woodland, Western Green Tinkerbird, African Hill Babbler, Handsome Francolin, Collared Apalis, Shelley’s Crimmsonwing, And Others.

Mgahinga National Park

Places in the deep southwestern corner of Uganda is Mgahinga National Park. Although Mgahinga National Park is small, it is biologically rich as its home to the rare mountain gorillas.

Only one gorilla family, Nyakagezi, is fully habituated to human presence. This Park Hosts Other Primates, Too Including Golden Monkeys, Grey Cheeked Mangabey, Red Tailed Monkeys, Blue Monkeys, And Others.

This park is home to an array of birds, although still less discovered, with about 115 bird species recorded as residents, the list is still expanding, according to ornithologists.

Mgahinga National Park has some of the few beautiful views of several highlands that form its topography: Mountain Gahinga, Mountain Muhavura, and Mountain Sabyinyo. Each of these highlands is covered with unique vegetation composed of Afromontane forest and Afro-alpine moorland on the upper slopes.

In Rwanda

Volcanoes National Park 

This volcanic park is located in the North Western part of Rwanda. This park currently hosts about 12 gorilla trekking families that are fully habituated and open to the public. Everybody going on the Rwanda gorilla safari must purchase a gorilla permit. The Rwanda Development Board is the gorilla permit-selling and regulating body of Rwanda.

Volcanoes National Park also hosts other primates like golden monkeys, olive baboons, black and white colobus, red-tailed monkeys, and grey-cheeked mangabey.

Over 200 bird species are residents of Volcanoes National Park, including Albertine rift endemics. Some of the birds you may spot in this forested national park include Rwenzori Turaco, Lagden’s Bush Shrike, Alpine Chat, Malachite Sunbird, Malachite Sunbird, Dusky Crimsonwing, Kivu Ground Thrush, and others.

In D.R.Congo

Virunga National Park

Virunga national park is the only home of mountain gorillas in D.R.Congo. This park lies in a politically unstable fraction of D.R.Congo, which explains the limited number of gorilla permits. 6 gorilla families are currently fully habituated and open for public booking. Some gorilla families present are Kabirizi, Humba, Muyaga, Rugendo, Mapuwa, Lulengo, and others.

How To Plan For Gorilla Trekking Safari

Book A Gorilla Permit In Advance

Securing a gorilla permit in advance saves you the trouble of last-minute panic to secure the gorilla permit. The maximum number of people allowed to do gorilla trekking in Uganda is 8 per gorilla family per day.

When planning to travel for the gorilla safari in the peak season, which is June, July, August, September, December, and January, it is best to book your gorilla trekking permit at least 6 months to a year in advance. You can attempt to book your gorilla permit 3 months to gorilla trekking dates; however, they become rarer as days draw closer to peak season. 

Chances of last-minute gorilla permits are more open in the low tourism season, usually March, April, May, and November. 

What Is The Cost Of a Gorilla Permit For

UGANDA

 The current cost of a Uganda permit is $700 per person per trek for foreign residents, $600 for foreign residents, and 250000 shs for East African residents.

RWANDA

The Rwanda gorilla permit currently costs $1500 for foreign nonresidents, $500 for foreign residents, and $200 for East African residents.

D.R.CONGO

At the moment, the cost of the Virunga National Park permit is $450 per person per trek.

Choose The Number Of People You Hope To Do Gorilla Safari With

If you hope to share your gorilla safari with others, you must know the number of those you are traveling with before asking about gorilla permit availability. This prevents going back and forth with checking gorilla permit availability, especially in the peak season when demand for gorilla tours is high.

Reserve Accommodation To Use During Gorilla Safari

After securing your gorilla permit, the next step is accommodation when on a gorilla safari. You need to spend a day before gorilla trekking on the park’s outskirts. Whether in Uganda, Rwanda, or D.R.Congo, Gorilla trekking starts early morning with the briefing.

 You must attend a briefing before you can do gorilla trekking, so you need to spend the night before the gorilla trek close to or within the park.

Select A Gorilla Safari Destination

Choosing which gorilla safari destination you wish to visit would be best: Uganda, Rwanda, and D.R.Congo. Each destination varies with the cost of a gorilla permit and the national parks where you go. In Uganda, as mentioned above, you can select from Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Mgahinga National Park for gorilla safari, Rwanda has Volcanoes National Park, and D.R.Congo has Virunga National Park.

Do Pre-Gorilla Tour Exercises

You must have some fitness level to do a gorilla safari in the Virunga area. This area is generally volcanic, with plateaus and ridges from volcanic action. Sometimes the mountain gorillas feed from the slopes, so you need to hike there to spend that permitted one hour viewing them.

The way to the mountain gorillas is sometimes slippery from the rains that regularly fall and decomposing matter. It would be best if you had some fitness to finally get where the mountain gorillas are spending the day or lounging. 

It would be best to have some level of fitness that can sustain you for the time you hope to be in the jungle with the mountain gorillas.

Pack The Right Gorilla Trekking Gears

Gorilla safari requires you to have some special gears that can make you feel comfortable while searching to find the mountain gorillas. You can carry gear like safari boots, hats, snacks, garden gloves, long-sleeved shirts, and trousers, to mention a few.

You do not have to pack a lot but relevantly for your gorilla safari.

Reserve International Flights In Advance Before Gorilla Safari

Before traveling on a gorilla safari, you must prepare for your international flights. In case you miss your flight to the gorilla trekking destination, you may miss the gorilla trekking safari in case your safari was commencing on arrival. You must make early flight arrangements to prevent the chances of missing your gorilla tour.

What Are The Do And Do Not Of Gorilla Safari?

• Keep a distance of about 8 meters from the mountain gorillas when you locate them. This is to prevent chances of passing an infection to these primates, as they are highly susceptible to communicable diseases like flu, cough, covid-19, and others.
• If you are sick with a communicable infection, volunteer to stay behind so as not to pass it to the endangered mountain gorillas.
• If you want to eat or drink while before the mountain gorillas, do it at least 200 meters away from them. They are wild animals that must search for their food.
• The age limit for gorilla safari is 15 years and beyond. This is because the way to locate the mountain gorillas has ragged topography, which requires you to hike sometimes to find the mountain gorillas.
• Only go into the forest with an escorting ranger guide. Although the mountain gorillas are fully habituated to human presence, some forest dwellers are not and may be dangerous to you alone.
• When you must defecate, ask the ranger guide to dig a hole at least 30 centimeters deep and cover it well beyond recognition.
• Stay in a tight group with the mountain gorillas because surrounding them may cause them to feel ambushed.
• Please don’t attempt to provoke the mountain gorillas because they are wild animals that, even though habituated to human presence. They still possess wild behaviors. 
• When taking photos, do it with a flash-less camera to not scare the mountain gorillas; they are often frightened by strange occurrences in their presence.
• When tracking the mountain gorillas, keep your voice low so as not to scare the mountain gorillas and other forest dwellers that may be interesting to add to your wildlife photo collection.
• Never dump garbage in the wilderness, as this alters the nature of the forest where mountain gorillas live.
• Spitting on vegetation or the ground is forbidden because you may pass infectious germs to other inhabitants.
• Only one hour is allowed with the mountain gorillas when you locate them. This is when the mountain gorillas are habituated to be in front of the mountain gorillas.

Contact us for more information on how to book your gorilla permit online.