Tag: Airport transfer

Traveling from Entebbe Airport to Your Hotel (Options!)

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Wondering about traveling from Entebbe Airport to your hotel? Read on!

Arriving in a new country for the first time can be daunting, particularly when you’re traveling independently. One of the biggest problems that all tourists face in a new destination is how to get from the airport to their hotel or guesthouse. 

Although Entebbe International Airport is by no means big, it does welcome a fair amount of international flights, mainly through Ethiopia, UAE, Qatar, and Amsterdam. Also, most of the international flights that arrive in Entebbe do so in the early morning (2 am or 3 am), for instance. 

So, if you’re planning to arrive at Entebbe airport for the first time in the near future, you’ve come to the right place. Having been going in and out of Entebbe Airport for the best part of a decade, I want to articulate your transfer choices when you arrive in Entebbe for the first time.

Hopefully, this advice will help you navigate a potentially tricky start to your vacation in Uganda and help you get your trip off to a dream start!

Traveling from Entebbe Airport to your hotel: 2 Options

When you arrive in Uganda on a flight, there are two main ways of traveling from Entebbe Airport to your hotel – hotel transfer and private taxi. I introduce both of these options in detail below.

Option #1: Hotel transfer

Assuming that you have arranged your trip to Uganda independently, you don’t necessarily have the luxury of arranging for a safari tour company to pick you up at the airport in the middle of the night. 

But the second best option is to arrange a hotel transfer. I’ve lost count of how many hotels and guesthouses I’ve stayed at in Entebbe (I like to mix things up and stay in different places every time), but all of them have provided a reliable and fairly priced transfer to and from the airport on my behalf. 

Presently, the going rate for a transfer from practically every hotel to the airport (and vice versa) is $11.00, which equates to around 40,000UGX.

No matter what time of the day or night you arrive at Entebbe airport, send an email in advance to your guesthouse arranging an airport pickup. They will send a driver with a sign with your name on it, and they will be waiting outside the terminal building for you. 

In most instances, you will then pay the hotel for the transfer, but some do require you to pay the driver, so it’s best to confirm this via email in advance. 

This is, without a doubt, a convenient and reliable option, and it ensures you don’t need to negotiate with taxi drivers after a seriously long flight! Which brings me nicely to option number 2…

Option #2: Private taxi

Hopping in a private taxi is one of the best ways to travel from Entebbe Airport to your hotel. Photo credit: Waldemar Brandt.

If you haven’t been able (or willing) to negotiate a transfer with your guesthouse or hotel in advance, you will need to arrange a lift to your accommodation with a private taxi. 

There are dozens of taxi drivers outside the main terminal at Entebbe Airport, many of whom will try and engage you as soon as you leave the building. 

While they’re not as aggressive or as in your face as taxi drivers are at some airports, you need to proceed with caution! 

When I arrived at Entebbe Airport on a flight from Nairobi last month, I forgot to pre-arrange a transfer with my hotel. I wasn’t particularly bothered, as I knew I could grab a ride from one of the taxi drivers out front.

After collecting my bag, I asked the first taxi driver I saw how much for a ride to one of the guesthouses in town. He quoted 80,000UGX ($22), which was twice the price I had paid to get there before my flight out!

I laughed, exchanged a few greetings in the local language, and he immediately accepted my offer of 40,000UGX when he realized that this wasn’t my first time taking a taxi from the airport to the town center. 

I can’t say for sure whether this guy was just trying it on or whether it is standard practice for taxi drivers at the airport to do this. Either way, you need to be prepared to negotiate if you’re planning to hop in a cab at the airport! 

Know that the standard fare to a hotel or guesthouse in Entebbe town should be 40,000UGX, but if you end up paying slightly more, it’s not the end of the world.

Wait – are there no other options for traveling from Entebbe Airport to your hotel?!

That’s pretty much it as far as your transfer options are concerned, I’m afraid! There is no train or metro service that can take you from Entebbe airport to the town center, and there isn’t any form of public transport that leaves directly from the airport to take you to your guesthouse. 

But given that you can get a ride into town for $11, it’s not going to break the bank, and you don’t really need to rely on public transport for this short stretch of your journey.

Now, if you’re transiting from Entebbe town to Kampala, Uganda’s capital, there are a few more options to consider, as I explain below.

What about traveling from Entebbe Airport to Kampala?

Again, you can arrange a transfer from Entebbe to your accommodation in Kampala through your hotel directly. Although it’s further away, every Kampala hotel that I’ve stayed in has been willing to arrange a transfer to the airport. 

In terms of price, Kampala is a big place and the fare quoted depends on where you’re going. However, you can reasonably expect to pay anywhere between 95,000 and 150,000 UGX ($25 – $40) for a private transfer to your Kampala hotel.

It’s much better to arrange this transfer in advance, but you can hop in a cap when you arrive in Entebbe. Just be mindful of some drivers’ creative approaches to pricing, as explained above! 

For those of you on a budget, you can hop in a shared taxi from Entebbe town to Kampala city. These shared taxis are essentially minivans that run throughout the day and until late at night, leaving from just across from the Victoria Mall in Entebbe. 

The price for a seat in a shared taxi is between 5,000 – 15,000UGX ($1.50 – $4), but again, it depends on where in Kampala you’re going. Bear in mind that if you have lots of luggage, it will be strapped to the top of the taxi!

Also, these shared taxis aren’t super comfortable, and they take quite a while, as they frequently stop to pick up and let off passengers. Also, if you don’t know exactly where you’re going in Kampala, it can be difficult to know when you should disembark. 

Another option is to take a boda-boda (motorcycle taxi) from Entebbe to Kampala, which is likely to cost slightly less than a private taxi, but considerably more than a shared taxi. The issue with boda-bodas is that their pricing depends on various factors (time of day and weather, for instance), so the price you pay will depend on your negotiating skills.

Equally, a boda boda isn’t the safest option to travel between Entebbe and Kampala, particularly if it’s your first time in Uganda. 

Therefore, if you’re traveling from Entebbe to Kampala, your best bet is to book a private transfer with your hotel or to hop into an airport taxi with the above guide price in mind. 

You can also check out my guide to traveling from Entebbe to Kampala for more information about traveling from the Airport to the capital city.

Recap: Traveling from Entebbe Airport to your hotel

Traveling from Entebbe International Airport to your hotel or guesthouse in town is incredibly simple. The best way to go about it is to book a private transfer in advance with your hotel, but you can also jump in a cab stationed at the arrivals terminal. 

Provided that you know the going rate of taxi fares in Uganda – as introduced above – and are willing to negotiate with your driver, you shouldn’t encounter any issues when you arrive in the Pearl of Africa for the very first time.