Uganda Wildlife Authority Open Park Day Set For This Week

The Uganda Wildlife Authority is offering an open park day to Ugandans and East Africans for the second year in a row, starting 25th septermber to 27th september 2025. This offer is only open for the Savannah National Parks in Uganda. These include Murchison Falls National Park, Queen Elizabeth National Park, Lake Mburo National Park, Kidepo Valley National Park, and Pian Upe Wildlife Reserve.

Primate parks such as Bwindi impenetrable national park, Mgahinga gorilla national park, and Kibale forest national park will not be open for this offer. Semuliki national park, Elgon and Rwenzori mountains national park are not also part of the campaign. May be in future the Uganda wildlife Authority will offer discounts for these other parks during the same season but for now, the visitors are expected to pay the same amount of money.

In these three days; it is impossible to visit all the four national parks in the same period. It is therefore wise to consider visiting only one national park for free and if you intend to visit the others, do so on the basis of a paid entrance. With only one or two park options, here are some tips to choose which park to go to.

Murchison Falls National Park

Murchison falls national park is the biggest national park in Uganda. It is also the park with the highest mileage of paved roads in Uganda’s national parks. You can drive your saloon car into this national park and then rent a car with one of the service providers. The rates vary according to the type of car and the service provider.

Boat Cruise to the Bottom of the falls

The main highlights in Murchison falls national park are chimpanzee tracking in Budongo forest (it is not part of the open park day free activities), visiting the top of the falls, cruise to the bottom of the falls and savannah game drives with opportunities to spot elephants, leopards, lions, hyenas among several other wildlife species. The park is within 5 hours drive from Kampala

Queen Elizabeth National Park

This is the most popular national park in Uganda located in Kasese. You can make a stop in Fort portal town before proceeding to Queen Elizabeth national park. This is also one of the national parks in Uganda that you can drive through all year long without paying any park entrance fees. The only time you get charged is either when you stop to watch wildlife or when you get off the main road to do a game drive.

You can couple up this park with Lake Mburo national park. You can drive to Lyantonde on the 24th; spend a night there and then drive to Lake Mburo the following day. It is one of those national parks you can explore within one day. You simply have to make sure that you report at the park gate as early as 7:00am so that you are able to do a morning game drive, then a walking safari in the mid morning.

The main highlights of Queen Elizabeth national park are a boat trip on Kazinga channel, a game drive in Ishasha sector for the tree climbing lions and then a game drive in either Kasenyi plains or Mweya.

Lake Mburo National Park

Lake Mburo national park is the smallest of all Uganda’s savannah national parks. It is also the only savannah park that offers walking safaris. Unlike the other savannah national parks, in Lake Mburo you can step out of the car and walk because this park does not have predators like other savannah national parks in Uganda.

It is also very possible to spend a night in Mbarara or Lyantonde and still visit Lake Mburo national park. You do not have to spend the night within the national park itself. This is not the case with Murchison falls national park and Queen Elizabeth national park where sleeping outside the national park would make it close to impossible to do most of the morning activities.

Kidepo Valley National Park

This is Uganda’s remotest national park. It is located in northern Uganda. It was ranked the leading savannah national park in Uganda by CNN travel. But the distance makes it inaccessible for most of the people. You would have to set a side a full day to simply move from Kampala to Kidepo valley national park.

View of Kidepo Plains from Apoka safari Lodge

Kidepo is very popular for game drive and cultural excursions. But if you have a very limited transport budget, Kidepo valley national park should not be one of those options. You can couple up this national park with Pian Upe game reserve. In case you have extra time, you can proceed to Sipi falls and later on Jinja.

In conclusion, we recommend people to either visit Murchison falls national park, Queen Elizabeth national park or Lake Mburo national park in these three days. In case you have extra time to spare, we highly recommend people to do the Kidepo stretch by making Murchison falls you first stop before continuing to Kidepo valley national park.