Bwindi's forests, the Mara's plains, and six final nights on a private Seychelles island reachable only by boat or seaplane.
Itinerary ref: MC-005
This 16-day Uganda, Kenya, Seychelles safari is built for honeymoons and milestone trips. It moves in three stages: gorilla trekking in Bwindi, four days in the Maasai Mara timed for the Great Migration where possible, and six nights on a private island in Seychelles. Together, they give you forest, savanna and ocean in a single journey.
We are a Uganda-based team, and our guides have more than 12 years of experience leading tours. We coordinate every flight and transfer, so the trip runs smoothly from the first morning to the last.
Most trips pick one big experience. This one gives you three, and each one is very different from the next. First, you walk in a cool mountain forest. Next, you watch wildlife on open plains. Finally, you rest on a private island with nothing to organise.
The order matters. The trek comes early, on your second morning, so you have a settling day first. Then the safari builds in excitement, and the island gives you time to slow down and recover. As a result, you finish the trip rested, not tired.
If you want something shorter, see our Ultra-Luxury East Africa Safari & Seychelles Honeymoon.
You begin in Entebbe and take a light aircraft to an airstrip near Bwindi. From there, it is about 90 minutes by road to the forest. The afternoon is open, so you can settle in.
On the second morning, you go gorilla trekking in Bwindi with a guide. Groups are capped at eight guests, and you keep a minimum distance of seven metres from a habituated gorilla family. Your permit is included in the price.
On the third day, you join a Batwa cultural walk led by Batwa elders, and you can add a short Munyanga River trail if you like. It is a quiet day that lets your legs recover. For more on permits and timing, read our guide to gorilla trekking in Uganda and Rwanda, or visit the Uganda Wildlife Authority website.
On day four, you fly via Nairobi's Wilson Airport to a private airstrip near the Oloololo Escarpment. You stay four nights at Angama Mara, and you start with a game drive on arrival.
Then come three days of Maasai Mara Great Migration viewing. You spend a full day in the Mara Triangle, the reserve's western sector. On the next day, we pursue the Mara River crossings, as the season allows. Finally, you can explore private conservancy land with off-road and night drives, and you can add an optional balloon flight.
Timing matters here. The migration moves with the seasons, so we choose your dates carefully and confirm what to expect in your quote. For more detail, read about the Mara and Serengeti crossing.
On day eight, you fly via Nairobi to Mahé and stay two nights at the Four Seasons Resort Seychelles at Petite Anse. The next day, you can visit Morne Seychellois National Park and the Victoria Botanical Garden, or simply rest.
Then you transfer to your Seychelles private island by light aircraft or boat. Our default pairing is North Island, a private reserve. Villas sell out fast, so we confirm availability in your quote.
You stay six nights. The days are relaxed, but you have plenty to choose from: snorkelling on the house reef, kayaking to granite coves, a sunset sail, a conservation walk through the tortoise breeding programme, and a beach picnic by boat. You can also add deep-sea fishing or diving as optional extras.
You stay at four handpicked properties, one for each stage.
In Bwindi, you stay three nights at Bwindi Lodge in the Buhoma sector, just outside the park. In the Maasai Mara, you stay four nights at Angama Mara on the Oloololo Escarpment. On Mahé, you stay two nights at the Four Seasons Resort Seychelles. On the island, you stay six nights at North Island. You can see more on our lodges page.
Your Uganda, Kenya, Seychelles safari includes 15 nights of accommodation, one gorilla permit per person, park fees and a private 4x4 with a driver-guide. It also covers internal flights and transfers, most meals, drinks on game drives, selected excursions and airport and jetty transfers. Our team supports you around the clock.
International flights, visa and entry fees, gratuities, spa treatments and optional extras are not included. Travel insurance is mandatory. Please check visa and travel documents before you go.
We give you a clear quote that lists everything, and the price depends on the comfort level you choose. For other island ideas, see Seychelles 11 to 14 days or Seychelles 14+ days. Learn more about the islands on the official Seychelles tourism website.
It is a good fit if you want a special occasion trip with three different worlds. It suits couples, and it suits anyone who wants wildlife first and relaxation last. However, it involves several flights, so you should be comfortable with a few early starts and light aircraft.
If you want a longer journey, look at The Complete Safari & Seychelles Grand Journey.
How do I reach the island? You travel by light aircraft or boat, and the island limits the number of guests. We arrange every transfer.
Can I snorkel or dive? Yes. Snorkelling on the house reef is part of the stay, and deep-sea fishing and diving are optional add-ons.
Tell us your dates and who is travelling, and we will build your Uganda, Kenya, Seychelles safari around you and confirm every detail in your quote.
Great Migration guideThree Countries, One Ocean: Uganda, Kenya & Tanzania to SeychellesEverything you need to decide, in one place. The day-by-day route, camps, inclusions and full rates are further down this page.
| When | What to expect | Book |
|---|---|---|
| August and September | The Mara River crossing season, with Bwindi in its drier months. Private-island villas are few, so these dates go first. | 9 to 12 months ahead |
| June, July and October | June: Bwindi is drier and the herds are on their way north. July brings the first crossings. October: crossings continue and Bwindi's wetter season begins. | 6 to 8 months ahead |
| Late December to February | Gorilla trekking is good. The herds are in the southern Serengeti, so the Mara nights are about resident big cats. The Seychelles has its wetter, more humid months. Christmas and New Year: 10 to 12 months ahead. | As noted in this row |
Private-island availability is limited and sells out fast: book 9 to 12 months ahead for July to September. The herds follow the rain, so every month is a guide, not a guarantee.
Pictures from East Africa safaris with our guides and guests.
Deposit. 40% deposite to confirm your booking
Final balance. The final balance is due 60 days before your departure date, or as stated on your written booking confirmation. If it is not received by then, the booking may be treated as cancelled, subject to the cancellation charges.
Cancellation. After the 14-day deposit window, charges are counted from the day we receive your written cancellation notice:
90 or more days before departure: the 40 percent deposit is kept.
60 to 89 days: 50 percent of the total trip cost.
30 to 59 days: 75 percent of the total trip cost.
Fewer than 30 days, or after departure: 100 percent of the total trip cost.
Gorilla and chimpanzee permits, certain fixed-departure camps and scheduled charter flights can carry earlier supplier deadlines and may be non-refundable from the booking date. Any such deadline is shown on your written quote before you pay a deposit.
Rated 4.9 out of 5 on SafariBookings (10 reviews). 12 reviews on Tripadvisor. More than 30 journeys planned.
Gorilla trekking through misted highland forest.
Private vehicle game drives across the open Mara plains.
A short stop to clear customs, enjoy a day of Mahé highlights and transfer onward by light aircraft or boat.
A secluded private-island resort with granite coves and total seclusion.
Read these before you choose dates: each one answers a single question in full.
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Sign in to save this itineraryLanding at Entebbe International Airport, you're met by an Paramount Gorilla Expeditions representative for a short transfer to the domestic terminal and a scenic light-aircraft flight south over Lake Victoria's shoreline and the folded, terraced hills of southwestern Uganda. Touching down at Kihihi or Kayonza airstrip, a drive of roughly ninety minutes through banana plantations and smallholder farms brings you into Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, a 25,000-year-old montane rainforest and one of the last strongholds of the mountain gorilla anywhere on Earth. The afternoon is left deliberately open — settle into your forest-edge suite, meet your trekking guide for tomorrow's briefing, and let the descending highland mist and first distant hornbill calls set the tone for the days ahead.
This is the day the entire itinerary is built around. After an early breakfast, you'll join a trekking group capped at eight guests for a detailed park briefing on your assigned habituated gorilla family and the trek's strict protocols — a mandatory seven-meter distance, no flash photography, absolute quiet once the family is located. The trek itself can run from under an hour to several hours depending on where the family fed and nested overnight, moving with armed rangers and trackers reading broken vegetation and fresh dung for clues through Bwindi's dense understorey. The permitted hour with the gorillas once found is genuinely hard to describe beforehand — a silverback's low rumbling contentment call, juveniles somersaulting through the canopy, the startling directness of a gorilla's gaze meeting yours at close range.
With your permit fulfilled, today shifts registers entirely. A guided walk led by Batwa elders — the forest's original inhabitants, displaced when Bwindi was gazetted as a national park in 1991 — traces the medicinal plants, hunting techniques and hut-building methods that shaped Batwa life here for millennia, narrated firsthand rather than staged for visitors. The remainder of the morning is unhurried, with the option of a gentler nature walk along the Munyanga River trail to spot colobus monkeys and Bwindi's prolific birdlife, including several Albertine Rift endemics found almost nowhere else. The afternoon is yours to rest at the lodge, review yesterday's photographs, and prepare for tomorrow's shift north into Kenya's open savannah.
A short flight connects via Kasese or Entebbe onward to Nairobi's Wilson Airport, where a second light aircraft carries you directly into the Maasai Mara — Kenya's most storied wildlife ecosystem and the northern terminus of the Great Migration's annual circuit. Touching down on a private airstrip near the Oloololo Escarpment, you're met by your Mara-based guide and driven straight into an afternoon game drive rather than a lodge check-in. The open, golden grassland here supports one of the highest predator densities on the continent, and a first pride of lions or a lone cheetah scanning the horizon from a termite mound is a genuinely common welcome within an hour of touchdown.
A full day exploring the Mara Triangle, the reserve's western sector bordered by the Oloololo Escarpment and the Mara River, and generally regarded as its least crowded, most pristine game-viewing ground. Morning and afternoon drives track resident lion prides working the riverine tree lines, along with healthy numbers of elephant, giraffe and topi across the open plains. Your guide reads the terrain with an eye toward the migration's current position when herds are in the ecosystem, and toward denning and hunting patterns of resident predators year-round when they are not. A private picnic lunch overlooking the escarpment breaks the day, with sweeping views back across the valley floor toward the Serengeti's unmarked northern edge.
This full day is dedicated to the Mara River's crossing points, seasonality permitting — the single most dramatic set-piece in African wildlife, where enormous columns of wildebeest and zebra funnel down steep banks under pressure from the herd behind them, hesitate at the water's edge, and then commit en masse into a river where Nile crocodiles have waited, sometimes for days, without feeding. Your guide works a real-time network of spotter vehicles to position you at the most active crossing point given that morning's herd movement, and patience is genuinely part of the experience. Between crossing attempts, the surrounding plains hold resident hyena clans and, in the right season, some of the Mara's largest recorded elephant bulls.
Today trades the sometimes-crowded reserve for private conservancy land bordering it, where off-road driving and night game drives — both prohibited inside the national reserve itself — open sightings impossible to arrange elsewhere on this route. For early risers, an optional sunrise hot air balloon safari drifts silently over the plains as first light catches the escarpment, followed by a traditional bush breakfast laid out in open grassland, champagne included. The remainder of the day is spent tracking resident cats at close range with your dedicated conservancy guide, closing with a sundowner overlooking the valley — the Mara's burnt-orange sunset ranks among the most photographed skies on the continent, and a fitting farewell before tomorrow's shift toward the ocean.
A morning flight from the Mara connects via Nairobi to Mahé, the Seychelles' main island, where the climate and pace change entirely within a single day — humid, salt-scented air and granite peaks replacing dust and acacia scrub. Clearing customs and immigration is quick and well-coordinated on your behalf, and a private transfer delivers you to a beachfront property on the island's southwest coast for a two-night pause before the final leg onward. The afternoon is unstructured: a walk along Anse Intendance's dramatic surf-battered sand, a swim, or simply the first properly still hours of the entire trip so far, with dinner overlooking the Indian Ocean as the sun drops behind Thérèse Island.
A relaxed day exploring Mahé itself before your onward transfer to the private island. Options include a morning drive up into the Morne Seychellois National Park's forested peaks for sweeping views back down over Victoria — one of the smallest capital cities in the world — or a stroll through Victoria's small Botanical Garden to see giant Aldabra tortoises and the endemic coco de mer palm up close before encountering it again, wild, further into the trip. The afternoon is left free for a final swim or spa treatment before packing for tomorrow's onward transfer, which your Paramount Gorilla Expeditions contact will have fully coordinated with the resort by boat or light aircraft.
A short scenic transfer by light aircraft or private boat carries you from Mahé to your private island for the final six nights of the journey — a resort capped at a small handful of villas, reachable no other way, and built around total seclusion rather than resort-style amenity stacking. Arrival is unhurried: a welcome drink on the jetty, a golf-buggy tour of the island's granite coves and coastal forest, and a briefing from your villa host on the island's conservation program, which includes an active giant tortoise and hawksbill turtle rewilding effort guests are welcome to observe or assist with. The remainder of the day is simply yours — most guests choose the beach directly in front of their villa.
A full day exploring the island's marine environment, beginning with a guided snorkel over the house reef, where healthy coral formations support parrotfish, moray eels and, with good timing, resident hawksbill turtles feeding on sponge colonies among the rocks. The afternoon is given to exploring the island's string of granite-boulder coves on foot or by kayak, each one distinct — some sheltered and calm, others catching a steady swell prized by bodyboarders. Naturalist guides on hand throughout can identify the endemic Seychelles skink, giant millipedes and the island's small resident population of Aldabra giant tortoises, several of which range freely rather than being confined to an enclosure.
For guests wanting to venture further offshore, a half-day deep-sea fishing or diving excursion departs by private boat into the surrounding channel, where sailfish, dorado and giant trevally are commonly encountered depending on season, alongside dive sites holding healthy reef shark populations for certified divers. Non-divers can instead choose a slower boat trip around the island's outer coves, spotting fruit bats in the coastal canopy and, offshore, occasional pods of spinner dolphins. The evening closes with a private sunset sail along the island's western shoreline, drinks in hand, the granite outcrops turning deep orange as the sun drops toward the open Indian Ocean horizon.
A guided island conservation walk this morning covers the resort's tortoise breeding program and native vegetation restoration work, replacing invasive species planted decades ago with the coastal forest that once covered the island naturally — a project several guests describe as unexpectedly moving to witness firsthand. The rest of the day is entirely unscheduled, in keeping with the spirit of this final stretch: a spa treatment built around Indian Ocean ingredients, an extended lunch on your villa's private deck, or simply more time on the beach. Evening brings a private candlelit dinner arranged on the sand, a signature closing experience for the honeymooning and milestone-celebration travelers who book this route most often.
Today centers on a private beach picnic set up on one of the island's quieter, boat-access-only coves, lunch and chilled wine served under a shade canopy with no other guests in sight. Water sports equipment — paddleboards, kayaks and snorkel gear — is available throughout the day for those wanting to stay active, while others simply extend the picnic into an afternoon nap in the shade. Late afternoon brings the option of a guided walk to the island's highest point for a final panoramic view over the surrounding coves and open ocean, before a relaxed dinner back at the villa.
Your last full day is left completely open, and most guests spend it exactly as they've spent the days before — extended breakfast, a final snorkel over the house reef, an afternoon doing nothing in particular on a private stretch of sand. For those wanting one more structured experience, the resort can arrange a final guided nature walk or a return visit to any cove or dive site that stood out earlier in the stay. A farewell dinner that evening, often set outdoors under the stars, is the natural close to sixteen days that began in a Ugandan cloud forest and end on a private Seychelles island most travelers describe as the best few days of their lives.
A final relaxed morning on the island precedes your light aircraft or boat transfer back to Mahé, timed to connect smoothly with your onward or homeward international flight. Our local team coordinates every step of this final transfer, and remains reachable throughout in case connections shift. Many guests on this particular route are celebrating a honeymoon or major milestone, and we're always glad to hear how the trip unfolded once you're home — a meaningful share of our bookings each year come from returning couples planning their next journey with us.
Built from our own staff's real packing guidance for this trip's destinations, tailored to your dates and this exact itinerary above.
Access to a private island resort reachable only by boat or seaplane
Private vehicle and guide throughout the Uganda and Kenya segments
Six nights of total island seclusion to close the trip
Seamless flight coordination between all three countries
On private land adjoining Bwindi Impenetrable National Park's Buhoma sector, a short walk from the trekking trailhead.
On the Oloololo Escarpment rim, on private land immediately outside the Mara Triangle sector of Maasai Mara National Reserve, with a direct descent road into the reserve.
A hillside resort on Mahé's south coast — not affiliated with a national park.
An entire private island functioning as a nature reserve, with an active endemic-species reintroduction program.
| Accommodation Tier | Per Person Sharing (USD) | Single Supplement |
|---|---|---|
| Classic Comfort | $17,200 | +$2,950 |
| Premium | $22,900 | +$3,900 |
| Ultra-Luxury | $28,900 | +$4,950 |
Rates are per person sharing, in USD, based on double occupancy during standard season; private-island villa availability is limited and peak-season and honeymoon-package pricing may vary, so early booking is strongly advised.
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