Rwanda

Rwanda sits two degrees south of the equator at altitude, so it has no hot or cold season; Kigali stays between roughly 15 and 27 °C all year. What it has instead are four rainfall periods, and they matter far more than temperature.

The long dry season, mid-June to mid-September, is the classic window, and the reason is mud. Gorilla trekking in Volcanoes National Park means climbing through bamboo and Hagenia forest on volcanic soil at 2,500 to 3,000 metres, following a family that moved overnight. In the dry season that is a demanding but straightforward two to four hour walk. In the long rains it is the same walk with every step sliding backwards. The short dry season, mid-December to February, works the same way and is quieter.

The long rains, March to mid-May, suit a specific kind of traveller: someone who has trekked before, does not mind being wet, and wants mist in the bamboo and trailheads that are not shoulder to shoulder. Permits are easier at short notice, though Rwanda does not discount them in low season, so you are trading comfort for space rather than money.

Two things run against that grain. Nyungwe Forest gets around 2,000 mm of rain a year and there is no month in which to expect to stay dry. And chimpanzee tracking in Nyungwe is easier in the wet months, because in the dry season the chimps range higher and further for fruit. Gorillas in the dry, chimps in the wet.

For Akagera, the dry months from June to September concentrate game around the lakes and the northern tracks are firm. From March to May the black cotton soil in parts of the park turns to grease and the northern loop can become 4x4 only or close.

Rwanda has the best road network we work with. Kigali to Musanze, for the Volcanoes trailheads, is around 105 kilometres of smooth two-lane tar and takes a little over two hours. Kigali west to Rubavu on Lake Kivu is around three hours on the same standard of road, and the southern route via Huye down to Nyungwe and on to Rusizi is sealed the whole way. You will not need a 4x4 for any of it.

What the tar hides is the topography. Almost no road here runs straight or flat, so a 200-kilometre day is five hours rather than two and a half. Passing on blind corners is normal local practice, which is why we ask guests to hold back rather than join in. With pedestrians, bicycles carrying improbable loads and a constant flow of moto taxis, the sensible average is 50 to 60 km/h regardless of the surface. Speed limits are properly enforced, with fixed cameras on the main routes and fines that arrive by SMS.

The rough roads are the ones you choose deliberately. The lakeside route along Lake Kivu between Rubavu, Karongi and Rusizi, the corridor the Congo Nile Trail follows, is dirt and gravel, spectacular, slow, and a 4x4 proposition in the wet. In Akagera the main southern tracks are manageable in a 2x4 in the dry, but the northern sector around Lake Rwanyakazinga wants four-wheel drive, and the park requires it outright when the black cotton soil is wet.

Fuel is the easiest part of driving Rwanda. Stations are frequent on all main routes, rarely more than 50 or 60 kilometres apart, and generally have stock, so there is no jerry-can planning to do. Card payment works in Kigali and Musanze; carry Rwandan francs for anywhere smaller.

Rwanda is compact, so nothing is more than a day's drive from anything else and you can give each park the nights it deserves without spending the trip in transit. A well-built Rwanda itinerary is eight to eleven nights.

• 3 nightsVolcanoes National Park

  Three nights rather than two. Night one you arrive from Kigali and acclimatise at around 2,300 metres. Day two is the gorilla trek. Day three is golden monkey trekking in the bamboo, the hike to Dian Fossey's Karisoke research site and grave, or the climb to the crater lake on Bisoke at 3,711 metres. Keeping the trek on day two also leaves a spare day if weather or a reassignment moves things. For a second gorilla permit, make it four nights.

• 2–3 nightsNyungwe Forest

  One of the oldest montane rainforests in Africa and entirely different in character from the Virungas. Two nights minimum for the canopy walkway, suspended around 70 metres above the Igishigishigi trail, and a pre-dawn chimpanzee tracking start. Three nights adds the Cyamudongo chimp group, the Kamiranzovu marsh trail, or more of the thirteen primate species here; the Angolan colobus supergroups run into the hundreds.

• 2 nightsAkagera National Park

  Lion were reintroduced in 2015 and eastern black rhino in 2017, making Akagera a Big Five park again after decades without either. It is managed jointly by African Parks and the Rwanda Development Board. Two nights: one afternoon and one full day, with a boat trip on Lake Ihema for hippo, crocodile and shoebill, and a dawn drive on the northern plains. A savannah contrast after a week of forest.

• 2 nightsLake Kivu

  Kivu has no crocodiles, no hippos and no bilharzia, which makes it one of the very few African lakes you can simply swim in. Rubavu in the north pairs with Volcanoes; Karongi in the middle breaks the drive down to Nyungwe. Two nights of kayaking, coffee-plantation walks and not much else.

• 1–2 nightsKigali

  One night either side, and give at least two hours to the Kigali Genocide Memorial at Gisozi; it reframes everything you see for the rest of the trip. Then the Nyamirambo Women's Centre walking tour, the Inema and Niyo art centres, and dinner in Kiyovu.

Physically it asks more than people expect, because everything happens at altitude. Kigali is at 1,567 metres, the Volcanoes trailheads sit around 2,300 to 2,600 metres, and Bisoke tops out at 3,711 metres. Gorilla families move overnight and are not on a schedule, so a trek can be forty minutes of gentle walking or six hours of climbing through wet nettles on a steep slope, and you do not find out which until you are on the trail. Some hill walking in the weeks before you fly makes a real difference.

Logistically it asks less, with two hard deadlines. Gorilla permits are capped and allocated per family per day, and peak-season dates sell out six to twelve months ahead, so the permit is booked before anything else and the itinerary is built around it. The 7am Kinigi briefing does not wait either.

Pack gaiters and gardening gloves for the nettles, waterproofs, boots you have already broken in, and long trousers. The minimum trekking age in Volcanoes is 15, and anyone with flu-like symptoms will not be allowed on the trail, because gorillas share our respiratory vulnerabilities. Leave plastic bags at home; they are illegal and will be taken at the airport.

On driving: the roads are easy, but both gorilla and chimpanzee trekking are ranger-led regardless of how you arrive, so independence buys you less here than elsewhere. For most guests we recommend a driver-guide in Rwanda, and it is one of the few countries where we say that.