Can I Travel Around Uganda As a Vegetarian Or Vegan?
Traveling around Uganda presents visitors with flexible opportunities, including vegetarian/vegan travelers, as they explore their destinations. Uganda is a vegetarian paradise, thus providing tourists multiple choices of a vegan diet. While there are abundant options to choose from for vegetarians on a Uganda safari, it is essential to inform your local tour operator in advance such that proper planning can be done.
Informing your local tour operator in advance can enable him/her to let the accommodation management know about the special arrangement you require when it comes to meals. The meal plans often come in varying options and are served depending on the visitor’s order. With advance information, the lodge management can be in a position to secure the kind of vegetables to suit your dietary meal plan.
Useful Tips for vegetarians and vegans on Uganda tour
Initiate and ask for what you want in advance
When planning to travel to Uganda as a vegetarian or vegan, the first step you must take is to ensure that you communicate your dietary needs in advance. Do not wait till the last minute. The local tour operator may organize a trip, and the meal plan covered may not favor you completely. When you communicate in advance, it enables the lodge or hotel management to also plan for the kind of vegetables to prepare for you.
Take note that not all local safari companies/tour operators understand what vegetarians and vegans mean or desire. It is through your early communication that they can be guided and you have something better. Do not assume everyone knows otherwise such can result in last-minute disappointment.
In some places, you shouldn’t expect the staff to anticipate what you need. Some lodges provide breakfast for vegans and vegetarians and are often restricted to fruit, coffee, and bread. To some guests, this can work for them, but in case you are interested in something else, please be open to the manager or the nearby staff.
Be specific
When making any order, try to be specific to avoid being served what you do not need. When you place the order, the lodge staff provides exactly what you ordered. Often, some visitors do not require certain fruits to be mixed in their breakfast or lunch menus. To avoid the whole scenario at the end of it, you should be specific about your order.
Inform the lodge
When reserving a trip to Uganda, whether on self-drive or guided safaris, you should let your tour operator, who is on the ground, know of your travel needs as a vegetarian or vegan. The tour operator is usually more in touch with the safari lodges or hotels where you will be staying for a night during the entire safari in the particular destination in Uganda. On arrival at the respective lodge or hotel, your safari guide can provide last-minute advice to the kitchen staff concerning your meals.
Expect a combo
Depending on the destinations you have visited before, in Uganda, usually some vegetarian dishes may come along with animal-based products. But you can be as specific as possible to avoid any mix that can ruin your day.
Food enhancers
Be aware of the food enhancers that may contain MSG-based additives, often found in salts like Aromat. Try as much as you can to avoid such enhancers and also communicate your meal preference to the management in advance, specifying the exclusion of MSG or any food additives.
How to survive as a vegetarian/vegan in Uganda
When you decide to visit Uganda as a vegetarian or vegan, expect a lot. Uganda is a vegetarian hub, and usually, breakfast options come with a fruit platter. Some clients enjoy this combo while others do not.
Luckily, Uganda has everyone covered thanks to a variety of delicious and juicy fruits often harvested freshly from the gardens. Even as you connect to your destinations, you can come across fruit stalls in the markets as they sell pineapples, mangoes, bananas, and more.
What is remarkable about Uganda is that the quality of its fruits is outstanding. With abundant fruit options, surviving as a vegetarian/vegan is possible. You can walk in some of the local markets with a guide and purchase your preferred fruits and vegetables at a friendly rate.
Take your snacks.
Be aware that dairy products in Uganda are a big deal, and if you are not a fan, you may feel out of place. But well, you can embark on a journey when fully set with a pack of your snacks.
Go camping with a mobile chef.
If you are not comfortable with the lodge/hotel provisions, hire a car with camping gear in Uganda, and you can go on a camping trip together with your professional chef. There are campsites for guests who desire to go on a camping safari in Uganda. Book a safari through the local tour operator and be guided to suitable camping destinations in Uganda.
Read More
6 Reasons to Go on a Road Trip in Uganda
Is Uganda your dream safari destination in Africa? Have you ever wished to encounter breathtaking experiences that come once in a lifetime? Uganda is credited for its most exceptional biodiversity, that are all confined within its magnificent protected areas. Visitors either choose to go for game drives and catch a glimpse of amazing big five game in the savanna national parks like Murchison Falls National Park, Queen Elizabeth National Park, Kidepo Valley National Park or visit Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park and Mgahinga Gorilla National Park for mountain gorilla trekking or simply catch up with adrenaline adventures in Jinja as well as life changing experiences at the Rwenzori Mountains ranges.
Below are some of the reasons why you need to embark on a road in Uganda
You get in control of your trip
There is nothing as adventurous as taking a self drive trip to an unknown destination in the remotest places in Uganda. This allows you make a plan on your own and you arrange it based on your interest. But you have to be careful with the schedules of other transportation means like airlines and trains, otherwise you will be left out.
There is no need to eat airplane food
This is based on the note that the airlines still provide real food, but rather you can simply make a stopover at the nearest restaurant, pack a picnic, or swing via drive all the way.
Flexibility
With self drive road trips in Uganda, you can easily switch directions depending on what attracts you unlike where you are in a group or guided safari and you are required to dance to the tunes of other people and yet you also your own. When it comes to make stopovers at specific areas, a self drive is the best option for road trips in Uganda.
Elephants – Queen Elizabeth National Park
Ability to view Uganda’s natural wonders in reality
The amazing bit of taking a road trip in Uganda is that you have higher chances of catching a glimpse of a wide range of tourist attractions and interacting with communities adjacent to the protected areas while on safari in Uganda.
Pack appropriately while keeping in the space of the car boot
There is no need to book an extra car unless other people are traveling with you. You can fold the seats as well to create more room for the luggage and this can save you from paying extra charges.
Money saving
Traveling in a group is one thing exciting when it comes to a road trip in Uganda. If you have ever been on a road trip before or you plan one, make sure that you get on the road with your friends or colleagues of the same interest and experience the fun bits of a road trip in Uganda.
In conclusion, a road trip is the best way for you to catch a glimpse of the variety of attractions that Uganda has to offer to the world. There are a lot more things to experience while on a road trip, and given its flexibility, you can make a stopover at any point of interest at your own time.
Read MoreEagle Air: Uganda Air Service Provider based at Entebbe Airport
Eagle Air is an airline based in Kampala, Uganda. It operates regional scheduled services and charter flights across East and Central Africa. Its main base is Entebbe International Airport.
The airline was established in June 1994 and started operations in November 1994.
Services
Eagle Air offers scheduled and chartered flights to domestic and certain regional destinations, including air safaris to Ugandan national parks. In addition, it offers chartered flights within the East and Central Africa Region.
Destinations
Read More