This 14 days Rwanda safari tour is a 13 nights/14 days Rwanda tour that allows you to travel at a relaxed pace and take in all the best highlights of Rwanda:- gorilla trekking, Chimpanzee tracking, Golden monkey tracking, wildlife viewing, volcano hiking, community and cultural tours, scenery viewing.
Your 14 days Rwanda safari begins in Kigali. Explore the city’s exciting attractions and the tragic genocide museum. From there, go for a classic safari in Akagera National Park, which boasts of having all the famous “big five” animals: Rhino, Lion, Leopard, Elephant, and Buffalo.
Your adventure then takes you to Nyungwe National Park Forest, one of Africa’s oldest rain forests and a natural habitat for 13 primate species, over 500 chimpanzees, and 322 bird species. Continue to the scenic shores of Lake Kivu for relaxation.
Your final and most awaited stop on this 14 days Rwanda safari tour – Volcanoes National Park, is where you’ll trek the dense jungle to see a family of Mountain Gorillas and spend a special hour in their company! Other activities include golden monkey tracking, Mount Bisoke hike, and cultural tours.
You can book or tailor this rewarding 14 days Rwanda tour holiday to your interests – at an affordable price.
Day 1 & 2: Kigali City – Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre
Day 3 & 4: Akagera National Park
Day 5, 6, & 7: Nyungwe Forest – Ethnographic Museum & King’s Palace.
Day 8: Lake Kivu – Gisenyi
Day 9, 10, 11, & 12: Volcanoes National park & Ibyiwacu Cultural Village
Day 13: Twin Lakes – Bulera & Ruhondo, Kigali
Day 14: Departure
Day 1: Arrive at Kigali International Airport & transfer to your hotel
Day 2: Visit Kigali Genocide Memorial & tour Kigali City
Day 3: Transfer to Akagera National Park for a game drive & boat trip.
Day 4: Full game drive in Akagera National Park & relaxation at your lodge
Day 5: Drive to Nyungwe Forest. Visit the Ethnographic Museum & King’s Palace.
Day 6: Chimpanzee trekking & canopy walk in Nyungwe Forest National Park
Day 7: Colobus monkey tracking in Nyungwe & afternoon tea plantation tour.
Day 8: Travel to Lake Kivu – Gisenyi Town for relaxation at your lodge.
Day 9: Enjoy a boat cruise on Lake Kivu & transfer to Volcanoes National park
Day 10: Hike Mount Bisoke in Volcanoes National Park
Day 11: Gorilla trekking in Volcanoes National Park & relaxation at the lodge
Day 12: Golden monkey tracking in Volcanoes & visit Ibyiwacu Cultural Village
Day 13: Canoe Ride on Beautiful Twin Lakes & Return to Kigali City.
Day 14: Drop off at the Airport for Flight Departure
At Kigali Airport, our company representative will be there to welcome you to Rwanda. He will transfer you to your booked hotel in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda.
Rolling green hills, sparkling clean streets (every month the entire country, including the president, participates in a mandatory cleanup called Umuganda), an energetic young arts scene, and some of the best coffee and dining in East Africa characterize this friendly city.
After a day of travel, you’ll spend the evening relaxing and enjoy dinner at the comfortable accommodation.
Accommodation:-
Luxury: – Serena Hotel Kigali/Radison blu/ Protea by Marriot Kigali
Midrange: – Hotel Chezlando/Hotel 2000 Kigali
Meal Plan: – Dinner
Activities & Services: –
Your day two of the 14 days Rwanda safari tour begins with a leisurely breakfast.
Then, you visit a location stained with Rwanda’s heartbreaking history – the Kigali Genocide Memorial. This tragic memorial was built on the burial site of 250,000 victims of the genocide against the Tutsi tribe in which almost one million Rwandans were killed in 100 days. It has an excellent exhibition that tries to explain how it was that the world watched as the 1994 Rwanda genocide unfolded.
The exhibit is an intensely emotional experience but also an educational one, where you’ll learn about the darkest hour in Rwanda’s recent history and the immense progress and reconciliation the country has achieved to date.
After the museum visit, embark on the city drive and explore markets, art galleries, and craft centers plus other interesting sites. You can even opt to have a cup of coffee at Hotel des Mille Collines, one of the historic places in Kigali. Tonight relax and enjoy your dinner as you prepare for the amazing trip ahead.
The highlight of the Day: – Learning about Rwanda’s tragic past.
Accommodation:-
Luxury: – Hotel Mille Collines/Serena Hotel Kigali/Radison blu
Midrange: – Hotel Chezlando/Hotel 2000 Kigali
Meal Plan: – Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
Activities & Services: –
Your day three of the 14 days Rwanda safari tour commences at 8 am with breakfast at the hotel. Thereafter, you will embark on a 2 ½ hour drive east to Akagera National Park. En route, you’ll see plenty of local life with vegetable and fruit markets lining the road, to be replaced by banana plantations as you leave the city behind.
Before checking into your lodge, you’ll enjoy a short game drive to spot some animals and enjoy the amazing scenery. You can expect to see impalas, zebras, reedbucks, Masai giraffes, Olive baboons, Black-faced Vervet monkeys, rhinos, etc. Continue to your lodge for relaxation and lunch.
In the afternoon, go for a relaxing boat cruise on Lake Ihema, watching many hippos and crocodiles. Spot elephants and buffaloes, as they gather at the lakeshore to drink water, and observe plenty of waterbirds; there are almost 500 bird species around the lake and the nearby wetlands. Retire for relaxation, dinner, and overnight.
The highlight of the Day: – Boat Cruise on Lake Ihema
Accommodation:-
Luxury: – Ruzizi Tented Lodge/Magashi Camp
Midrange: – Akagera Game Lodge
Budget: – Dereva Hotel
Meal Plan: – Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
Drive distance & time: – Approx. 135km/2 ½ hours
Activities & Services:-
Optional Activity: – Night game drive
On day four of your 14 days Rwanda safari tour, enjoy breakfast at 6 am.
Then go for a full-hour game drive in Akagera as the sun comes up. Sunrise is the best time for wildlife viewing as animals tend to be the most active during the “golden hours” when the first rays of sunshine come to rest on the Savannah.
Drive from south to the north towards the beautiful Kilala plain in search of the Big Five. Recent conservation efforts re-introduced both rhinos and lions to the area. Today, young ones can be spotted alongside their mothers in the striking landscape.
Be on the lookout for hippos, crocs, zebra, warthogs, baboons, giraffes, topi, impala, and more on the large open plains. Have your camera at the ready but remember to stop and take at the moment too. After fully exploring the park, have a picnic lunch and slowly drive back to your lodge for relaxation, dinner, and overnight.
The highlight of the Day: – Full day game drive in Akagera
Accommodation:-
Luxury: – Ruzizi Tented Lodge/Magashi Camp
Midrange: – Akagera Game Lodge
Budget: – Dereva Hotel
Meal Plan: – Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
Activities & Services:-
Optional Activities:-
Today, enjoy your breakfast at 7 am before embarking on a 5-6 hour drive southwest to Nyungwe Forest National Park. The drive will take you through the rolling hills and beautiful scenery. You’ll stop in the town of Butare to visit the detailed Ethnographic Museum and learn about the social-cultural history of Rwanda.
Continue to Nyanza for a tour of the King’s Palace – the historical seat of the Rwandan kingdom. Venture into the grounds to meet the royal cows and listen to the Amahamba songs the herders sing as part of the grooming process. Then, stroll in the halls of the simple, modern home of the country’s last king.
After the palace visit, enjoy a delicious lunch and continue to Nyungwe National Park – a pristine, bio-diverse natural rain forest filled with primates, birdlife, and flowers. Tonight, relax at the lodge as you prepare for your amazing chimpanzee trekking and canopy walk adventures tomorrow.
The highlight of the Day: – Explore the rich cultural heritage of Rwanda
Accommodation:-
Luxury: – One & Only Nyungwe House/Nyungwe Forest Lodge
Midrange: – Nyungwe Hill Top View Hotel
Budget: – Gisakura Guesthouse
Meal Plan: – Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
Drive Distance & Time: – Approx. 320km or 5-6 hours
Activities & Services:-
After an early breakfast on this day six of your 14 days safari Rwanda tour, transfer to the park headquarters at 5 am to meet your expert guides. After a short briefing, start your 2-6 hours trek in search of the resident chimpanzees in Nyungwe- there are over 500 chimps in the forest. If you encounter them, spend a really enjoyable hour watching them playing and interacting in their natural habitat – an incredible sight.
As well as the chimps, Nyungwe is home to 12 monkey species including colobus monkeys, L’Hoest’s monkeys, and Mangabeys, 120 butterfly species, 322 bird species, serval cats, side-striped jackal, giant forest hog, and wild cat. This makes any trek through the forest a really incredible wildlife experience.
After your thrilling chimpanzee trekking adventure, return to the lodge for lunch and relaxation. In the afternoon, go for an amazing 2-hour canopy walk via the treetop walkway in the Nyungwe Forest. You’ll see eye-level wildlife that lives in the forest canopies but is not easily seen from the ground such as monkeys and birds.
The highlight of The Day: – Tracking wild Chimpanzees on foot
Accommodation:-
Luxury: – Nyungwe Forest Lodge/One & Only Nyungwe House
Midrange: – Nyungwe Hill Top View Hotel
Budget: – Gisakura Guesthouse
Meal Plan: – Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
Activities & Services:-
Optional Activity: – Community tour
Your day five of the 15 days Rwanda tour begins with an early breakfast. Then, transfer to Park’s Visitor Center for yet another exciting adventure – tracking Colobus monkeys. These beautiful old-world monkeys tend to form ‘super-groups’ counting over 400 individuals, a phenomenon that has been observed to happen only among the colobus monkeys in Nyungwe.
The trek to see them is relatively easy and starts at 8 am after the briefing. You then hike through rolling hills draped with lush tea plantations before reaching a small, isolated patch of forest where these striking primates will be spotted jumping around the trees. Spend one hour with them and return to the lodge for relaxation and lunch.
In the afternoon, tour a tea estate to interact with the local people who work there. Discover how tea is grown and harvested, and visit a factory to see how it is processed. Finish off your experience with a cup of tea.
The highlight of The Day: – Tracking the beautiful colobus monkeys
Accommodation:-
Luxury: – Nyungwe Forest Lodge/One & Only Nyungwe House
Midrange: – Nyungwe Hill Top View Hotel
Budget: – Gisakura Guesthouse
Meal Plan: – Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
Activities & Services:-
Optional Activity: – Waterfall hike in Nyungwe Forest
Day eight of 14 days Rwanda safari tour starts with a relaxed breakfast at your lodge. Thereafter, embark on a 7- 8 hour drive to Lake Kivu. Drive along the scenic Congo Nile Divide to Lake Kivu – one of the most beautiful lakes in Central Africa.
You drive through rolling hills that characterize Rwanda’s landscape and become much more dramatic and cliff-like as you drive on. Pass small farming villages and banana plantations before descending into the valley to Gisenyi, the town at the north of Lake Kivu. Your driver will take you straight to your hotel for relaxation, dinner, and overnight.
The highlight of the Day: – Relaxation at Lake Kivu
Accommodation:-
Luxury: – Lake Kivu Serena Hotel
Midrange: – Paradise Kivu Resort/Hotel Gorillas Lake Kivu
Budget: – Hotel Paradis Malahide
Meal Plan: – Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
Drive Distance & Time: – 294km/7- 8 hours
Activities & Services: – Transfer to Lake Kivu
Enjoy breakfast, before embarking on a thrilling three hours boat cruise on Lake Kivu. Visit the lush islands dotting the lake, taking in the beautiful scenery as you cruise along. After the boat cruise, return to the lodge for lunch and relaxation.
Later in the evening, undertake a 2-3 hour drive to Musanze town near Volcanoes National Park. The park is situated in the great Virunga Mountains and its 5 volcanoes form the border between Rwanda, Uganda, and Congo.
Besides being one of the most scenic sights in Africa, the park contains a third of the world’s Mountain Gorilla population – some 300 of them. The park also has a longstanding connection with gorilla conservation. It was the base for the groundbreaking work of primatologist Dian Fossey, which began in the late 1960s and is portrayed in the evocative book and film “Gorillas in the Mist”.
Upon arrival connect to the lodge for relaxation, dinner, and overnight.
The highlight of the Day: – Boat cruise on Lake Kivu
Accommodation:-
Luxury: – Mountain Gorilla View Lodge/Bisate Lodge/Virunga Lodge
Midrange: – Da Vinci Gorilla Lodge
Budget: – Muhabura Hotel
Meal Plan: – Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
Drive distance & time: – 110km/2 hours
Activities & Services:-
Your day ten of the 14 days Rwanda safari tour adventure will be spent trekking Mount Bisoke. The mountain stands at a respectable 3,711 meters (12175 feet) high and is the most popular volcano for day hikes in Volcanoes National Park.
It has a magnificent crater lake at the summit and offers wonderful views of other Virunga Mountains. And rare plant life, birds, gorillas, golden monkeys, and other wonderful wildlife can be encountered on the trek. The hike can take anything between 6-8 hours round trip and needs reasonable fitness.
The highlight of the Day: – Hiking to Mount Bisoke Crater Lake
Accommodation:-
Luxury: – Mountain Gorilla View Lodge/Bisate Lodge/Virunga Lodge
Midrange: – Da Vinci Gorilla Lodge
Budget: – Muhabura Hotel
Meal Plan: – Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
Activities & Services:-
Optional Activity: Dian Fossey hike
After a restful night’s sleep, rise early and enjoy a good breakfast. Then transfer to the park headquarters to meet your local guides at 7 am for a briefing.
At 8 am, embark on a trek (1 to 7 hours) in search of the shy and gentle Mountain Gorillas. Although you should be prepared for muddy, humid, and perhaps challenging conditions, gorilla trekking in the Afro-montane rain forest is possible for all reasonably fit and healthy trekkers.
Your local guides are expert trackers, reading signs of the gorillas’ recent presence in the undergrowth. They will lead you to one of the forest’s 10 habituated mountain gorilla families and you’ll be able to spend one full hour observing gorillas as they feed, forage, play or interact in serene silence – an incredible experience.
You then return to your lodge for a late delicious lunch. Gorilla tracking is a physical and often emotional experience, and the rest of the day is free.
The highlight of the Day: – Tracking fascinating mountain gorillas
Accommodation:-
Luxury: – Mountain Gorilla View Lodge/Bisate Lodge/Virunga Lodge
Midrange: – Da Vinci Gorilla Lodge
Budget: – Muhabura Hotel
Meal Plan: – Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
Activities & Services: – Gorilla trekking
On day twelve of your 14 days Rwanda safari tour, you will go back into Volcanoes National Park to track a troop of rare Golden Monkeys.
These beautiful, lively creatures are on the endangered list and are endemic to the Albertine Rift. They live in troops of about 80 individuals on the lower slopes of the forest, making it an easier trek. Once you find them, you will spend 1 hour observing their charming antics as they leap from branch to branch.
Return to the lodge for relaxation and lunch.
In the afternoon, you will go for an enchanting cultural experience in the Ibyiwacu Village, a replica village of what traditional life was like back in the day for many Rwandans. Here, you will have an opportunity to spectate and participate in many activities such as hunting skills, traditional dance, and music, traditional architecture, food preparation, weaving, local brew preparation, meeting traditional healers, etc.
The highlight of the Day: – Tracking rare Golden monkeys
Accommodation:-
Luxury: – Mountain Gorilla View Lodge/Bisate Lodge/Virunga Lodge
Midrange: – Da Vinci Gorilla Lodge
Budget: – Muhabura Hotel
Meal Plan: – Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
Activities & Services: –
Enjoy a relaxed breakfast today. Then, embark on a canoe ride on the Twin Lakes – Bulera and Ruhondo, located at the base of Mount Muhabura.
Glide across the dark blue waters of these spectacular lakes, surrounded by rolling hills and scenic views of the Volcanoes. Retire from the activity and embark on a fascinating 2-3 hour drive back to your lodge in Kigali for relaxation.
The highlight of the Day: – Canoeing on volcanic Twin Lakes
Accommodation:-
Luxury: – Serena Hotel Kigali/Radison blu/ Protea by Marriot Kigali
Midrange: – Hotel Chezlando/Hotel 2000 Kigali
Meal Plan: – Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
Drive distance & Time: – 116km/2-3 hours
Activities & Services: –
Today, your wonderful 14 days Rwanda safari tour has come to an end. Have a leisurely breakfast in the hotel and then transfer to the airport for your return flight home at the end of an unforgettable Rwanda trip.
Cate
Samuel
Robert
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