One hour with a gorilla family. A country that fills the days either side.
What the permit really costs and how far ahead it goes. Whether Akagera is worth the drive east. What a morning walking Nyamirambo runs to. Reviews of every tour you can book in Rwanda.
The permit day1 Day Rwanda Gorilla Trekking Tour In The Volcanoes National ParkVolcanoes National Park, one habituated family, an hour on the clock once the trackers find them.02$205
The day eastOne-day Akagera National Park Game Drive with a Choice 4×4Akagera at dawn, lake plains and Big Five country, three hours from the capital.03$30
The city morningWalking Tour with a Local GuideNyamirambo on foot with someone who lives there, then coffee on a hill.04$50
The lake dayLake Kivu Boat Trips & ExperiencesKivu by boat, out past the fishing pirogues to an island with nobody on it.Three Rwandan parks, three days that share nothing.
These are not variations on a safari. One is a climb up a volcano to sit with a gorilla family, one is a Big Five game drive on the Tanzanian border, one is rainforest with a steel walkway strung through the canopy. Pick by the day you want, not by the animal.
★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1 Day Rwanda Gorilla Trekking Tour In The Volcanoes National Park
Gorilla trekkingA climb that can take five hours, then one hour with the family.
Akagera game drivesLion, rhino and elephant on the plains above Lake Ihema.
The Virunga daysGolden monkeys, the Bisoke crater climb, the Fossey trail.
Nyungwe rainforestChimpanzees at first light and a walkway seventy metres up.
All 28 days in the parks →
Rwanda is small. The days out are not interchangeable.
A country you can drive across in a day, holding mountain gorillas in the north-west, Big Five plains in the east, an inland sea down the western border and a capital built over a dozen hills. Six ways in, and the best day out in each.
The Rwandan days out travellers book before anything else.
Every Rwandan tour we have reviewed →A city walk and a gorilla permit sit on the same list here, because both sell out. What each one costs and what earns it the slot.
1
Kigali City Tour
Review of Kigali City Tour, a small-group day out with markets, local food, art, Mount Kigali, and the Genocide Memorial.
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 not a stopover. Give it a full day at each end.
The capital runs up and down a dozen hills, and almost everything worth doing happens on foot or on the back of a moto: the Nyamirambo lanes, Kimironko market, a coffee washing station explained by the person who roasts it, dinner where the city lights drop away below the table.
- 1Kigali City Tourfrom $162
- 2Walking Tour with a Local Guidefrom $30
- 3Private Full-day Kigali City Tour with Pickup and Lunchfrom $180
A Rwandan day out runs from a coffee morning to a permit.
Nowhere else does the price of a day swing this hard. Everything on the site, grouped by what it takes to book.
Walking tours of the Nyamirambo lanes, a bean-to-brew morning, basket weaving in a garden, the zip line on Mount Kigali.
- 1Walking Tour with a Local Guidefrom $30
- 2Kigali Walking Tourfrom $30
- 3Kigali E-Bike City Tour with Breakfastfrom $39
Half a day and up: a coffee morning that runs into lunch, a city tour with a driver, boat time on Kivu.
- 1Kigali City Tourfrom $121
- 2Traditional Coffee Experience ( Bean to Brew)from $50
- 3Kigali City Sightseeingfrom $130
Private days with a car, the game-drive seats out east, and the permits at the top of the range.
Four Rwandan bookings that will not wait for you.
Most of this country can be arranged over breakfast the day before. These four run on permit caps, park gates and drives long enough to eat the day, and none of them care what time your flight got in.
- 013 Day Gorilla Trek at Bwindi National Park via KigaliEight trekkers per gorilla family per day, and the dry-season slots are spoken for months ahead.
- 02One-day Akagera National Park Game Drive with a Choice 4×4The park is three hours east and the gates open at six, so any game drive worth taking leaves the city in the dark.
- 031 Day Canopy Walk Adventure in Nyungwe Forest National ParkNyungwe is five hours south-west. The canopy walk is a whole day or an overnight, never a spare afternoon.
- 04Lake Kivu Boat Trips & ExperiencesBoat days run out of the lake towns on the western border, hours from Kigali, and the last crossing back is early.
On Umuganda mornings the whole country stops until noon.
Community work runs from eight to eleven on the last Saturday of every month. Shops stay shut, the roads go quiet and almost nothing starts before midday. It is the one morning to book something slow and indoors, then let the afternoon take the long day out.
Three things you can do in Rwanda and almost nowhere else.
Plenty of countries have mountains, coffee and craft. Mountain gorillas live in three of them, the coffee is picked on the slope you are standing on, and the baskets have a name and a purpose.
An hour with a mountain family
Mountain gorillas live on one volcanic range shared by Rwanda, Uganda and the DRC, and the Rwandan side is the shortest walk in. A permit buys a briefing at Kinigi soon after dawn, a climb behind trackers who have been with the family since first light, and exactly sixty minutes once you reach them. Groups are capped at eight people per family per day, which is why the calendar matters more than the price.
- 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
Coffee that never leaves the hill
Rwandan bourbon arabica grows between fifteen hundred and two thousand metres, and the washing stations sit right among the trees so the cherries can be pulped the day they are picked. A morning on a station takes you through picking, floating, drying beds and a cupping table, and the roaster pouring it usually knows the farm by name.
- 1Traditional Coffee Experience ( Bean to Brew)★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 54 reviews
- 2Specialty Coffee Masterclass★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 33 reviews
- 3Women-led Coffee Farm Trek★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 19 reviews
Baskets, drums and a garden
The peace basket with the conical lid is on the national coat of arms, and it takes days of coiled sisal to make one. An afternoon in a village garden gets you a half-finished agaseke of your own, Intore dancers in their headdresses, and imigongo panels: geometric spirals built up in dung and ash, then painted black, white and ochre.
- 1Mount Kigali and Cultural Village Tour with Snacks★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 62 reviews
- 2Traditional Coffee Experience ( Bean to Brew)★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 54 reviews
- 3Traditional Basket Weaving in a Garden★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 41 reviews
By park, lake and capital
By kind of day: trek, drive, workshop or table
Kigali, the volcanoes, the lake, the forest, the plains. The loop almost everyone drives first.
Back to KigaliThe newest Rwandan tour reviews.
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