5 Days Virunga and Akagera National Parks Safari

As soon as you arrive, a representative of our company in Kigali will pick you up and give you a briefing on your 5-day safari on the land of a thousand hills. After that, you’ll drive to Akagera National Park. Arrive in plenty of time for lunch, check into your lodging, enjoy your meal, and then set out on an afternoon boat cruise on Lake Ihema. Keep an eye out for various wildlife species that frequent the lake to quench their thirst during the boat ride along the lake’s shores. You will enjoy a nighttime game drive after the boat cruise before returning to the loge for dinner and rest the following day.

On this day, you will go on an early morning game drive in the park to see nocturnal animals and hunters before returning to the lodge for a later breakfast. After breakfast, head back to the park to continue your game drive to see more wildlife. Akagera National Park is one of the best savanna parks in Rwanda, and game drives there almost always result in sightings of the big five animals. You will be able to see a wide variety of animals during the game drive, including elephants, buffaloes, antelopes, hippos, lions, rhinos, bushbucks, giraffes, warthogs, and many others that can be found grazing and hunting in the park. You will return to the lodge for lunch, take some time to unwind and then check out so that you can meet your driver and begin the drive from Akagera National Park back to Kigali City. Before your dinner and overnight stay, you will take an evening city tour of Kigali.

Rise early, enjoy a cup of coffee or any other breakfast item, check out of the lodge, meet your safari driver, and leave Kigali for the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Virunga National Park. You will be welcomed at the Grande Barrier border crossing between Rwanda and Congo, given permission to obtain a visa for the neighboring country, and directed to the head office of the Virunga National Park in Goma to pick up your permit for mountain gorilla trekking. After joining the convey to be transported to your lodge, where you will check in, eat lunch, and then have the rest of the day at your leisure or participate in an optional activity like a guided nature walk or a visit to the Senkwekwe gorilla refugee.

Have an early breakfast, put on your best gorilla trekking gear, bring plenty of water for drinking, pack some snacks, and then be driven to the Bukima police station for a pre-gorilla trekking briefing. Here, you will learn the basics about mountain gorillas, the dos and don’ts during gorilla trekking, potential expectations during the trek, and more. After receiving a briefing, you can hire a porter, join the other trekkers in your group, and be led into the forest by a group of knowledgeable rangers as they look for habituated mountain gorillas that can be trekked with in their natural habitats. The entire forest walk can take anywhere from a few minutes to seven hours, but once you find the gorillas, you will only be allowed to spend an hour with these enormous creatures before leaving and being taken back to your lodge for lunch, if you didn’t pack one.

You will be driven back to Gisenyi later in the evening, where you will spend the evening on a boat tour along Lake Kivu’s shores. Go to your pre-arranged hotel in Gisenyi to check in, have dinner, and spend the night.

Enjoy a leisurely breakfast by Lake Kivu’s shores before spending the remainder of the day exploring Gisenyi Rwanda’s most stunning freshwater lake. You can go swimming, go for a stroll, or just relax on the beach while admiring stunning sights like the view of Mount Nyiragongo and the fascinating flora along the lake’s shores, which is home to various bird species. Later, after checking out and returning to your lodge for lunch, you will be driven back to Kigali, Rwanda’s capital city, for hotel drop-off or airport drop-off, depending on your travel itinerary.