Primate Lodge Kibale

Primate Lodge sits inside Kibale itself, a few minutes’ walk from the Kanyanchu trailhead where chimpanzee tracking begins each morning, with the forest closing in on every side of the clearing.

Why We Love It

You do not drive to the chimpanzees here, you walk. Staying inside the park means making the early briefing without a transfer in the dark, and the forest carries on around you meanwhile: black and white colobus, red-tailed and blue monkeys come through the grounds, and elephants move past at night. The lodge is Ugandan owned and run, and employs from the villages around it.

The Experience

Nine cottages and seven simpler forest cottages, plus safari tents raised on wooden platforms under thatch, each with a private veranda facing the trees. A fire burns on the main terrace after dinner. The Sky Tree House stands about ten metres up a tree, roughly ten minutes into the forest, sleeping two above an elephant meadow; guests are walked out before dusk and collected after first light.

Need to Know

Kibale holds around 1,000 chimpanzees and 13 primate species, so the odds on a morning trek are good, though no guide will promise them. Ask about the habituation experience if you want a full day rather than an hour. It pairs with our Great Primate Expedition. Read our Kibale guide.