Gorilla safari & holiday in Rwanda, tailormade
| country: | Rwanda |
| departures: | Available all year. This suggested itinerary can be modified entirely to your personal wishes including departure date, duration, accommodation used and how long you spend in each destination. |
| price: | From £2600 (12 days) including flights from the UK and gorilla permit. This trip can be booked without flights |
the amazing things you'll be doing
Journey through Rwanda's thousand hills exploring the hidden corners of this beautiful country, meeting its people, soaking up its dramatic scenery and encountering its very unique wildlife. You fly into the capital of Kigali where you can explore, visit the Gisozi Genocide Memorial museum which offers a haunting reminder of the past, and see for yourself how much the country and its people have moved on since the horrors of 1994.
From here you will head south, stopping in the second city, Butare, to visit the King's Palace and the National Museum before continuing on to Nyungwe Forest National Park. Home to Rwanda's only population of habituated chimpanzees, you can spend a full day here tracking them with a guide. Sightings aren't guaranteed but you will certainly encounter a good variety of other monkeys including black and white colobus monkeys leaping from tree to tree. Birdlife here is also superb, with more than 280 recorded species!
Next you will be driven west to the shore of Lake Kivu, where you will stay for two nights relaxing at Gisenyi. Saving the real highlight until the end, your next stop is the Volcanoes National Park where you will track mountain gorillas and visiting Dian Fossey's former research centre, Karisoke, where she wrote Gorillas in the Mist.
Your day of tracking the gorillas is not one you'll soon forget – starting with a fairly strenuous walk through dense vegetation, the visits are timed to try to find the gorillas during a rest period so you can watch them rest, play, eat and groom each other for the hour that you're permitted to spend with them! Your journey will end with another night in Kigali, with time to post your postcards and find some souvenirs before you return home.
You can visit Rwanda any time throughout the year, although there is more rain in April and May than other times of year. However, you should be aware that because of the mountainous ecosystems surrounding the Volcanoes National Park, it can rain on any day of the year.
If you are interested, we can arrange to time your visit around the annual Gorilla Naming Ceremony which takes place in June - all of the infants born since the previous year's ceremony are named by officials from Rwanda and you can enjoy traditional music and dances during the event. Donations and the chances to adopt a gorilla are encouraged and this acts as a significant fund-raiser for the year - all funds go towards preserving the mountain gorillas' habitat, anti-poaching patrols and the provision of trained park rangers to ensure the safety of the gorillas and tourists who come to visit them.
From here you will head south, stopping in the second city, Butare, to visit the King's Palace and the National Museum before continuing on to Nyungwe Forest National Park. Home to Rwanda's only population of habituated chimpanzees, you can spend a full day here tracking them with a guide. Sightings aren't guaranteed but you will certainly encounter a good variety of other monkeys including black and white colobus monkeys leaping from tree to tree. Birdlife here is also superb, with more than 280 recorded species!
Next you will be driven west to the shore of Lake Kivu, where you will stay for two nights relaxing at Gisenyi. Saving the real highlight until the end, your next stop is the Volcanoes National Park where you will track mountain gorillas and visiting Dian Fossey's former research centre, Karisoke, where she wrote Gorillas in the Mist.
Your day of tracking the gorillas is not one you'll soon forget – starting with a fairly strenuous walk through dense vegetation, the visits are timed to try to find the gorillas during a rest period so you can watch them rest, play, eat and groom each other for the hour that you're permitted to spend with them! Your journey will end with another night in Kigali, with time to post your postcards and find some souvenirs before you return home.
You can visit Rwanda any time throughout the year, although there is more rain in April and May than other times of year. However, you should be aware that because of the mountainous ecosystems surrounding the Volcanoes National Park, it can rain on any day of the year.
If you are interested, we can arrange to time your visit around the annual Gorilla Naming Ceremony which takes place in June - all of the infants born since the previous year's ceremony are named by officials from Rwanda and you can enjoy traditional music and dances during the event. Donations and the chances to adopt a gorilla are encouraged and this acts as a significant fund-raiser for the year - all funds go towards preserving the mountain gorillas' habitat, anti-poaching patrols and the provision of trained park rangers to ensure the safety of the gorillas and tourists who come to visit them.
day-by-day itinerary
| Day 1: | Fly overnight from London Heathrow to Nairobi |
| Day 2: | Remain in transit and board morning flight to Kigali. On arrival you will be met by a driver-guide and private vehicle which will accompany you for the duration of your journey around Rwanda, who will drive you the short distance into the city. Here you have the rest of the day to relax after your long flights, or can set off on foot to explore this friendly and surprisingly clean capital city. Overnight at Kigali Serena (bed and breakfast). |
| Day 3: | After breakfast, depart with your driver for Nyungwe Forest National Park. You will stop after a couple of hours in Butare, Rwanda's second city, where you can visit the King's Palace and the National Museum and University. After lunch here you will continue south to Nyungwe Forest where you will stay for the next two nights at Gisakura Guesthouse (full board). |
| Day 4: | Guided walk through Nyungwe Forest National Park in search of chimpanzees, but also looking out for other primates, birdlife and small forest creatures which share the forest with the chimpanzees. |
| Day 5: | Depart in the morning for Lake Kivu - this is a fairly long day of driving, along a bumpy road, but the scenery more than makes up for it! You can stop along the way for photos and to enjoy a picnic lunch and will arrive at Gisenyi in the mid-afternoon. You will spend two nights here at the Lake Kivu Serena Hotel (full board). |
| Day 6: | At leisure at Lake Kivu - you can either relax at the hotel, take a stroll along the sandy shore of the lake, visit the bustling town, or take a boat out on the lake for a couple of hours. |
| Day 7: | After breakfast depart for Kinigi, the small village at the base of the Virunga Volcanoes. The drive takes in some dramatic scenery, with steep cliff-like hills and tea plantations blanketing the valley floors in green. You will stay for the next three nights at the Gorilla's Nest Lodge (full board) which is only 10 minutes drive from the park headquarters where you start and end your gorilla tracking excursion. |
| Day 8: | Gorilla tracking day! You will depart early for the park headquarters to register for your trek, and after a briefing about safety and information about your assigned gorilla family you will set off for the trailhead. You will trek for anywhere between 2 and 5 hours to reach the gorillas, depending on which group you have been assigned, and you're allowed to spend one hour with them once you have seen your first gorilla. This is a real once in a lifetime experience and not one you'll soon forget! It can rain any day of the year in the Virunga Volcanoes, so make sure you pack a waterproof jacket and some sturdy walking boots, and plenty of camera film or memory cards - you'll need more than you think! |
| Day 9: | Trek to visit Karisoke, the former research centre of Dian Fossey, where she was buried. The trek takes most of the day, and your guide will show you around the huts where Fossey and her team started researching the mountain gorillas. This is a really interesting excursion, and the strenuous trek makes you really appreciate how remote and far from civilisation Dian Fossey and her fellow researchers were when Karisoke was in operation. |
| Day 10: | After a leisurely morning you will depart for Kigali, doing a city tour in the afternoon to include the Gisozi Genocide Memorial museum. Overnight at the Kigali Serena (bed and breakfast). |
| Day 11: | Morning at leisure, and at lunchtime you will fly from Kigali to Nairobi. You will remain in transit here and board the overnight flight back to London Heathrow. |
| Day 12: | Arrive in London early in the morning. |
tailor made holidays
This trip can be tailormade to create a unique holiday for your individual requirements by travel experts with intimate knowledge of the destination. It is a more individual trip that will suit those who enjoy immersing themselves in new cultures and environments, with the flexibility to plan a trip at your own pace. Quality and value are the hallmark of these trips, with most services being provided on a private basis.how this holiday makes a difference
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Rwanda is a country which has made leaps and bounds in rebuilding itself after the horrors of the genocide in 1994 and tourism plays a crucial part in contributing to its economy. We use Rwandan guides and drivers throughout our itineraries and choose our accommodation carefully to ensure they are employing local people in the hotels and are sensitive to the surrounding environment.
A visit to the Gisozi Genocide Memorial at the end of your trip will give you a good opportunity to learn the people's presentation of what happened in 1994 and your entrance fee goes towards supporting orphans, widows and widowers from the genocide. The gorilla tracking permits which cost US$500 per person per day provide enormous support to the Volcanoes National Park, paying for park rangers who do anti-poaching patrols, educating the people who live near the national park about the importance of gorilla conservation, and the rangers who accompany you on the gorilla tracking excursions. Whilst the cost of the permit is relatively high, without this funding it would be impossible to stop the poachers and protect the habitat of the gorillas for future generations to enjoy. |
Tourism can be good and bad for destinations & local people. We carefully screen every holiday against our criteria for responsible travel. 'Look behind the brochure' to find how each holiday makes a difference (see left). We don't claim to be perfect - there is no global accreditation - but we've led the way since 2001 and screened 1000's of holidays. We invite every traveller to write a review about their experiences and responsible tourism. This valuable feedback is sent to the people who run the holidays. We keep a very close eye on it and take off holidays that don't live up to our standards. |