A country · 48 places · 5 regions

Rwanda, all of it.

48 curated places across 5 regions — photographed, mapped, and noted with the season each is best in.

Volcanoes National Park · via Wikimedia Commons

The 4 biggest regions — Northern Province, Kigali, Southern Province and Western Province — read below as chapters, with 1 more waiting past them.

Chapter I · Northern Province · 12 places

Northern Province

Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda's Virunga Mountains protects several habituated mountain gorilla groups available for daily one-hour trekking permits, widely considered one of the most emotionally profound wildlife encounters accessible to travellers. The park's five dormant volcanoes — Karisimbi, Bisoke, Muhabura, Gahinga, and Sabyinyo — rise above a mosaic of bamboo forest, hagenia woodland, and alpine meadow that can be explored on guided day hikes to crater lakes and summit ridges. Dian Fossey's former research station at Karisoke can be visited by permit.

Volcanoes National Park

Northern Province, Rwanda

✦ June to September, December to February · $$$

Musanze

Northern Province, Rwanda

✦ June to September, December to February · $$

Mount Bisoke

Northern Province, Rwanda

✦ June to September and December to February · $$

All 12 places in Northern Province →

via Wikimedia Commons

Chapter II · Kigali · 9 places

Kigali

A memorial and museum in the Rwandan capital commemorating the victims of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. It serves as a place of remembrance, education, and the final resting place for many victims.

✦ Year-round · $

Meet Kigali Genocide Memorial All 9 places in Kigali →

Chapter III · Southern Province · 9 places

Southern Province

Rwanda's intellectual hub, formerly Butare, home to the national university and the country's leading ethnographic museum. The museum's seven halls cover archaeology, crafts, and royal traditions in unusual depth for the region. A compact colonial-era center with a large brick cathedral rounds out an easy day of sightseeing.

Huye

Southern Province, Rwanda

✦ Year-round · $

King's Palace Museum

Southern Province, Rwanda

✦ Year-round · $

Nyanza

Southern Province, Rwanda

✦ June to September · $

All 9 places in Southern Province →

via Wikimedia Commons

Chapter IV · Western Province · 8 places

Western Province

Nyungwe is one of Africa's largest montane rainforests, covering 1,020 square kilometres in southwestern Rwanda with a canopy that shelters 13 primate species — including chimpanzees and Angola colobus in troops of up to 400 individuals — as well as over 300 bird species including 29 Albertine Rift endemics. A canopy walkway suspended above the forest floor provides an unusual aerial perspective on the forest structure and birdlife. The park also contains the uppermost tributaries of the Nile River system.

✦ June to September, December to February · $$

Meet Nyungwe Forest National Park All 8 places in Western Province →