How We Verify Prices

For permit prices and park rules, we start with wildlife authority tariffs, official booking pages, tourism-board guidance, park notices, and government announcements. If we cannot find a current primary official source, we treat the claim as unverified and avoid presenting it as settled fact.

A gorilla permit price is only useful if the category is clear: foreign non-resident, foreign resident, East African citizen, resident offer, shoulder-season promotion, or a separate product such as habituation. Before we publish a price, we try to identify who qualifies, what the rate covers, and whether the source is describing a public tariff, a resident category, or a time-limited offer.

Where possible, we check the same claim against more than one official reference, for example a tariff PDF plus a park activity page or tourism-board guidance. If official sources conflict, we surface the uncertainty clearly or avoid using the weaker claim.

A verified public permit rate is not the same as a final trip quote. Lodges, transfers, border costs, and operator markups sit on top of the public rate, and availability can disappear even when the tariff itself is still correct. Where a page discusses total trip cost, we treat that as planning guidance, not a promise of live inventory.

When a page changes in a material way, we update its visible date and structured metadata so readers and search systems can see that the content was reviewed. We avoid fake freshness tactics such as changing dates without making substantive edits.

If a permit price, discount rule, or park policy changes, we update the relevant page as soon as we confirm the change from an official source. If you send us a correction request, include the page URL and the official document or page that should replace the outdated claim.

Some operational details are not published by the authorities, such as porter prices or which Bwindi sector currently runs the habituation experience. When we use them, the source is labelled as a claim by our local operator partner (Adroa Travels) or by a third-party tour operator, never as an official source, and the page says who the claim comes from. Websites named after a park are treated as third-party sources, not as the park authority.

Marketplace links to GetYourGuide or Viator are paid links, marked as such, and we may earn a commission. A booking there, or a quote request to our partner, does not secure a gorilla permit. A permit exists only once it is paid in full and issued by the Uganda Wildlife Authority or the Rwanda Development Board, so ask whoever sells you the trip for that confirmation. We also check that marketplace links still lead to the product we describe, and we remove links whose product has been withdrawn.