South Sudan is one of the last true frontiers of travel. At dawn in a Mundari cattle camp, thousands of long-horned Ankole cattle emerge from the smoke of dung fires — one of the most photographed scenes in Africa, in the world’s youngest country. We arrange every permit: government registration, travel permits and the photography permit are all included.
This 8-day private South Sudan tour covers Mundari region, Mundari cattle camp, Mundari, Dinka cattle camp, Bari tribe village with your own guide, vehicle and security arrangements — no fixed group dates: departures run every day of the year, on your dates and at your pace. You stay in a hotel in Juba and a full-service expedition camp at the cattle camps (tents with cots, mobile showers and toilets, camp cook), moving by 4×4 with local translators.
From $4,290 USD per person — final price confirmed at booking. The tour is fully customizable: extra days, different hotels, or route changes are always possible.
8-day South Sudan itinerary
Met at Juba, capital of the youngest country in the world — South Sudan voted for independence in 2011 and has had a hard decade since. The White Nile runs through the middle of the city, and an evening walk along it is the gentlest possible introduction. Very few travellers come here; those who do come for the cattle camps, and they are right to.
Overnight: hotel in Juba / tented bush camp.
The museum, the old Customs House on the riverbank from the Anglo-Egyptian days, and the market. Then out on the White Nile in a boat — hippos in the reeds, fish eagles, and the water hyacinth that chokes the banks. It is a very old river and this is a very new country.
Overnight: hotel in Juba / tented bush camp.
The day starts before dawn. The men wash themselves and the cattle in cow urine — it turns their hair orange and works as an antiseptic — and rub the animals down with white ash from the dung fires, which protects against flies and gives the camp its unearthly look. A cow horn is blown; a man sings to his favourite bull. This is not a performance and it is not put on for you. It is one of the most extraordinary things you will ever be allowed to stand in the middle of, and your guide will tell you when to put the camera down.
Overnight: hotel in Juba / tented bush camp.
On to the Dinka, the largest ethnic group in South Sudan and famously among the tallest people on Earth. They keep cattle the same way and mean the same things by it, but the scarification is different — parallel lines across the forehead, cut at initiation — and so are the songs. Seeing two cattle cultures back to back is what makes the difference visible.
Overnight: hotel in Juba / tented bush camp.
Bor sits on the Nile and is the heart of Dinka country. It is also where the 1983 mutiny that started the second civil war took place, and it was fought over again in 2013. A tukul village, the elders, and the ferry across the river.
Overnight: hotel in Juba / tented bush camp.
Downriver to a Bari village — dancers, a dugout canoe on the Nile, and fishing the way the river has always been fished. Then back to Juba.
Overnight: hotel in Juba / tented bush camp.
A last day in the capital: Buluk market, a women's craft cooperative — one of the few functioning economic footholds women have here, and worth supporting — and the cathedral, which on a Sunday is one of the loudest and happiest places in East Africa.
Overnight: hotel in Juba / tented bush camp.
A transfer to Juba airport for your flight out. End of our services.
