Photo: Vanmulondo · CC BY-SA 4.0
Queen Elizabeth National Park
Savannah, crater lakes and the famous Kazinga Channel boat cruise.
About
Queen Elizabeth National Park stretches between Lake George and Lake Edward, joined by the Kazinga Channel — one of the best places in Africa to see hippos and buffalo from a boat. The Ishasha sector is known for lions that rest in fig trees, and Kyambura Gorge offers chimpanzee tracking in a sunken forest.
Highlights
- Kazinga Channel cruise
- Tree-climbing lions of Ishasha
- Kyambura Gorge chimps
- Explosion crater lakes
Things to book in Queen Elizabeth National Park
2 operators we know of working in Queen Elizabeth National Park. They set their own prices — contact them directly, or ask Zuri to.
Safaris · Queen Elizabeth National Park
Kajie Safaris
A Kampala operator trading since 2014 and listed in the Association of Uganda Tour Operators directory. Its itineraries cover Queen Elizabeth and Murchison Falls for game viewing, along with Kibale Forest, Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary and Bwindi. The company markets wildlife, group and family tours.
Ask them directly, or ask Zuri to
Safaris · Queen Elizabeth National Park
Mumwe African Skimmer Safaris
A Kampala operator founded in 2012 and run as a small local team. It arranges wildlife safaris in Queen Elizabeth, Murchison Falls and Lake Mburo, plus gorilla trekking in Bwindi and chimpanzee tracking in Kibale. Birding tours, cultural visits and mountain hiking are also part of its programme.
Ask them directly, or ask Zuri to
Where to stay in Queen Elizabeth National Park
Partner inventory
Check live prices for Queen Elizabeth National Park
Hotels sold through our booking partner, with real availability for your dates. Separate from the Zuri operators and directory listings above.
Stories from Queen Elizabeth National Park
Queen Elizabeth National Park
The Lions in the Fig Trees: A Day in Queen Elizabeth National Park
In the far south of the park, on the open plains of Ishasha, you learn to look up. Draped along the broad limbs of a fig tree, tails swinging in the afternoon heat, lie the animals that have made this corner of Uganda famous: lions in the branches. It is a sight so improbable that first-time visitors often mistake the tawny shapes for termite mounds until an ear twitches or a great head lifts to regard the vehicle below. This is Queen Elizabeth National Park — a landscape of crater lakes, savannah and shimmering water where the ordinary rules of wildlife watching are gently, thrillingly bent.
Torch Media Africa · 19 Sept 2026 · 3 min read
Queen Elizabeth National Park
Under the Fig Trees: Where the Lions Climb and the Channel Never Sleeps
By late morning in the Ishasha sector of Queen Elizabeth National Park, the fig trees start doing something that unsettles first-time visitors and delights everyone else. A paw appears over a low branch, a tail swings loose beneath it, and then the whole languid weight of a lioness comes into view, stretched along a limb ten feet above the grass as though the tree had simply grown around her. Land Cruisers cut their engines. Cameras stop clicking. For a long moment nobody says anything at all. Ishasha is one of only two places on Earth where lions climb trees as an everyday habit rather than a curiosity — the other is Tanzania's Lake Manyara — and it is the single image most likely to appear on a Ugandan safari brochure. But it is only the opening scene in a park that, more than seventy years after it was first protected, remains the country's most visited and most ecologically layered wilderness.
Torch Media Africa · 19 Sept 2026 · 3 min read
Queen Elizabeth National Park
Where the Savannah Meets the Rift: Queen Elizabeth National Park
The road south from Kasese climbs a low ridge, and then Uganda simply opens up. Grassland runs to the horizon in every direction, broken by flat-topped acacias and the glint of a channel that has nothing to do with rivers as most people know them. This is the Kazinga Channel, a natural waterway stitching two great lakes together, and it is the beating heart of Queen Elizabeth National Park — a place where hippos outnumber hotel rooms for a hundred kilometers and lions, improbably, prefer to nap in the branches of fig trees.
Torch Media Africa · 19 Sept 2026 · 4 min read