Ultimate Primates: Uganda & Rwanda

With a tapestry of landscapes, excellent wildlife watching and welcoming locals, Uganda packs a lot into one small country. It's home to Africa's tallest mountain range (the Rwenzoris), the source of the Nile, the world's longest river and the continent's largest lake. Rafting the Nile offers a world-class adrenaline adventure, but the country's most iconic experience is tracking mountain gorillas in their misty habitat. And if you view the Big Five, you'll see that nature – diverse and resplendent – looms large here.

Rwanda is known as Le Pays des Mille Collines (Land of a Thousand Hills) thanks to the endless mountains in this scenically stunning little country. Nowhere are the mountains more majestic than the Virunga volcanoes in the northwest, and hidden among the bamboo forests are some of the world's last remaining mountain gorillas.