Guide to Rwanda’s National Parks – Wildlife, Activities & Travel Tips
Rwanda, known as the “Land of a Thousand Hills,” is a landlocked country in central Africa that is about 26,338 square kilometers in size. The country is located next to the Democratic Republic of Congo on the west, Burundi to the south, Uganda to the north, and Tanzania to the east.
Rwanda has five mountains in the Virunga range: Mount Sabyinyo, Mount Karisimbi, Mount Bisoke, Mount Muhabura, and Mount Gahinga. The tallest one is Mount Karisimbi, which is 4,507 meters high.
List of National Parks in Rwanda:
The western area of Rwanda is located in the Great Rift Valley, specifically called the Albertine Rift Valley. It has some special national parks in Africa, listed below:
Volcanoes National Park is located in Rwanda.
Volcanoes National Park is the most popular tourist spot in Rwanda. It is 162 square kilometers in size and shares borders with Uganda and Congo. The park is part of the Virunga Conservation Area and has five out of the eight Virunga mountains.
Under Belgian rule, Volcanoes National Park was merged with Virunga National Park in Congo to create Albert National Park in April 1929. This makes it Africa’s oldest national park.
The park has areas with bamboo, rainforests, mountains, calm lakes, grassy fields, and valleys. There are 178 bird species, with 27 of them only found in the Albertine Rift area.
monkey trekking is the main attraction in Volcanoes National Park, where visitors can see several used-to-people monkey groups. Gorilla trekking passes cost $1,500 for each person. Visitors can follow specific paths in the park to see golden monkeys.
Tourists can enhance their stay by going hiking. They can climb any of the five volcanoes, except for Mount Sabyinyo, which can only be reached from the Ugandan side. You can hire porters to help with your bags. Some walks can be finished in one day, while others take two days, but all provide stunning views of Lake Kivu, the twin lakes of Burera and Ruhondo, and the beautiful scenery around them. Some volcanoes have pretty holes at the top.
Akagera National Park is a wildlife reserve in Rwanda. It’s known for its diverse landscapes, including savannahs, wetlands, and mountains. The park is home to many animals, including elephants, lions, and various bird species.
Akagera National Park is in northeastern Rwanda, next to the border with Tanzania. The park was created in 1934 and initially covered 2,500 square kilometers. After the Rwandan war, refugees moved into part of the park, making it smaller, now covering 1,122 square kilometers.
The park features open grasslands, acacia forests, swamps, rivers, lakes, hills, and marshes, creating different living spaces for animals. The Kagera River runs along the eastern side of the park and is an important water source for many animals. These include sitatunga antelopes, Masai giraffes, lions, oribis, hippos, crocodiles, buffalos, bushbucks, bush pigs, spotted hyenas, aardvarks, and striped jackals.
Akagera National Park is home to more than 500 bird species.
Nyungwe Forest National Park
Nyungwe Forest National Park holds Africa’s oldest natural Afro-montane rain-forest, which survived the last ice age. It gets more than 2,000mm of rain each year, which makes it one of the most diverse environments.
The park is in southwestern Rwanda, next to Burundi and Congo, and it covers 980 square kilometers. It was made a reserve in 1933 and turned into a national park in 2004.
Nyungwe Forest National Park provides a special chimpanzee hiking experience in Rwanda for $150 per person. Tourists can watch a monkey family for one hour once they find them. The park has 13 types of primates, such as colobus monkeys, L’Hoest’s monkeys, vervet monkeys, olive baboons, red-tailed monkeys, and blue monkeys.
One of the main attractions in Nyungwe is the canopy bridge, which is the first of its kind in Central East Africa. The path is about 50 meters high and provides great views of trees, monkeys, butterflies, and birds.
Gishwati-Mukura National Park
You can reach Gishwati-Mukura National Park in about three hours by car from Kigali, the city of Rwanda. This park is part of the rainforest that goes through Congo and is famous for its many different plants and animals.
It has more than 6,000 types of plants, over 100 kinds of mammals, and various bird species, including some that are only found in that area.
