Rwanda
The Land of a Thousand Hills, and the most straightforward country in the world for seeing mountain gorillas: a short trek from volcanoes, terraced farmland and rainforest.
Overview
Rwanda is compact enough that a first-time visitor covers ground quickly: Kigali is a short flight from Nairobi, and Volcanoes National Park, the country's gorilla-trekking base, is only a couple of hours' drive north of the capital. The park sits in the Virunga Mountains, a chain of volcanoes shared with Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and its bamboo and rainforest slopes hold roughly a third of the world's remaining mountain gorillas.
Gorilla trekking is the reason most people come, but it is not the only reason to stay. Nyungwe Forest National Park in the south-west has a canopy walkway and habituated chimpanzee groups, and Akagera National Park in the east, on the Tanzanian border, has been rebuilt into a genuine Big Five savanna reserve since black rhino and lion were reintroduced there.
We arrange Rwanda as a stand-alone trip or as an add-on to a Kenya safari: flights, the right permit allocation, lodges near each park and a private guide and driver for the whole circuit.
Highlights
- Mountain gorilla trekking, Volcanoes National Park
- Golden monkey trekking in the same park
- Chimpanzee tracking and a canopy walkway, Nyungwe Forest
- Akagera National Park, a rebuilt Big Five savanna reserve
Best time to visit
Gorilla trekking runs year-round; the two dry spells, June through September and December through February, keep the forest trails firmer underfoot. Permits are limited and allocated daily, so book well ahead of your travel dates.
Getting there
Kigali International Airport connects to Nairobi, Addis Ababa and several European hubs; Volcanoes National Park is a two-to-three hour drive north of the city.
How we arrange it
We don't guide inside Rwanda ourselves, and we don't publish a fixed Rwanda itinerary the way we do for Kenya: no set trips exist yet for this country, so we build each one individually rather than invent a day-by-day plan that isn't real. What we do is put the trip together end to end, flights in and out, the right lodges and camps for your budget and interests, road or light-aircraft transfers between them, and a private guide on the ground who knows that particular park well.
Tell us what you want to see and how many days you have, and we'll draw up an itinerary and put you in touch with the people who can deliver it, with Nissa as your single point of contact throughout.
Outside Kenya we work through ground operators licensed in their own country, and they hold the permits and guiding accreditation required there. Nissa Safaris plans the trip, books it and stays your single point of contact throughout; the local operator runs the vehicles and guides on the ground.
Ready to plan Rwanda?
Send us your travel dates and we'll put together a Rwanda itinerary around them, flights, lodges and a guide on the ground.
Enquire on WhatsAppHeader photograph by Charles J. Sharp, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.