inspiring travel
A mountain gorilla silverback sitting in the dense green vegetation of the Volcanoes National Park
Central Africa · Rwanda

Face to face with
our closest relatives

Mountain gorillas share 98.3% of human DNA, and an hour with a habituated family in Rwanda's Volcanoes National Park makes that statistic feel like an understatement. Rwanda has also built something remarkable around this encounter: a country that took its conservation revenues and rebuilt itself into one of Africa's most admired societies.

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There are fewer than 1,100 mountain gorillas left on Earth, and all of them live in a forested triangle spanning Rwanda, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Rwanda's section — the Volcanoes National Park in the northwest — was where Dian Fossey conducted her landmark behavioural research, and where the gorilla families she habituated are now the subject of ongoing study and, very carefully managed, tourism. The hour you spend with a gorilla family — watching the silverback scratch his chest, a juvenile swing from a hagenia branch, a mother nurse her infant — is the most intimate wildlife encounter available anywhere. Rwanda has channelled the considerable revenue from gorilla permits into the country's reconstruction and conservation, making the visit itself a form of meaningful participation. Beyond the gorillas, Rwanda is a country of extraordinary topographic beauty — a thousand hills covered in terraced agriculture and tea plantation, with Lake Kivu's deep blue basin along the western border and a capital city, Kigali, that has been rebuilt with design intelligence and civic pride that other African cities observe with genuine respect.

Signature experiences

How we design
your Rwanda

Trekkers following a Rwanda Development Board ranger through dense highland forest toward a gorilla family
Wildlife

Mountain gorilla trekking — the Sabyinyo or Amahoro family

Gorilla trekking begins at 7am from the park headquarters at Kinigi, where rangers brief each group on the family they will visit and the protocols for the encounter: no flash photography, no direct eye contact held too long with the silverback, keep seven metres from any animal unless the gorilla itself closes the distance. The trek through bamboo forest and nettle undergrowth takes one to four hours depending on where the family slept the previous night. The hour allowed with the gorillas passes in what feels like four minutes. We secure permits for smaller, less frequently trekked families — Sabyinyo or Amahoro — where the experience is consistently quieter than the most popular groups.

A golden monkey perched in bamboo forest at the base of the Virunga volcanoes in Volcanoes NP
Wildlife

Golden monkey tracking in the bamboo forest

The golden monkey — with its vivid orange and black colouring — is endemic to the Albertine Rift and found in Rwanda only in the bamboo forest zone of Volcanoes National Park. Smaller groups (a maximum of four trekkers) follow a habituated troop through the bamboo with trackers who know individual animals by name. Unlike gorilla trekking, golden monkey permits allow two hours with the troop, and the animals' acrobatic movement through the bamboo canopy produces a very different quality of encounter — quick, chaotic, comic, and ultimately moving in a way that takes you by surprise. We often combine gorilla and golden monkey on consecutive days.

Kigali skyline seen from a hill at golden hour, green hills descending into the valley below
Culture

Kigali — the Kigali Genocide Memorial and the city's reinvention

The Kigali Genocide Memorial is not an easy visit, but it is a necessary one for any traveller seeking to understand contemporary Rwanda. The memorial is designed with exceptional thoughtfulness — the documentation rigorous, the victim testimonies presented with dignity, the broader historical context clearly laid out. Kigali's contemporary design and cultural scene exists in the same city: the Inema Arts Center in Kiyovu shows work by emerging Rwandan artists, the Kimironko market is one of East Africa's most photogenic, and dinner at one of the hilltop restaurants watching the city's lights spread across eight hills is a genuine pleasure.

Rwanda landscape — terraced tea plantations on the hills above Ruhengeri in morning mist
Rwanda culture — traditional intore dancers in feathered headdresses performing in Kigali
Rwanda nature — Lake Kivu at sunset with the silhouette of the Congo hills across the water
A suggested journey

7 days
across the land of a thousand hills

A compact but complete Rwanda journey combining Kigali, gorilla and golden monkey trekking, and a rest on Lake Kivu. The primary gorilla season runs June to September and December to February, when rains are lighter and the forest more navigable — though permits are available year-round and the experience remains powerful in every season.

Day 1–2

Kigali — Genocide Memorial, Inema Arts, market

Two days in Kigali allow the memorial its proper time without rushing. The afternoon of day two is better spent at the Inema Arts Center or at the Caplaki crafts cooperative, where handwoven imigongo geometric art — a specifically Rwandan form using cow dung and natural pigments — can be bought directly from the artists. Dinner at Poivre Noir or Heaven restaurant introduces the city's confident contemporary food scene.

Day 3

Drive to Volcanoes NP — afternoon forest walk

The three-hour drive northwest to Musanze passes through the terraced hills that define Rwanda's agricultural landscape. An afternoon walk in the forest fringe around the park headquarters acclimatises you to the altitude — the gorilla trekking begins at 2,300 metres — and introduces the endemic flora with a park naturalist. The private lodges on the park boundary serve dinner with views of the Virunga volcanoes turning purple at dusk.

Day 4

Mountain gorilla trekking

The early start to Kinigi, the briefing, the forest ascent, and the hour with the gorilla family. In the afternoon, visit the Dian Fossey Research Station and the grave of Digit — the silverback whose murder galvanised international attention on mountain gorilla conservation and gave Fossey's work its public voice. The research station's data sets, now spanning decades, represent one of the longest continuous primate behavioural studies in history.

Day 5

Golden monkey tracking — twin lakes afternoon

The golden monkey trek begins at the same briefing point but takes a different forest path toward the bamboo zone. Two hours with the troop, then a late-morning drive to the twin crater lakes of Burera and Ruhondo — two linked highland lakes surrounded by deeply terraced hills, with almost no tourist infrastructure. A pirogue trip on the lakes passes fishing communities unchanged in their methods for generations.

Day 6–7

Lake Kivu — Gisenyi, kayak, tea plantation

A drive south along the Congo border to Lake Kivu — 90 kilometres long and one of Africa's Great Rift Valley lakes, containing methane gas dissolved in its depths that is being harvested for electricity generation. Gisenyi on the northern shore has a relaxed resort feel; kayaking to the small islands offshore and visiting the nearby Gisakura tea estate (where you walk the picking rows with a guide and witness processing from leaf to finished tea) complete the journey before the return to Kigali.

Your Rwanda story
begins here.

Gorilla permits require advance securing and family allocation matters — we handle both, plus the lodges, the private forest guides, and the Kigali experiences that give the journey its full dimension.

Begin your journey