People arrive with a sector in mind, usually because of a lodge photograph. It is almost always the wrong way round, and this is the reasoning we use instead.
Permit availability comes first, and it is not negotiable
Eight permits per family per day. In July, whole sectors are gone twelve months out. Everything below is a preference expressed within whatever is actually available on your dates — which is why the first thing we do, before quoting anything, is check.
Then: where are you coming from?
This decides more than anything else. Arriving from Kigali, Rushaga and Nkuringo are four to five hours away and Buhoma is six to seven. Arriving from Queen Elizabeth on a longer Uganda safari, Buhoma is three to four hours and Rushaga is most of a day.
Booking a lodge in the wrong sector is the single most common planning error we see. Sectors are two to four hours apart on murram roads and briefings start at 07:00.
Then: what did you tell us about the walking?
If you mentioned a knee, a recent operation, being nervous about it, or being seventy — we hear that, and it rules Nkuringo out immediately. Nkuringo descends six hundred vertical metres and climbs all of it back. Buhoma and Ruhija produce short treks far more often.
This is why we ask, and why the honest answer serves you better than the brave one.
Then: is there something specific you want?
- Four hours instead of one — Rushaga, the only place with habituation permits.
- Birding — Ruhija, for the Mubwindi Swamp trail. Nothing else comes close.
- The view — Nkuringo, which looks across at five volcanoes.
- Booking late — Rushaga, which simply has the most permits.
Only then: the lodge
Lodges come last, chosen from what exists in the sector your permit is in. This ordering occasionally disappoints someone who had their heart set on a particular property, and we would rather have that conversation in advance than have you make a four-hour pre-dawn drive.
The Bwindi sector guide covers all four in detail, and the lodge guide is organised by sector for exactly this reason.
Next
Keep planning
- Bwindi Impenetrable Forest — all four sectors
- Lodges by sector — chosen after the permit
- How hard is the trek? — walking times by sector
- Contact us — tell us how you walk