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Uganda’s luxe gorilla trekking lodge has reopened, better than ever

Kassia Byrnes Kassia Byrnes
Uganda’s most luxurious gorilla trekking base reopens after a complete renewal.

UNESCO World Heritage Site, Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, is home to more than half of the world’s 1000 remaining mountain gorillas. Perched high in the trees (and the only luxury accommodation inside the park gates), the luxurious Gorilla Forest Lodge, an A&K Sanctuary, has reopened following a complete rebuild and redesign.

Gorilla Forest Lodge Lounge
Discover Gorilla Forest Lodge.

The location

Bwindi Impenetrable National Park dates back as far as 25,000 years, making it one of Africa’s oldest rainforests. And, today, one of the continent’s most biologically diverse. Most famously, it provides refuge to about 459 mountain gorillas.

Dominant male mountain gorilla in the grass. Uganda. Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park
Spend time with the impressive locals. (Image: Getty/ Andrey Gudkov)

Which is why it’s one of the best places in the world to go gorilla trekking, a chance to experience a face-to-face encounter with these primates in their natural habitat.

Even beyond gorillas, it’s a fascinating place, with 400 plant species to find and more than 369 bird species to try and spot. Along with 120 species of mammals, including 14 species of primates, such as the African elephant, giant forest hogs, red-tailed, blue and colobus monkeys, baboons and chimpanzees.

The Lodge

Gorilla Forest Lodge room
Stay in spacious rooms when you’re not out exploring.

The lodge’s redesign celebrates Ugandan craftsmanship and honours its surrounds; from banana-fibre stools crafted in village workshops to woven ceiling panels produced by NGO Ride 4 a Woman, and textiles created by Florence Nakachwa’s Mekeka Designs, which empowers women through weaving. Papyrus thatch roofs blend into the surrounding tree canopy, while weathered Corten steel meshes with bark.

Each of the 10 suites in Gorilla Forest Lodge has been enlarged to fit floor-to-ceiling windows and expansive decks to make indoors and outdoors feel as one. The design and decor feature clay-textured plaster walls, woven banana leaf ceilings and elongated framed vistas. Even the rugs tell a story, reclaimed from agricultural waste and transformed into something beautiful. And let’s not forget the large bath for a luxe soak after searching for gorillas all day.

Sustainability has been kept top of mind with rainwater collection systems, composting, repurposed materials and building choices to ensure minimal waste and environmental footprint.

Lodge activities

Gorilla Forest Lodge room balcony
Merge into your surroundings with a large balcony.

First and foremost, the Gorilla Forest lodge offers gorilla trekking. Keeping groups to a maximum of eight guests, expert rangers lead the way deep into Bwindi Impenetrable Forest to see the locals, belonging to one of 12 family gorilla groups living here.

To see more of the stunning natural beauty surrounding the lodge, guests can join forest walks along the Munyaga Waterfall Trail to discover its diverse ecosystem. Or participate in a birding walk, where you’ll soak up a local expert’s knowledge as they guide you on a two-to-three-hour walk. Along the way, try to spot the African green broadbill, African emerald cuckoo and the brightly coloured African pitta.

Get to know local culture, arts and way of life on a Bwindi Community AKP Tour, visit local enterprises and workshops, or meet the Batwa community – the indigenous inhabitants of the region and traditional guardians of the forest – on the lodge’s Meet the Batwa People tour.

All of this creates the perfect excuse to finally book that once-in-a-lifetime trip to Uganda.

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Kassia Byrnes
Kassia Byrnes is the Native Content Editor for International Traveller. She's come a long way since writing in her diary about family trips to Grandma's. After graduating a BA of Communication from University of Technology Sydney, she has been writing about her travels (and more) professionally for over 10 years for titles like AWOL, News.com.au, Pedestrian.TV, Body + Soul and Punkee. She's addicted to travel but has a terrible sense of direction, so you can usually find her getting lost somewhere new around the world. Luckily, she loves to explore and have new adventures – whether that’s exploring the backstreets, bungee jumping off a bridge or hiking for days.
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At the foot of the pyramids, Egypt finally tells its own story

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    Ancient Egyptian history has been scattered across the globe for decades, admired, preserved, and studied, but it’s rarely seen where it actually belongs. The newly opened Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) brings it home.

    From a viewing platform inside the Grand Egyptian Museum, the Great Pyramids of Giza rise from the desert, and for a moment, it feels like modern Egypt and ancient Egypt are shaking hands. The museum, grand in name and reality, has been a long time coming—since 1992, to be exact. Towering pharaohs, relics, and entire chapters of civilisation are on display here, all in full view of the pyramids. And because the GEM is the largest archaeological museum in the world dedicated to a single civilisation, it gets to tell Egypt’s story through its own voice, something many overseas institutions, understandably, haven’t quite managed.

    Reshaping Giza

    GEM entrance and gardens
    The GEM holds its own commanding position. (Image: Natasha Bazika)

    You might expect any building beside the Great Pyramids of Giza to fade into the background, but the GEM doesn’t bow to its famous neighbours. Perfectly aligned on the same axis and vast enough to span 70 football fields, the museum is less of an addition to Giza and more of a marker of the shift from a gateway to a cultural district.

    Inside, hieroglyphs carved from alabaster sweep across the walls and triangles appear everywhere, yet it’s a 3,200-year-old, 11-metre-tall, statue of Ramesses II who commands the room. His scale dictated the soaring atrium ceilings, which pour in natural light, unusual in museums but safe for the stone artefacts displayed.

    Hieroglyphs line the walls of the main entrance of the GEM
    Hieroglyphs line the walls of the main entrance. (Image: Natasha Bazika)

    Unlike many museums, the GEM has really considered how visitors move through it. The six-storey grand staircase leads you chronologically through Egypt’s history, from the Predynastic era to the Coptic period, flanked by statues that grow in scale and complexity as you climb. Elevators and lifts run alongside, keeping the journey accessible to everyone.

    At the top, a viewing wall frames the pyramids before you enter the main gallery to see artefacts rarely seen outside tombs, including the complete contents of Tutankhamun’s tomb, a highlight for many visitors.

    Pharaohs, artefacts and everything in between

    The GEM's showpiece Ramesses II
    The GEM’s showpiece Ramesses II. (Image: Natasha Bazika)

    The GEM holds around 100,000 artefacts across seven millennia, but the experience is entirely modern. Digital panels, QR navigation and clear bilingual signage make self-guided wandering easy, while short, glare-free labels in English, Arabic and braille are colour-coded to move you from broad themes to object-level detail.

    That said, a guide adds context you don’t get from a panel. I was lucky to have Essam Al Ebd Aziz, an Egyptologist, on board a 12-day Uniworld Nile cruise, walk me through some of the museum’s standout pieces.

    Top of the list is, of course, the Tutankhamun exhibit. Almost everything from his tomb, much of it never shown outside the Valley of the Kings, is here, from his golden funerary mask to delicate jewellery and ceremonial objects. But the GEM isn’t just about one boy king.

    GEM entrance is guarded by an 11-metre-tall Ramesses II statue.
    An 11-metre-tall Ramesses II statue guards the entrance. (Image: Natasha Bazika)

    Essam points out the canopic chest of Hetepheres, mother of Khufu, where her organs were stored in alabaster. I loved the forty little marching soldier figurines from the tomb of Mesehti, all lined up and hanging on a wall. And then there’s the statue of Metri, a scribe, with piercing blue eyes carved from lapis lazuli. All these pieces, and thousands more, now sit under one roof. And for the first time, people can see Egypt’s history in one place, told in its own voice, without leaving the shadow of the pyramids. That alone changes everything.