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Travel and Tourism in Uganda
Travel alerts, currency, climate, transit, health, and safety information for visitors to Uganda.
Practical Information
Travel alert status, currency, climate, and transit details.
- Travel Alert Status
- Level 3: Reconsider Travel
- Time Difference
- UTC+3 (8 hours ahead of Washington, DC during Standard Time)
- Currency
- Ugandan shilling (UGX)
- Climate
- The average temperature in Kampala ranges from a high of 85 degrees F at noon to a low of 60 at night. The temperature changes more during the course of each day than it does from season to season. The hottest weather occurs from October through March. Kampala has an annual rainfall of about 63 inches. During the rainy seasons—March to April and September to October—the weather is cooler. Frequent, heavy thunderstorms last from 30 minutes to 1 hour. It seldom rains an entire day, even during the so-called rainy seasons. Wind gusts that accompany downpours are sometimes strong enough to knock down tree limbs and even an occasional tree. Red murram dust, which can be a particular problem during dry periods, effects Kampala dwellers when venturing beyond the main asphalt roads.
- Ethnic Groups
- Baganda 17%, Ankole 8%, Basoga 8%, Iteso 8%, Bakiga 7%, Langi 6%, Rwanda 6%, Bagisu 5%, Acholi 4%, Lugbara 4%, Batoro 3%, Bunyoro 3%, Alur 2%, Bagwere 2%, Bakonjo 2%, Jopodhola 2%, Karamojong 2%, Rundi 2%, non-African (European, Asian, Arab) 1%, other 8%
- National Holiday
- Independence Day, 9 October (1962)
- Geographic Coordinates
- 1 00 N, 32 00 E
- Location
- East-Central Africa, west of Kenya, east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
- Airports
- 27
Destinations
Regions and cities, top sights, national parks, UNESCO sites, and festivals for visitors.
Bwindi Impenetrable National Park and Mountain Gorilla Trekking
There are wildlife experiences and there are wildlife experiences. Watching elephants at a waterhole in the Serengeti is magnificent. Following a leopard on a night drive in the Sabi Sand is thrilling. Seeing blue whales from a boat in the Pacific is humbling. All of these are extraordinary. None of them, in the judgment of the many experienced wildlife travelers who have done all of them and more, compares to spending an hour with a family of mountain gorillas in the forests of Bwindi Impenetrable National Park.
Bwindi Impenetrable National Park covers approximately 331 square kilometers of dense forest in the Kigezi highlands of southwestern Uganda, near the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda. The park is one of Uganda's three UNESCO World Heritage Sites, inscribed in 1994, and it is listed for both its extraordinary biodiversity and for the presence of the mountain gorilla.
Health and Safety
Medical facilities, vaccinations, disease risk, and sanitation conditions.
Medical facilities in Uganda, including Kampala, are limited and not equipped to handle most emergencies, especially those requiring surgery. Outside Kampala, hospitals are scarce and offer only basic services. Recently, U.S. citizens involved in automobile accidents required immediate evacuation from Uganda, as surgery could not be performed due to insufficient blood supplies at the hospital where they sought treatment. Equipment and medicines are also often in short supply or unavailable.