Little Kingston, Mabira Forest

Adam Lipus writes

“Little Kingston (http://www.littlekingston.com/index.html) is a hostel ocated in Najjembe village (about 25 km west of Jinja), just on the edge of the Mabira Forest Reserve. I first found this place in December of 2008, after several months traveling in East Africa. I wanted to visit the Mabira Forest Reserve, but was exhausted from traveling and was admittedly uncertain about this small hostel in the middle of a roadside village. But as soon as I entered the gates, it was like taking a deep breath of fresh air. It won me over almost instantly. It is small and cheap (last time I went in 2011, dorm beds were 10,000 shillings for a night), but it is the best buy I have found anywhere during almost a year traveling in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. Little Kingston is a comfortable and beautiful little hostel, set just on the edge of the Mabira Forest. It has a room with four dorm beds as well as two rooms with double beds and private bathrooms for 40,000 shillings a night. The owners are a husband and wife, and they are exceptionally kind people. Fried is from Belgium, and his wife Leila is Ugandan. They are genuine, trustworthy, kind, and fun. They want you to have a comfortable stay and are happy to help you have a good time–anything from brewing a fresh cup of backyard-grown coffee, to providing you with a bucket of water to catch up on laundry, to Leila running to the market to cook a special order for you, to providing you with guides to the forest reserve, to swapping books with you from their small library. Fried will even arrange a private custom safari for you, providing the transport. In whatever they do, they will only charge you what it takes to stay in business. I cannot say enough about them and their hostel.

I truly believe that this place deserves some recognition. I have come to know the owners on a personal level, and they are my closest friends in Uganda. Unfortunately they are having a tough time keeping up business, likely because they are extremely under the radar and located in an unlikely setting (within the small roadside village of Najjembe). But in truth they are a perfect stopover for people traveling between Jinja and Kampala who want to relax and/or check out the beautiful Mabira Forest.”

Sincerely,