You are in: / Uganda / National Parks in Uganda / Kidepo Valley National Park

Kidepo Valley National Park

When you close your eyes and think of Africa, the landscape you imagine – the jagged hills, the golden grasses, the plains dotted with wildlife, the soft glowing light – is likely to be Kidepo National Park. This is Uganda’s most remote park, far away from city life.

Contact our Uganda experts on 020 7622 5114

Lying in the rugged, semi-arid valleys of Karamoja province on the far northern border with the Sudan, Kidepo Valley is Uganda's most remote national park.

Expansive grassy plains are dotted with big rocky outcrops and flanked by steep jagged mountains. In the distance to the north, perfect triangular conical mountains rise out of Sudanese soil, to the east is the sudden drop of the Great Rift – we are at the western edge of this rift, looking down into Kenya’s Turkana country.

Dry river beds zig zag across the park, fringed with borassus and sausage trees. Tracts of forest also feature in this park, many have yet to be explored.

Few undertake the pilgrimage to the park but the spectacular beauty of this pristine wilderness impresses all that make it. For the visiting birder,

Kidepo Valley National Park boasts a bird list of over 475 species, a total second only to Queen Elizabeth National Park. Amongst the host of dry, eastern "specials" not found in any other Ugandan national park are some of East Africa's rarest and most sought after birds such as Black-breasted Barbet and Karamoja Apallis.

Wildlife in Kidepo is abundant. Lions, leopard, cheetah, elephant, giraffe, zebra (this is Uganda’s only park where giraffe and zebra are found together), possibly Africa’s largest herds of buffalo, hartebeest, waterbuck, bushbuck, warthog…the list is endless.

Better still, much of it can be seen from the privacy of your veranda or your outdoor bathtub, but the best way to see the wildlife is up close, on foot.

Apoka Lodge is probably the most northerly point in Africa where you can do a safari holiday... and quite possibly the most peaceful. It is also one of the most under-rated game parks in Africa.