Uganda

Bradt's Uganda has for many years been considered the go-to source of information for travellers interested in this extraordinary country, which boasts Africa's most biodiverse - and arguably most exciting - safari circuit. Written by Philip Briggs, the world's foremost guidebook writer on Africa, this new tenth edition of the most detailed travel guidebook available to Uganda has been thoroughly updated by local resident and experienced travel writer Andrew Roberts.

Uganda excels for wildlife-watching, and recent transport improvements now make for relatively easy year-round access to key sites. Visit the lush montane forests of Bwindi, which protect one of the world's largest remaining populations of mountain gorillas, watch habituated chimpanzees in Kibale and tree-climbing lions in Queen Elizabeth National Park, or enjoy outstanding birdwatching throughout - with more than a thousand bird species in a country similar in size to Oregon.

As well as treating readers to a full-colour wildlife section with over 100 colour photographs, Bradt's Uganda guides visitors around key wildlife-watching experiences. It provides up-to-date coverage of gorilla-tracking options, describing gorilla groups and their locations - everything anyone who dreams of encountering these remarkable primates needs to know.

Uganda is not just about wildlife. Hikers love some of Africa's tallest mountains, notably the snow-capped Rwenzori (the 'Mountains of the Moon'), the massive collapsed caldera that tops Mount Elgon, and the steep forest-swathed volcanic peaks of the Virungas. A highlight for adrenaline junkies is rafting the 'Grade Five' white-water rapids on the Nile shortly after it emerges from the inland sea that is Lake Victoria.

In this tenth edition, carefully selected accommodation listings have been updated, providing critical appraisals of optimum options in each price bracket. While tourism has long focused on western Uganda, this edition strengthens attention on the country's remote northeast corner, which is emerging as a popular destination that includes the untrammelled savannah of Kidepo National Park and offers opportunities to interact with traditional Karamojong pastoralists. Boasting detailed maps of the country, updated or created from scratch using GPS, and all the travel advice a visitor might want, Bradt's Uganda remains the essential companion guide to this compelling country.

Philip Briggs (philipbriggs.com) has been exploring the highways, byways and backwaters of Africa since 1986, when he backpacked on a shoestring from Nairobi to Cape Town. He is the world's leading author of guidebooks to African countries, with more than 30 years' experience. He first explored Uganda by bus and train in 1988, two years after it emerged from a decade of civil war, and returned in 1992 to research the first edition of the Bradt guide. He has since revisited the country on numerous occasions both as a tour leader and to update subsequent editions. During the 1990s, he wrote pioneering Bradt travel guides to countries that were then - and in some cases still are - otherwise practically uncharted by the travel industry. These include the first dedicated guidebooks to Rwanda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique and Ghana. When not travelling, he lives in the sleepy South African village of Wilderness.

British-born Andrew Roberts first visited Uganda with a backpack in 1990 and returned three years later to help the Ugandan Forest Department set up ecotourism projects. Thirty years later he's still living there, now with a wife and two daughters. Andrew considers himself lucky to have worked in every national park in Uganda, settings which he greatly prefers to his office in Kampala. As well as updating several previous editions of Bradt's Uganda, he produces tourist maps of Uganda and East Africa.