This 8 Days Rwanda Wildlife Safari is tailored to give you a chance to visit and experience all the 3 Rwanda National Park, your Rwanda Safari Tour starts with a visit to Akagera National Park – the only savannah park in Rwanda, Nyungwe Forest National Park – home to chimpanzees and other 12 primate species. Conclude with a visit to Volcanoes National Park, home to the endangered mountain gorillas and best place to see them.
These 3 Rwanda National Parks are a mixture of savannah, forest and mountainous giving you varied sights of Rwanda.
Game drive
- Boat ride
- Chimpanzee tracking
- Canopy Walk
- Gorilla tracking
Detailed Itinerary of 8 Days Rwanda Wildlife Safari
Day 1: Arrival to Kigali International Airport
On arrival at Kigali International Airport, you will be warmly welcomed by Rowin Africa Safaris driver guide and transfer you to your hotel in Kigali City.
Drive time – 20 minutes
Day 2: Transfer to Akagera National park + Boat Safari
After breakfast, you will go for a short city tour with a visit to the Kigali Genocide Memorial to learn some history of this beautiful country. After this enriching experience, leave for Akagera National Park with short stopovers along the way for photos and use of washrooms.
On arriving in the park, you will have a short briefing at the park reception, leave for your lodge for check-in and lunch. Later leave for a boat safari on Lake Ihema where you will enjoy sightings of submerged hippos and crocodiles. Alternatively spend the afternoon at the lodge enjoy nature.
Optional: Night game drive in search of some nocturnal animals.
Drive time – 2 hours 30 minutes or Helicopter (Augusta) – 30 minutes
Meal Plan: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner
Day 3: Explore Akagera National Park
Spend the whole day exploring Akagera National Park, the only savannah park in Rwanda located in North Eastern Rwanda on the border with Tanzania. The park is home to several big mammals which are not found anywhere else in Rwanda. On morning game drive, look out for elephants, zebras, giraffes, buffaloes, waterbucks, bushbucks and the recently introduced lions.
The game drives in Akagera National Park usually takes place in the northern sector of the park and the game drive can last for almost an entire day depending on the animal sightings and your interests. Return to your lodge for dinner and overnight.
Meal Plan: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner
Day 4: Transfer to Nyungwe Forest National Park
After breakfast, we depart for Nyungwe Forest in Southern Rwanda with a stopover for lunch in Huye formerly known as Butare. Huye hosts the ethnographic Museum of Rwanda that was formerly known as the national museum of Rwanda, here you will learn about the culture and history of the Rwanda People. Arrive in Nyungwe Forest later in the evening.
Drive time – 5 hours Or Helicopter (Robinson/ Augusta) – 45 minutes/ 35 minutes
Meal Plan: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner
Day 5: Rwanda Chimpanzee Tracking and Canopy Walk
Wake up early for breakfast, you will head to the park headquarters for briefing about chimpanzee trekking. Chimpanzee trekking in Nyungwe Forest starts early in the morning and you have to be at the briefing point as early as 5:30 am.
In groups of 8 people, head into the forests of Nyungwe looking for chimpanzees. Along the way you will see other primates in Nyungwe including L’Hoest’s monkeys, Rwenzori Colobus monkeys, red tailed monkeys, vervet monkeys, grey cheeked mangabeys. When you locate the chimpanzee family, you are allowed to spend one hour with their presence taking pictures and watching them go on with their life in the forest. You are allowed to take as many photos as possible, trek back to the park headquarters, return to your lodge for lunch.
In the afternoon, you will be transferred to the Uwinka Centre to start your canopy walk as you explore the park even more.
Meal Plan: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner
Day 6: Transfer to Volcanoes National Park
After a relaxed breakfast, you will bid farewell to Nyungwe and start your journey to Volcanoes National Park in northern Rwanda. Along the way you will enjoy sights of Lake Kivu and winding roads in the land of a thousand hills.
Drive time – 6 hours Or Helicopter (Robinson) – 35 minutes
Meal Plan: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner
Day 7: Gorillas in the Mist
Have early breakfast and head to the park headquarters in Kinigi where you are assigned a ranger and gorilla family to trek, Rwanda gorilla trek through Volcanoes National Park is an unforgettable experience that many people from the world love to undertake. The gorilla trek can last from an hour or less to several hours later depending on where the gorilla spend their previous, you need to be relatively fit to enjoy this spectacular experience and remember to pace yourself as you trek the gorillas.
Depending on the time the gorilla trekking lasts, you will have opportunities for a cultural experience at Ib’iwacu Village.
Meal Plan: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner
Day 8: End of the Rwanda wildlife Safari
Today is your last day of 8 Days Rwanda Wildlife Safari, start your day with a leisurely breakfast and transfer to the airport for your exit flight, in case you have some time before flight, you can have a short Kigali City Tour.
Drive time – 2 hours 30 minutes Or Helicopter (Robinson) – 35 minutes
Meal Plan: Breakfast and Lunch