We’re a locally owned, Kampala-based safari operator, and every trip we run is private and built around the person taking it — not sold off a shelf.
Pick Wild Safaris is a Ugandan-owned tour operator based in Kampala, running private safaris since 2012. We’re not a reseller working through a foreign agent — our guides, vehicles, and planning team are based here, on the ground, which means the person designing your itinerary knows the roads, the parks, and the lodges firsthand.
Pick Wild Safaris started in Kampala in 2012 with a simple idea: Uganda is better shown by the people who actually live here. Rather than sell fixed packages designed for the widest possible audience, we’ve built the business around the opposite approach — listening to what a traveller actually wants, then designing a trip around it, run by our own guides and vehicles rather than subcontracted out.
Over the years that’s meant growing carefully rather than quickly — adding routes into Kenya, Rwanda, and Tanzania only once we were confident we could run them to the same standard as Uganda, and building relationships with lodges and communities we’d genuinely recommend to a friend.
[NEEDS INPUT: this is a safe, fact-based version of the story — no invented names or events. The real version, in your own words (who started it, a specific early trip or moment, what changed along the way) will always land better with readers than anything general I can write. Send me the details whenever you’re ready and I’ll fold them in.]
Every safari we run is private and tailor-made— never a fixed group departure with a set itinerary. You tell us your dates, your interests, and your budget, and we build a trip around that, not the other way round. Because we’re the ground operator rather than a middleman, changes and special requests get handled directly, without waiting on a third party overseas.
Uganda is home ground — gorilla and chimpanzee trekking, the savanna parks, and the country’s lakes and culture are what we know best. We also run safaris into Kenya, Rwanda, and Tanzania, for travellers combining Uganda with the Masai Mara, the Serengeti, or a second gorilla-trekking country. Browse our full range of safari itineraries to see the routes we run most.
Every trip is led by an experienced, English-speaking Ugandan driver-guide — the same person with you from the airport to the last game drive, not a different local operator handed off at each stop. Our guides know the parks, the seasons, and the small details that make a trip run smoothly: which gorilla sector suits your fitness, when to push on and when to slow down, which lodge fits the night ahead.
[NEEDS INPUT: naming individual guides here — even two or three, with a photo and a line on their background — would make this section far more convincing than a description of the role in the abstract. Send bios/photos for anyone you’d like featured (yourself included) and I’ll add real profiles.]
Uganda’s wildlife and forests support the communities living alongside them, and a well-run safari should put something back. We favour community-run lodges where we can, hire local porters on every gorilla and chimpanzee trek, and build in cultural experiences — like the Batwa Trail near Bwindi — that channel tourism income directly to the people involved, not just the wildlife.
[NEEDS INPUT: if Pick Wild Safaris holds any formal credentials — AUTO (Association of Uganda Tour Operators) membership, a Uganda Tourism Board licence number, UCOTA, ATTA, or similar — these belong here too, as a further trust signal. Confirm what you hold and I’ll add it; I haven’t found any listed publicly, so I’m not stating any without your confirmation.]
Ready to start planning?
Tell us what you have in mind and we’ll shape it into a trip. Get in touch or browse our safari itineraries for inspiration.