Volcanoes National Park Safaris
Volcanoes National Park is Africa’s premium location for trekking with mountain gorilla. Accommodation standards here are set incredibly high whilst trekking is often easier than in neighbouring Uganda.
When to go to Volcanoes National Park
Best Time to Go
Famous for its mountain gorillas
A variety of wildlife
Learn about Diane Fossey’s legacy
Part of the famous Virunga Mountain range
Home of the Mountain Gorilla
Rwanda may have just a few national parks, but its Volcanoes National Park, part of the Virunga Mountains range, contains 12 habituated gorilla groups and offers arguably the world’s most consistent gorilla trekking.
The Volcanoes gorillas are also found in neighbouring Mgahinga and Virunga National Parks, which are in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) respectively, while the second group lives in Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park.
Volcanoes National Park Trips
Activities & Wildlife
Volcanoes National Park is renowned for its gorilla trekking safaris. This is the place to go to encounter the habituated families of mountain gorillas.
Gorilla trekking
Game viewing
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Volcanoes National Park ensures that visitors to the area enjoy some of the most productive and rewarding gorilla trekking experiences available anywhere. Due to the high number of habituated groups, on any given day you will encounter at least one group not only within an hour’s walk, but much farther away too, allowing for keen hikers to set out on treks lasting from 5 to 7 hours.
While Volcanoes is best known for the gorillas, you can also look out for buffalo, a few elephants, spotted hyena, black-fronted duiker, and bushbuck. Birding is pretty impressive too – at last count, there were 178 species! The park’s flora comprises mostly forest, varying with altitude, but there is also grassland and even some thickets and marshes.
Our Favourite Camps
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Wilderness Bisate
From AU$4,003 – AU$5,300 ppWilderness Bisate is a super-high-end safari lodge on the outskirts of Rwanda’s biodiverse Volcanoes National Park, home to around half the world’s remaining mountain gorilla population. Inspired by the King’s Palace in Butare, the architecture is innovative…
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Wilderness Sabyinyo
From AU$2,357 – AU$3,124 ppSabyinyo used to be the absolute go-to place for a luxury Rwanda gorilla-trekking experience. And today, although a couple of new and more exorbitant options have superseded it on the extravagance scale, it remains an impressive and wonderful lodge! It has a…
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Wilderness Bisate Reserve
From AU$4,951 – AU$6,875 ppWilderness Bisate Reserve is the sister camp to the already iconic Wilderness Bisate. Tucked into the forest just outside Volcanoes National Park, this exceptional property offers an entirely private, exclusive base for your gorilla-trekking expedition. The…
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Amakoro Songa Lodge
From AU$1,604 – AU$1,995 ppIt is owned and operated by tourism company Songa Africa, who have ample experience in designing trips across Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania. Now the company has designed its own lodge and Amakoro Songa is a fine addition to the properties situated in…
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Singita Kwitonda Lodge
From AU$3,905 – AU$5,202 ppKwitonda Lodge is the latest offering from Singita, the company that blends luxury lodges and conservation to excellent effect throughout Safari Africa.
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Virunga Lodge
From AU$1,827 – AU$3,305 ppVirunga Lodge has the wow-factor for its location alone – add gorillas and golden monkeys to the mix, plus all the other outstanding activities, and you have nothing short of a dream destination. A fab base for getting to know Volcanoes!
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One&Only Gorilla’s Nest
From AU$3,584 – AU$6,025 ppOne&Only Gorilla’s Nest provides a very luxurious base from which to head out on gorilla treks and other activities within the spectacular Volcanoes National Park! Gorilla’s Nest is part of the impressive portfolio of One&Only, which includes Yellow Zebra…
History
Volcanoes National Park is situated in the north-west of Rwanda. As its name suggests, it contains a number of volcanoes, specifically Bisoke, Gahinga, Karisimbi, Muhabara, and Sabyinyo – five of the eight located in the Virunga Mountains. Of these, only Bisoke remains active, and it last erupted in 1957.
Originally, the park was gazetted as a fairly small area, but this was a significant area nevertheless, as it was the first national park in Africa! The principal purpose of the park was to protect the gorillas from poaching. Four years after it was established, in 1929, it was expanded to cover not only more of Rwanda but also a large part of what was then known as the Belgian Congo (later the DRC). Unfortunately, the Belgians opted to clear 700 hectares of the area in 1958 for human habitation.
However, once the DRC came into being, the park was halved and on the Rwandan side, the government pledged to maintain it as a conservation area. This was good news for the gorillas! Another important date in the history of Volcanoes National Park is 1967, which brought the arrival of American naturalist Dian Fossey. Dian set up a research centre (‘Karisoke’, located between volcanoes Karisimbi and Visoke) and she worked hard to raise awareness worldwide of the poaching threats against the mountain gorillas. It is generally acknowledged that she saved the beautiful beasts from extinction! Sadly, Dian was murdered, most likely by poachers, in 1985. But her memory lives on, not least in the well-known film Gorillas in the Mist – and you can visit the old research centre and Dian’s grave, among gorilla graves, today.
The national park faced difficulties during the Rwandan Civil War, to the extent that all tourist activities ceased for much of the 1990s. Happily, the park re-opened in 1999 and now visitors can enjoy gorilla trekking, golden monkey trekking, volcano climbing, tours of the region’s lakes and caves, and excursions to Iby’lwacu village for a little culture.
If hiking is of interest to you, there are few more extraordinary places to visit in Africa. The park’s mesmerising landscape serves as a home to a significant number of mountain gorillas and golden monkeys, as well as a variety of endemic birds.
Talk to someone who’s been there
Real expertise doesn’t come from a few trips to Africa. All our specialists have either been guides, run the camps, or grown up and lived in Africa. That’s over 600 years of genuine safari experience.
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