Great Lakes Museum

Southwestern Uganda


Along the highway on approach to Kabale, keep an eye out for this museum. It has a varied collection of artefacts and masks, information on clans, and quirky items such as displays on the evolution of phones and cameras. The cafe selling Ugandan coffee offers accommodation and mountain-bike hire.

It's 100km from Mbarara on the Kabale–Mbarara Road.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby Southwestern Uganda attractions

1. Kabale Arts Center

12.56 MILES

Inside Kwanzi, this simple but worthwhile cultural museum houses a replica traditional homestead, built of sticks and papyrus, showing how the local…

2. Kyahugye Island

16.64 MILES

Run by Lake Bunyonyi Eco Resort, this 35-acre island is worth a visit if you want to see to wildlife such as zebra, waterbuck, ipala and kob up close. All…

3. Bwama & Njuyeera (Sharp’s) Islands

17.64 MILES

Many boat drivers will take you to these islands, where British missionary Dr Leonard Sharp founded a leper colony and settled in 1921, but the story is…

4. Akampeine Island

18.13 MILES

Translating as Punishment Island, this tiny island was so named because it was once the place where unmarried pregnant women were dumped to die. Their…

  • placement: superzone
  • path: Destinations/POIs/superzone
  • possible size: [970, 250], [970, 90], [728, 90], [1, 1],
  • targeting:
    {
      "url": "uganda/western-uganda/kabale/attractions/great-lakes-museum/a/poi-sig/1503272/355704",
      "destination": "Southwestern-Uganda",
      "continent": "Africa",
      "country": "Uganda",
      "region": "Southwestern-Uganda",
      "position": "superzone"
    }