Uganda

Uganda is home to roughly half of the world's remaining mountain gorilla population, most trekked from Bwindi Impenetrable National Park or Mgahinga Gorilla National Park in the country's southwest. Trekking involves a guided hike through dense forest to spend a permitted hour observing a habituated gorilla family at close range — a genuinely rare wildlife encounter. Uganda is often called the "Pearl of Africa" for the range of landscapes packed into a relatively small country, from rainforest to savanna to the source of the Nile.