Get gdal development libraries:
$ sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ubuntugis/ubuntugis-unstable
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install libgdal-dev
Create and activate a virtual environment:
$ virtualenv gdalenv
$ source gdal/bin/activate
Download GDAL:
(gdalenv) $ pip install --no-install GDAL
Specify where the headers are:
(gdalenv) $ cd /path/to/gdalenv/build/GDAL
(gdalenv) $ python setup.py build_ext --include-dirs=/usr/include/gdal/
Install GDAL:
(gdalenv) $ pip install --no-download GDAL
Done.
This works:
https://gis.stackexchange.com/questions/28966/python-gdal-package-missing-header-file-when-installing-via-pip/74060#74060?newreg=6b1e677d9dfe4652a3512380e6e73819