Wildplaces Africa

WildPlaces Africa is a family run Ugandan safari operator built on one stubborn idea: small camps deep inside the national parks, in zones where no other operator works, run by people with a stake in the wildlife coming back. Founded in 1997 by Jonathan and Pamela Wright, it now runs seven camps and lodges across Uganda, with its own logistics arm, The Uganda Safari Company, so a full Ugandan circuit can run under one roof.

Few safari companies have roots this deep. The Wrights had been in Uganda for four generations when Idi Amin forced them out in 1972; Jonathan grew up in Kenya, Britain and Canada, and came home in the 1990s at President Museveni’s invitation to help rebuild a tourism industry the war years had emptied. The Uganda Safari Company came first; the camps followed, one park at a time, always where visitors were fewest.

Today the portfolio reaches every corner of the country. Apoka Safari Lodge is the only full-service lodge in remote Kidepo Valley. Clouds Mountain Gorilla Lodge sits above the steepest of Bwindi’s trekking sectors. Semliki Safari Lodge has Uganda’s oldest wildlife reserve almost to itself. Papa’s Camp and Kulu Ora hold exclusive tracts of Murchison Falls, one south of the river, one in a restricted zone of the interior. And on the Kazinga Channel, The River Station and Honey Bear Bush Camp share the private Kyambura Game Reserve in the Queen Elizabeth ecosystem.

The conservation commitments sit inside the business model. Clouds is owned outright by its host community, which has channelled its share of every stay into a school, a clinic and clean water for nearly two decades. In Kyambura, WildPlaces funds ranger training and law enforcement with the Uganda Wildlife Authority and is clearing the invasive scrub that overran the reserve’s savannah. The company states that a conservation levy on every bed night has paid for new ranger posts in parts of Murchison Falls that had none, and its newest camp was built to be reversible: take it down and the site returns to park.

Pamela Wright designs every property, giving each a character of its own in restored furniture, Ugandan craft and local textiles, and the collection has been recognised by National Geographic Travel. The camps are small, the zones are quiet, and the family is still in charge; three decades in, WildPlaces is still making the case that Uganda belongs among Africa’s great safari countries, and making it well.