Rwanda is small. Every day counts.
A country you can cross in a morning holds mountain gorillas, a Big Five park and a lake with its own shoreline trail. Here is what each day out costs, how far it is from Kigali, and which ones you book before anything else.
The six days a Rwanda trip is built around.
Gorillas in the bamboo above Musanze, waterbuck on the Akagera plains, a bridge strung sixty metres over Nyungwe, and a lake wide enough to lose an afternoon in. Pick the days first, then fit Kigali around them.
Gorilla trekking: what the day actually looks like.
All Volcanoes treks →
Briefing at Kinigi at seven, a drive to the trailhead, then anything from forty minutes to five hours uphill through bamboo and nettles. Eight people per family, one hour with them, and the permit is the single largest line in a Rwanda budget.
Kigali to the gorillas and back
A pre-dawn run up the northern highway, the briefing at park headquarters, the trek, and Kigali again by dark. Long, but it fits a stopover.
A night in Musanze either side
Sleeping under the volcanoes turns a brutal transfer into a normal morning, and leaves the afternoon free for the twin lakes or the Dian Fossey trail.
Golden monkeys the following morning
The cheaper permit in the same forest. Golden monkeys move fast and low through the bamboo, which makes them far harder to photograph and far easier to reach.
Akagera is the Big Five park nobody expects.
Lions came back in 2015, black rhino in 2017, and the plains along Lake Ihema now carry elephant, buffalo and giraffe within a two-hour drive of the capital. Morning game drives leave early; the boat safari runs when the heat sets in.
The tours most travellers to Rwanda take.
Every review →Balloons over Akagera, the canopy bridge, the Kigali market run: the days that fill first, and what each one is like when you are on it.
1
Kigali City Tour
Explore Kigali’s markets, art, coffee, and local food on this small-group city tour with guide and hotel drop-off.
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
Hot Air Balloon Flight at Akagera National Park
from $400
5
Private Full-day Kigali City Tour with Pickup and Lunch
from $180
6
Kigali Walking Tour
from $30
7
Kigali E-Bike City Tour with Breakfast
from $39
8
Private 1 Day Akagera Big Five Safari with pick up and lunch.
from $440
Lake Kivu is where Rwanda slows down.
Rubavu in the north, Karongi halfway down, coffee terraces on the slopes between them and no crocodiles in the water. Boats run out to the island fishermen at dusk, and the Congo Nile Trail follows the shore the whole way south.
Three things you can only do in Rwanda.
Savannah and rainforest exist across the continent. Habituated mountain gorillas, a sixty-metre bridge over Nyungwe and a Big Five park an hour from a capital city do not.
The Virunga Gorilla Families
There are roughly a thousand mountain gorillas alive, and about a third of them live on the Rwandan side of the Virungas. A dozen families are habituated, eight people visit each per day, and the hour starts the moment the trackers stop walking. Permits are sold by the Rwanda Development Board at $1,500 and the good months sell out well ahead.
- 11 Day Rwanda Gorilla Trekking Tour In The Volcanoes National Park★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 31 reviews
- 2Rwanda Gorilla Tracking in Volcanoes National Park★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 22 reviews
- 31 Day Gorilla Trekking Safari Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 21 reviews
The Nyungwe Canopy Walk
A steel suspension bridge strung between forest giants above the Igishigishigi trail, sixty metres over the valley floor and long enough that the middle sways. Nyungwe is old rainforest, unbroken since before the last ice age, and the walk is the only way to see it at its own height. Book the early slot: the cloud closes in by mid-morning.
- 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
Akagera After the Rhino
Akagera lost its lions in the 1990s and most of its rhino long before. Lions were flown in from South Africa in 2015, eastern black rhino followed in 2017, and the park is now fenced, patrolled and back to the full five. The plains along Lake Ihema hold the density; the northern swamps hold the shoebill.
- 1One-day Akagera National Park Game Drive with a Choice 4×4★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 105 reviews
- 2Private 1 Day Akagera Big Five Safari with pick up and lunch.★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 72 reviews
- 3Cool Share Day Akagera Game Drive, Daily Depart, Boat Ride, Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 25 reviews
Book these before you fly to Rwanda.
Most of Rwanda can be arranged from a Kigali hotel the night before. These cannot. They run on national-park permit quotas, one balloon and a handful of trackers, and none of them care what day your flight lands.
- 011 Day Rwanda Gorilla Trekking Tour In The Volcanoes National ParkEight permits per gorilla family per day, sold by the park authority. June to September goes months ahead.
- 02Hot Air Balloon Flight at Akagera National ParkOne balloon flies over Akagera and it carries a handful of passengers. Weather cancels; the queue does not shrink.
- 032 Days Chimpanzees trekking Tour and Canopy walk AdventureNyungwe chimp permits are capped and the trackers set out before dawn, so the slot has to exist before you drive south.
- 04Golden Monkey Trekking with lunchThe second permit in the same park. Cheaper than the gorillas and still quota-limited to a fixed number each morning.
- 05Full day Mt. Bisoke hikeA park guide and an armed escort are required on the crater route, and both are assigned the evening before.
What a day in Rwanda costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by what it actually costs. Most of Rwanda is cheaper than the flight; the permits are not.
City walks, market mornings, coffee washing stations and the Mount Kigali hike.
- 1Walking Tour with a Local Guidefrom $30
- 2Kigali Walking Tourfrom $30
- 3Kigali E-Bike City Tour with Breakfastfrom $39
Full-day trips: Akagera game drives, the Nyungwe canopy, Lake Kivu boats, cultural villages.
- 1Kigali City Tourfrom $121
- 2Traditional Coffee Experience ( Bean to Brew)from $50
- 3Kigali City Sightseeingfrom $130
Private guides, multi-day loops and the balloon flight. Gorilla permits sit above all of it.
Kigali is where the trip starts, not where it happens.
All Kigali days →Private Full-day Kigali City Tour with Pickup and Lunch
Read our review →
The long rains soak March to May. Rwanda keeps going.
Trekking runs all year, and the wettest months are when the forest is greenest and the permits are easiest to get. On the days the hills disappear into cloud, the answers are indoors and downhill: a washing station above Huye, a cooking class in Nyamirambo, a basket workshop, a long lunch in Kigali.
By place — north, east, south and the lake
Volcanoes National Park24 tours
Akagera National Park43 tours
Nyungwe Forest11 tours
Lake Kivu25 tours
Kigali16 tours- Mount Bisoke9 tours
- Everywhere else →
One week, anticlockwise, ending back at the airport.
The reviews that went up most recently.
All recent →
Rwanda One Day Gorilla Trekking with Iby’iwacu Culture Visit
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Gorilla Trekking Adventure – A Day trip (Only transfer)
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One Day Mt Bisoke Hike Adventure in Volcanoes Park ( 2 Pax Min)
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1-Day Scenic Trek through Villages and Rolling Hills in Rwanda
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