What a visitor's money does in Uganda: every guide rated from very cheap to very expensive, cheapest first, then the things that cost travellers money without buying anything — the ATM, the taxi, the SIM.
Ugandan Shilling (UGX) · 1 EUR = 4,412 UGX · 1 USD = 3,844 UGX (approximate — check before you travel)
The permit is the budget: $800 per person for a foreign non-resident in high season, $600 in April, May and November, booked through the Uganda Wildlife Authority or an operator, and it sells out months ahead. Bring dollars in clean post-2013 notes for permits and tips; shillings for everything else.
Avoid: expecting to find a working machine near the park
Use: Stanbic, Absa — in Kampala or Kabale
Bring clean, post-2013 dollar notes for the permit, the lodge and the tips; older or torn notes are refused across East Africa.
A short ride in Bwindi: UGX 8,000–20,000 across town — cheap
From the airport: Entebbe airport to Kampala UGX 100,000–150,000, an hour away
Cheaper than a special-hire taxi, which is negotiated.
Lodge food, mostly, and it is home cooking rather than haute cuisine: matoke, groundnut sauce, beans, and tilapia from the lakes. Ugandan coffee is grown on the hills around the park and sold at the gate by the farmers who grew it. The rolex — an omelette rolled in a chapati — is the national street food and is worth stopping for on the drive.
The cost rating is this site's own, for a visitor, from the guides' authors and the corrections readers send in. The general rules — the conversion prompt, shoulder season, the airport taxi — are in budget travel tips.
