Rwanda: gorillas at dawn, Kivu by dusk.
Which trek actually reaches a gorilla family, what a permit costs on top of the tour price, where Akagera keeps its lions, how long the road to Nyungwe really takes. Every tour in Rwanda, reviewed.
The days a Rwanda trip is planned around.
Gorillas in the Virunga bamboo, lions and giraffe on the eastern savanna, a rope bridge above Nyungwe, coffee washing stations on the hillsides, and a lake wide enough to lose a week in.
Gorilla trekking in Rwanda: pick the trek that fits.
All gorilla treks →
Rwanda releases a fixed number of permits each day, eight visitors per gorilla family, one hour once you reach them. What separates these trips is everything either side of that hour: how early the drive starts, whether you sleep in Musanze, and how much of the rest of the country comes with it.
Out of Kigali and back before dark
On the road by five, briefing at the park gate at seven, then a climb through potato terraces into the bamboo to whichever family the trackers found at first light.
Two or three days built around the climb
A night in Musanze removes the pre-dawn drive from the hardest walk of the trip, and leaves the following morning free for golden monkeys or the twin lakes at Burera.
Golden monkeys the morning after
Small, bright orange and never still, moving in troops through the bamboo below Sabyinyo. A gentler walk than the gorillas and a far smaller permit.
Kigali, the Virungas, Kivu, Nyungwe, Akagera.
Volcanoes NP
Nyungwe
AkageraThe tours Rwanda fills up first.
Every review →More travellers take these than anything else in the country, and each earns its slot for a different reason.
1
Kigali City Tour
Explore Kigali’s markets, cafes, art, Mount Kigali, and Genocide Memorial with lunch, local guides, and hotel drop-off included.
From · $162
Read our review →
2
Walking Tour with a Local Guide
from $30
3
One-day Akagera National Park Game Drive with a Choice 4×4
from $205
4
Private Full-day Kigali City Tour with Pickup and Lunch
from $180
5
Kigali Walking Tour
from $30
6
Kigali E-Bike City Tour with Breakfast
from $39
7
Private 1 Day Akagera Big Five Safari with pick up and lunch.
from $440
8
Mount Kigali and Cultural Village Tour with Snacks
from $35
Kigali is the easiest capital in East Africa to walk.
Built across four ridges, swept clean every last Saturday of the month, and small enough that one morning on foot takes in Kimironko market, a weaving co-operative and a roastery. Most Rwanda trips begin and end here, and most of them under-use it.
Rwanda splits into three price brackets, and they are far apart.
A morning walk in Kigali and a gorilla permit are not the same holiday. Here is the whole catalogue at its three real price points.
City walks, weaving and pottery tables, coffee mornings and the market run. The half-days that fill the gaps.
- 1Walking Tour with a Local Guidefrom $30
- 2Kigali Walking Tourfrom $30
- 3Kigali E-Bike City Tour with Breakfastfrom $39
A driver for the day: Akagera game drives, the Nyungwe canopy walk, Lake Kivu, or a single push at the Virungas.
Multi-day circuits and the gorilla treks, where the permit alone runs to four figures a head.
Rwanda still makes most of its best souvenirs by hand.
Imigongo panels built up in cow dung and ash and painted in ochre spirals. Agaseke peace baskets coiled tight enough to hold water. Pots thrown by women's co-operatives on the edge of the city. Two hours, one skill, something worth carrying home.
All 6 craft workshops →
Akagera got its Big Five back one species at a time.
Lions were flown back in 2015 and eastern black rhino followed in 2017, turning a poached-out reserve on the Tanzanian border into a working game park inside a decade. It sits two and a half hours from the capital, which is why so many people do it as a single long day out of Kigali.
- 1One-day Akagera National Park Game Drive with a Choice 4×4from $205
- 2Private 1 Day Akagera Big Five Safari with pick up and lunch.from $440
- 31 Day Safari to Akagera national park-Big5 Safarifrom $332
Three mornings that only exist in Rwanda.
Markets, coffee and lake shores turn up all over East Africa. The mountain gorillas, the golden monkeys and the walkway strung across Nyungwe belong to this one stretch of hills.
The Mountain Gorillas
Mountain gorillas live in two places on earth and the Virunga chain above Musanze is the reachable one. Permits are capped daily and cost more than most people spend on flights; visitors go up in groups of eight and get exactly one hour with a habituated family. The climb can take twenty minutes or five hours, and the trackers radio down which family is closest before anybody sets off.
- 13 Day Gorilla Trek at Bwindi National Park via Kigali★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 32 reviews
- 21 Day Rwanda Gorilla Trekking Tour In The Volcanoes National Park★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 31 reviews
- 32 Day Gorilla Trekking Safari in Uganda via Kigali★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 26 reviews
The Golden Monkeys
Orange-backed, endangered and found nowhere outside the bamboo belt of the Virunga volcanoes. The permit is a fraction of the gorilla price and the walk is far gentler, but the troops never sit still, so the hour is spent following them through the canes rather than watching from a clearing. Most people who do both call this the funnier morning.
- 14 Day Golden Monkeys Bwindi Gorillas Wildlife and Chimps Trek★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 7 reviews
- 2One Day Golden Monkey and Cultural tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · 7 reviews
- 3Private 2 Days Volcano Golden Monkey and Bwindi Gorilla Trek★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 6 reviews
The Nyungwe Walkway
East Africa's only canopy walkway is strung across a ravine in Nyungwe, a rainforest old enough to have outlived the last ice age. The bridge sways, by design. Chimpanzee tracking leaves from the same forest before dawn, and the two together make either a very long day from Kigali or a comfortable night at the park edge.
- 11 Day Canopy Walk Adventure in Nyungwe Forest National Park★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 32 reviews
- 21 Day Nyungwe Canopy Walk & Waterfall Tour adventure★★★★★★★★★★ 3.7 · 7 reviews
- 31 Day Canopy walk way in Nyungwe Natioinal park★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 6 reviews
Lake Kivu is where a Rwanda itinerary finally slows down.
All Lake Kivu trips →
The four Rwanda bookings that will not wait.
Almost everything here can be arranged from your hotel the night before. These cannot. They run on permits issued in fixed daily numbers by the parks authority, and the good dates go months out.
- 013 Day Gorilla Trek at Bwindi National Park via KigaliPermits are capped at a fixed number per day and split into groups of eight per gorilla family. Dry-season dates go months ahead.
- 02One Day Golden Monkey and Cultural tourA separate permit from the same office, capped daily, and sold only for Volcanoes National Park.
- 032 Days Chimpanzees trekking Tour and Canopy walk AdventureNyungwe issues a small daily quota and the trek leaves before first light, so it has to be locked in with the lodge.
- 041 Day Canopy Walk Adventure in Nyungwe Forest National ParkThe walkway runs timed groups and closes in heavy rain, so the morning slots go first.
March to May, Rwanda moves indoors and gets better at it.
The long rains are heavy, short and fairly punctual, usually a lost afternoon rather than a lost day. Every good answer is under a roof: a weaving co-operative, a roastery cupping table, a pottery wheel, the covered halls at Kimironko. None of them cancel.
- 1Kigali City Tourfrom $162
- 2Private Full-day Kigali City Tour with Pickup and Lunchfrom $180
- 3Kigali E-Bike City Tour with Breakfastfrom $39
By region — three bases, one road
Kigali173 tours
Musanze & the Virungas7 tours
Lake Kivu20 tours- All Rwanda tours →
By experience — what kind of day is it?
The newest Rwanda tour reviews.
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