How much does it cost to go gorilla trekking in Uganda
How much does it cost to go gorilla trekking in Uganda, Rwanda and DR Congo?
In Uganda, every gorilla permit goes for US $ 600, in Rwanda was recently increased up to $1500 USD per individual and then in DR Congo is at $400 USD. The permit offers you one hour with the mountain gorillas in a group of 8 people. In the past years, April, May and November used to cost US $ 450.Please note that these offers no longer exist. On a single day, nearly 72 people travel into Bwindi to see gorillas and only 8 people are allowed to see each gorilla family. It is strongly good and encouraged to book your gorilla permit with safari agent/Tour operators such as Aga Safaris; the most prominent mistake is to book a gorilla family which is far away from your choice of accommodation! The routes to Bwindi and its various regions are often tricky; this is a remote area. If you would like to do the gorilla trek on your own so as to save costs, you might end up incurring more. Safari guides have been trained to help you with this.
Several travelers intending to trek gorillas have found this process tiring and they have opted to the quicker less tiring option of reserving their trekking permits through a local Uganda safari operator. These tour operators normally add an extra fee of US$60 to US$100 for each permit. These gorilla tour companies won’t charge you for purchasing a gorilla permit in case you are going to use their other tour services such as transfers however if you simply want only a permit from them then they will put an extra charge of up to US$100 per gorilla permit they book, since they need to make calls, pick the permit, deliver it to you and other administrative costs.
The process is more like the above, although the tour agencies normally speed up the reservation so you will be able to confirm your gorilla permit faster.
You inform them of the dates for your tour to Uganda and specify the date for trekking the gorillas
They will inform you if your preferred dates are available for trekking and also temporarily book them.
They will send you our bank details so that you can transfer the money for the gorilla permits or even pay by credit card.
They will send you an acknowledgement email for the money transfer. Please remember to instruct your bank to deduct the bank charges for the transaction from your account. they don’t ask for any extra money for the gorilla permit if you are reserving the rest of your tour through them. Any additional costs will be for services like telephony and transport that will be incurred when acquiring the permit.
You will send a copy of your passport availing the details which will be used to register for your permit. Normally they need just your full names, nationality and the passport number
Your names will be registered and then we acquire the gorilla permit. On receiving the payment they will buy the gorilla permit but then having this permit doesn’t 100% guarantee you seeing the gorillas although chances of seeing them are about 98%
Important to note is that tour operators in Uganda through their joint organization of AUTO normally buy as much as 80% of the permits for a time of up to two years to the intended date of trekking the gorillas. Each of the member agencies can buy as many as 20 permits in a single month. However individuals as well as those not under the AUTO umbrella can buy at most two gorilla permits every month three months before the intended month of the gorilla trekking when the reservations open on the very-first working days from Monday to Friday of that month. Permits that aren’t sold on opening of the booking days are resold the next day without any limit put on the number of permits sold by a single operator or even individual person
