“Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.”

― Gustave Flaubert

Our Self Drive Uganda Tips

When we’re planning on driving in a foreign country I always go straight to the internet to see if there are any tips or warnings that are available from others who have done it themselves. There are loads of dangers and annoyances afoot for the unwary motorist whenever they step into a hire car in a foreign country.

Such questions arise as – which company is reputable? What documentation do I need to take? – How do petrol stations work? Do they drive on the left or the right or kind of a mixture of the two depending on mood? And of course the classic – what do flashing headlights mean from on oncoming car?

– “Be my guest, good sir! You first, I’m in no hurry”

 or

“Get out of the way, I have no brakes and have no intention of easing off the gas”.

The final conundrum being particularly important to get to the bottom of quickly.

Anyway, in light of this, I’ve decided to write a blog on driving in Uganda. I haven’t done this before. Not specifically on driving. We drove in South Africa, in the USA and we did a roadtrip in Greece this May as well as some undocumented holidays (unblogged holidays?? Do these even exist??) including to North Cyprus but it struck me that the majority of people we encountered touring Uganda were doing it with a guide and driver.

Driving through the countryside

So I thought I’d share some of my experiences should anyone out there be tempted to follow the ‘do-it-yourself’ route and self-drive Uganda. I hope it’s useful, or at least moderately entertaining in parts.

So here we go, fasten your seatbelts…

(…I’m sorry about that. It made me cringe too…)

Disclaimer: All the points of view expressed here are based on my own experiences and I’m sure, with only 2 weeks for our road trip in Uganda I probably got some stuff wrong! Please, don’t get annoyed if you find some inaccuracies, but please do leave a comment to correct the error. You know you want to. Everyone likes putting someone right on internet message boards…

Why self-drive Uganda?

So, if you’re going on a wildlife holiday in Uganda you’re gonna be doing some travelling. You have 2 main options – you could hire a guide and driver to transport you around in a big comfy Land Cruiser, or you could hire a car yourself. So why bother doing your roadtrip in Uganda yourself?

Well, as you might guess, first and foremost, it’s cheaper. Considerably cheaper. Our car cost us $47 per day from Self Drive Uganda. While a car with guide can cost double that. Obviously, a car with a guide has loads of benefits. You can snooze in the back, listen to music, forget about the trials and tribulations of potholes and spare tyres and you have someone who always knows the way and can tell you all about what you’re seeing. But then, let’s not forget that…

Driving is fun. It can be part of the adventure. And having your own car with no tour itinerary means you can go where you want to go, whenever you want to go.

So with the justification for our self drive Uganda plan out of the way, let’s get to the country.

What kinds of car rental in Uganda are available?

Firstly, a 4WD is essential for doing a road trip in Uganda. And this seems to give you 2 options – go big and get a Toyota Land Cruiser, or go smaller and get a Toyota Rav4. Toyota seem to do well out of Ugandan motoring.

We went with the latter, there just being two of us and we went with a company called Self Drive Uganda. This is a Ugandan-owned organisation who can not only supply with a car, but also get you permits for the gorilla and chimp treks which they’ll supply to you when they hand over the car. They had good reviews on Tripadvisor so we went for them.

The company also provides a drop-off and pick up service direct to your hotel and we found the guys who did it to be really punctual when they did this and friendly and open to questions as well as stuff like demonstrating that all the lights worked. The Rav4 we got was certainly not new or in pristine condition; let’s say it was clearly a safari veteran. Having said that, we had no problems with the engine for the whole trip and the air con worked fine during a tsetse fly attack when we had to close the windows.