Once a copper boomtown drawing ore from the shafts of Western Uganda, this backwater conglomeration of tin-shack housing and dusty roadways has now firmly re-established itself as a veritable backpacker hub for intrepid types making their way through to the rugged hills and various national parks lurking on its peripheries.

For starters, there’s the hugely popular Queen Elizabeth National Park, which can be found sprawled out over nearly 2,000 square kilometres just to the south: a hodgepodge of rolling bush and waterholes that’s peppered with hippos, leopards and lions to boot. Then there are the UNESCO-attested Rwenzori Mountains, hailed as the ‘Mountains of the Moon’, spiked with glacial peaks and shrouded in the ancient myths of the central African tribespeople.

With its proximity to these coveted hotspots of Ugandan nature, this town is once again blooming, with an increasing number of accommodation options, a smattering of nightlife joints and a whole host of Kasese tour guides just waiting to be of assistance.