1 destination · 10 things to do

Rwanda

Rwanda is a small, green, hilly country that rewards the traveller who plans it well, and Kigali is where every plan starts. The capital is clean, calm and spread over a ridge of hills, with a Genocide Memorial that gives honest context to everything else you will see, a crafts-and-coffee street culture, and the Nyamirambo district where the food and music live. From Kigali, the country opens in every direction: north to Volcanoes National Park for mountain gorillas and golden monkeys, east to Akagera for lions, rhinos, elephants and giraffes on open savanna, and south-west to the ancient montane rainforest of Nyungwe and its canopy walkway. This guide books Rwanda properly: the memorial visit and a city tour with a guide, a street-food walk, the gorilla permit with its real price and how to buy it, the cheaper primate and volcano hikes, an Akagera day safari and a Nyungwe canopy day, then matches you to a Kigali hotel, from the Marriott and the Serena to Heaven boutique hotel, because the capital is the hub and the right base saves hours on the road.