Nyungwe Forest National Park

Back to Rwanda

Draped across Rwanda’s southwestern highlands, Nyungwe is one of Africa’s oldest rainforests — a misty, orchid-hung world of giant trees that survived the ice ages and now shelters thirteen primate species and more than 320 birds, dozens found nowhere else.

Highlights

Chimpanzee tracking at dawn is the headline, the forest erupting around you as the troop wakes. The canopy walkway — East Africa’s first — hangs 60 metres above the treetops, and troops of Angolan colobus several hundred strong move through the forest like weather. Tea plantations lap the park’s edges in impossible green.

Best Time to Visit

The drier windows of June to September and December to February make trekking easiest, though Nyungwe is a rainforest in the truest sense — pack for mist and magic year-round.

Where to Stay

A clutch of refined lodges sits among the tea estates on the forest rim; we match the lodge to your trekking plans and onward route to Lake Kivu.

Ask us to weave Nyungwe into your journey — or start with our Rwanda overview.