Uganda Travel Tips and Useful information
Driving
Driving is on the left side. Visitors without experience of African roads are advised to stick to the drivers & vehicles organized by our company.
Tipping
Tipping is not standard practice at local hotels and restaurants but will always be appreciated. It is normal to tip 5-10% at tourist oriented restaurants.
Guides and drivers should always by tipped.
Foods and drinks
Tourist oriented hotels and restaurants serve good western style meals, while a wider range of cuisines being available in the capital and some larger towns. Local restaurants serve Ugandan dishes, typically ugali (as stiff maize porridge) or matooke (cooked bananas) eaten with stew.
What to buy
A wide selection of local handcrafts is available as souvenirs. These include musical instruments, such as the hide drums made at Mpambire in the vicinity of Mpigi as well as excellent local basket work, paintings, batiks and pottery.
Climate
Uganda lies across the equator and boasts of tropical climate that is spring like in nature all year round. The country basically experiences seasonal climate of wet and dry, though it can be wet and cool at any time of the year. Due to varying global whether patterns, evolutions between rainy and dry seasons can come and go intermittently.
The most common occurring weather patterns occur as follows.
December- February - the hot dry season.
Provides birds and game viewing opportunities, though at this time of the year, the grass is rather long and smaller species may be hard to view. However this is a perfect time to track the Gorillas.
March
This is the beginning of the rains and game viewing is excellent over the short new grass. Gorilla trekking is pleasant and the spring like day conditions are off set by cool nights.
April – May –the heavier rainy season.
Road infrastructure that includes some game tracks turns slippery and muddy. Conditions for gorilla trekking and chimpanzee trekking are more challenging but chances of viewing these gentle giants remains an all time high at 98%.
June- October- includes peak tourist season of July – August.
At this time of the dry season, its cooler and the roads are dusty which provides exceptional wildlife game viewing conditions in the game tracks. It is also a perfect time to trek the mountain Gorillas in Bwindi National park.
November -seasonal short rains.
For bird lovers there could never be a better time to visit as hundreds of migrant bird species from Eurasia migrate to Uganda. Muddy and slippery conditions for chimpanzee and Gorilla trekking.
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