Volcanoes National Park

Overview

Volcanoes National Park covers the Rwandan flank of the Virunga range, five extinct volcanoes rising above bamboo forest on the border with Uganda and the DRC. It is the park Dian Fossey worked in, and it remains the most straightforward place in the world to see mountain gorillas: Kigali is two to three hours away on good tarmac, which makes a gorilla trek feasible in a long weekend. Twelve habituated gorilla families are open to visitors, eight people per family per day. A permit costs US$1,500 for a foreign non-resident in 2026 — the highest anywhere, and a deliberate choice by Rwanda to keep visitor numbers low. Golden monkey tracking, the hike to Dian Fossey’s tomb and the climb up Mount Bisoke are all available at a fraction of that. The trek itself is demanding rather than technical: steep, wet ground between 2,500 m and 3,000 m, and anywhere from half an hour to six hours of walking each way before you find the family.