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.
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.
via Wikimedia CommonsChapter 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 · $
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.
via Wikimedia CommonsChapter IV · Western Province · 8 places
Western Province
Lake Kivu is one of Africa's Great Lakes, a deep rift lake on the Democratic Republic of Congo border whose depths are saturated with dissolved methane and carbon dioxide of volcanic origin. On the Rwandan shore, the towns of Gisenyi and Kibuye offer beach resorts with dramatic lake and volcano views — the Congolese Nyiragongo crater is visible from the northern shore on clear days. The lake's islands, including Idjwi on the DRC side, can be explored by boat charter from Kibuye or Gisenyi.
✦ June to September · $$
Every place in Rwanda
