Kibale National park is an extensive biodiversity National Park, protecting large block of rainforest birding. It harbors the greatest variety and concentration of primates found anywhere in East Africa.
Superb birds and primates combined with easy access, a good infrastructure and a variety of interesting activities make this forest a worthwhile destination.
Many of the facilities are community-based, thus providing the local community with the necessary revenue to keep their interest focused on the long-term protection of the areas.
As the most accessible of Uganda’s major rainforests, Kibale is a home for over 13 remarkable primate species, including L’Hoest’s and red colobus monkey. The elusive forest elephant, smaller and hairier move seasonally into the developed part of the park.
Location
In the west near Fort Portal
Size
795 sq km
Getting there
320km from Kampala to Fort Portal and/or an hour’s drive from Kasese, accessible by public transport.
What to do
Chimp tracking, Bird watching, Forest walk and game viewing of a field of beautiful crater lakes lies between Fort Portal and Kibale Forest.
When to visit
Any time, during the year.
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12 Reviews
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-Nicolas, 1 year ago
I stayed near Kibale, didn’t go into the forest proper but walked the 10 miles of public road that goes through it to Bigodi. I saw 5 or 6 species of monkeys along the walk, very easily, basically all of them except the chimps. You can go for chimp walks, where you are pretty much guaranteed to see them, I think it’s the best place for that.
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-vikingspartacus London, 1 year ago
Spending an entire day with the chimps, from locating them via their pant hoots in the morning to them nesting at night. As it is a small group (Ranger plus max of 4) it would seem that you get much closer to the chimps than often happens during the larger group chimp walks. The trekking is hard though as you are often moving fast through dense forest so as to not lose the chimps. Personally I found this even more rewarding than than Gorilla trekking.
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-DaddyD Seattle, Washington, 1 year ago
Chimp Tracking was really cool. You hook up with the local Uganda Wildlife Authority rangers who start you tracking off into the jungle. It took us several hours to actually find the chimps, but that was part of the journey, and you can hear them screaming, aka going [--], in the jungle off and on, and that is part of how we located them. There was also another team of rangers tracking them too. They split up the groups to increase the chances of finding them, and when one team finds them, they contact the other over radio. Once we found them, even though the chimps were acting really crazy, they did not seem to mind our presence one bit and tolerated us walking through the jungle with them. That was soooo cool. We probably saw nearly 30 of them when we finally found them. Make sure you bring water for the hike, and perhaps some rubberbands to tie your pant legs to your socks, or you can just tuck your pants into your socks, but you will want to do this as there are some pretty nasty ants out there. They also do a nice nature walk through a swamp where you will see many other types of birst and monkeys. The terrain there is very beautiful, and I loved my time there.
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-Rvisser Leiden, The Netherlands, 1 year ago
Great place to spot a variety of monkeys
Took a special hire from Fort Portal here and spend like 4 hours hiking the forest and saw numerous monkeys. Also a few chips. Unfortunately it had rained before and Chimps don’t like wet ground, so they stayed high up in the trees.
The forest itself is beautiful as well. Great way to spend half a day in the wild -
-EisBaer Chicago, Illinois, USA, 12 months ago
Visiting Kibale to see the chimpanzees is beautiful, but there are also monkeys, birds and butterflies to see. There is one animal that you really need to watch for: fire ants! When you go trekking here, be sure to have thick, long pants and thick, long socks, so that you can tuck your pants into your socks for protection.
Otherwise, the pants will climb up your pants and bite you, and believe me, it really hurts. When you are trekking, be aware of where you walk and step. Often there are trails of ants across the path, which can be avoided by jumping over them. Make sure that when your group stops on the trail, that you are not standing on or near an ant hill or ant trail. You can still enjoy a visit to Kibale, just be prepared for the ants.
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-franceotbp Paris, France, 12 months ago
Trekked 2 hours here in search of habituated chimpanzees and saw them in the trees and on the ground. Amazing how high they will climb. Also saw grey cheeked mangabay and red tailed monkey!
Excellent experience, definitely recommend!
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-Travelito Passau, German, 11 months ago
Der Kibale National Park gehört zweifelsfrei wegen seiner Primatendichte zu de am häufigsten besuchten Nationalpark in Uganda. Das ist unbestritten der Fall. Es gibt zwar nur eine Unterkunft direkt im Park, die hat es aber in sich (im positiven Sinn). Auch hier sind wegen der längeren Anfahrtszeiten- insbesondere bei Regen- und den frühmorgens um 06.00 Uhr beginnenden Schimpansen- Trekkings eine Übernachtung im Park zu empfehlen. Trotz des internationalen Rufs des Waldes muss man aber trotzdem nicht mit allzuviel lärmenden Menschenmassen rechnen. Insbesondere zu den Nachmittagstrekkings fanden sich weit weniger Leute ein, als am Vormittag. Die Ranger sind mehr als kompetent und bemüht zugleich. Also: Keinesfalls verpassen.
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-Dara Vancouver, Canada, 11 months ago
I just did the chimp habituation experience at the Kibale National Park. I have to say that this was one of the best excursions I have gone through in Uganda. You can spend a full day among chimpanzees and move along with them through the rain forest. I could not believe how close I could get to these chimps and study their behavior. The guides seem to be very literate about the chimps and they will give you loads of information. Absolutely recommended.
Warning: be ware of the fire ants as they might really ruin the experience for you if you’re not prepared for them. You need to wear long trousers and carry insect repellent with you. If you can somehow tuck your pants into your boots or socks, you should be fine.
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[...] Kibale Forest National Park [...]
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-YAK, 6 months ago
I think that to see the primates in Uganda there are two obligatory stops, the Bwindi Forest to see the mountain gorillas and the Kibale Forest N.P. to see the chimpanzees.
We slept near the N.P. (National Park) and the early morning after the briefing with park rangers, we started the trek of about 2/3 hours and our group was composed of seven persons (including two local guides at the start and end of the group).In the Kibale Forest there are many families of chimpanzees and each group of tourists visit a family of chimpanzees.
The first impact that I had with the chimpanzees hasn’ t been to see them but to hear their cries (probably to warn other family members) in the silence of the forest.
For photography lovers advice a zoom minimum of 300 mm. because the chimpanzees tend to move on the highest branches of trees at least 25 meters from the soil. -
-jboule Tom, 6 months ago
We did 2 trackings / treks for the chimps and ended-up with nice sightings of them. The first one in the afternoon, revealed to be very strenuous as the chimps were far away, not calling and our tracker made an enormous effort to manage to find them after a 3 hours and a half of a very physical trek (up and down all the way). The reward was to see closely 2 chimpanzees. The next day, in the morning, after only 7 minutes walking, we got close to a huge fig tree where we directly saw a big group of chimpanzees.
They decided to stay on the tree so no close-ups but were able to observe them for a while doing all sort of things so a very nice experience all in all.If you are into photography, I would recommend to do the morning trek, since the light is much better (in the afternoon if you are lucky and find them quickly it’s OK but otherwise the light might get lesser and lesser if you don’t find them quickly enough).
Besides the chimps, being in this very nice forest is also a truly enjoyable experience and your guide might teach you interesting things on birdlife, primates, insects or plants. -
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Spower VA, 4 months ago
Spent the night outside of Kibale forest at a little bed and breakfast. I again was the only person in this absolutely beautiful little home on the side of a mountain, overlooking a crater lake and surrounded by tea plantations. It was unbelievable. Spent the evening talking with the family that lived and worked there. Diner and breakfast was whatever I wanted, all fresh from the surrounding farms. Warm water was from a barrel with a fire under it, and lanterns were left in the hallway and bathroom for me. So nice.
Emma from Uganda Africa Adventure net woke me up early and drove us to Kibale National Forest, only a bit away. Kibale has the world’s most dense population of primates. 13 different species I believe, of which we saw 5 or 6. I went trekking with another Belgian couple, who were working in Congo on an AIDs project. Three of us and some park rangers with more monkeys than anywhere in the world. There were 5,000 visitors to the park last year, which is probably about what the Target down the street back home had last Tuesday…..
We saw baboons before we even left the ranger station. Spider monkeys and a few other smaller monkeys before we were far into the woods. A ranger led us through the thick forest. He would pause to explain things to us, point out animals, and to listen for the chimps. They kept getting louder and louder. About ever 10 minutes the whole forest would erupt into chimp screeches. We came across the chimps after about an hour of hiking.
We came across a pack of about seven or eight chimps. A female and baby in the tree, the male leader of the pack who was up in the tree too, and about four younger males on the ground. My camera can’t come close to showing what it was like. They were all around us, and barely minded us being there. The primary male would attempt to defend the female from the other males, who would sneak up on her rather frequently. The female would start screeching, followed by the lead male, both of whom would start running through the trees. Then the rest of the forest would start screaming. The younger male would get to the female, spend his three seconds with her, and then get away from the primary male chimp.
The other chimps were mostly hanging out on the ground. One pair was eating the leaves, and another pair was just laying around. The female up in the tree, when she wasn’t being ruined, was grooming her baby. We got to spend an hour with them, and it was magical.
On the hike out we came around a corner and saw two chimps sitting on the trail, maybe 10 feet away. We had come across another pack of chimps. We didn’t get to spend as much time with them, but still saw another seven or eight more guys running around. Just amazing being in their presence. A few more monkeys, some elephant highways, and a jungle tree house, and then we were back out of the forest.
[...] Kibale Forest National Park [...]