Broken-in waterproof boots, long trousers tucked into long socks or gaiters, gardening gloves and a rain shell. Everything else is optional. Here is the full list and the reasoning behind it.
Five items decide whether your trek is enjoyable or miserable: waterproof boots you have already broken in, long trousers you can tuck into long socks or gaiters, gardening gloves, a packable rain shell, and a porter to carry everything else. Everything beyond that list is comfort rather than necessity. The reason the list is so short and so specific is that a gorilla trek is not a hike on a path. You will be on wet, steep ground, off trail for part of it, moving through stinging nettles and vines, with safari ants underfoot and rain possible in any month. Kit that would be fine on a European hill walk fails here in predictable ways, and the failures are always the same ones.
Neutral colours are conventional and sensible. Avoid bright white, which shows every mark, and avoid camouflage patterns, which are restricted for civilians in several countries in this region.
Yes. Hire one even if you are fit, even if your bag is light, and even if you have hiked harder things.
They cost around 20 US dollars plus a tip. They carry your pack, they hand you up the steep sections, and on wet clay they are the reason you stay upright. Beyond that, the fee is direct income to households living on the park boundary, and a number of the porters are former poachers whose livelihood now depends on the forest staying intact. It is the most useful twenty dollars in the whole trip and the one piece of spending with a clear line from your pocket to conservation.
The forest is dark, the canopy is high and the subject is black, which is the hardest combination there is. Flash is banned, so the answer is fast glass and a high ISO you would normally refuse to use.
| Item | Take it? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Fast standard zoom, roughly 24 to 70 mm | Yes | Gorillas are often closer than the minimum distance. This does most of the work |
| Fast prime, 35 mm or 50 mm | Yes if you have one | Gains you the stop or two that saves the shot in low forest light |
| Long telephoto, 400 mm and up | No | Too long for the distance, heavy, and there is no room to swing it |
| Tripod | No | No space, no time, and you are asked to stay compact and still |
| Lens cloths, several | Yes | Humidity fogs glass that came from a cool vehicle. You will be wiping constantly |
| Drone | Never | Banned in every park in the region, and confiscation is a real outcome |
A phone in a waterproof case takes better gorilla photographs than most people expect, because the subject is usually close. Take some of the hour without a camera in front of your face; the hour is short.
Almost everything. You are back the same day. Leave the second lens body, the laptop, the valuables and the clothes you want to keep clean. Take one set of trek clothes and be prepared to write them off, because the mud in Bwindi does not fully come out.
Leave single-use plastic behind too. Several parks in the region restrict or ban single-use plastic bags, and every lodge we use provides filtered water for refills.
Tell the warden. Anyone with a cough, a cold or a fever is refused, because we share enough respiratory biology with gorillas that a human head cold can kill one. It is the rule that keeps the population alive and it is enforced. Bring cold remedies for the days around the trek, not for the trek itself, and treat any refund as discretionary rather than a right, which is why comprehensive insurance is a condition of travelling with us.
Safari planning team
The planning team answers permit, timing and logistics questions every day, and writes up the answers that come back most often. Everything published here is checked against current park authority rates and the routes our own vehicles drive.
