Start in Kigali for the Genocide Memorial, the coffee and the food, then run north. Musanze is the base for Volcanoes National Park, where the mountain gorilla and golden monkey treks leave at dawn. Drop west to Lake Kivu at Rubavu or Karongi for two slow days on the water, then south through the tea ridges to Nyungwe National Park for chimpanzees and the canopy walkway. Akagera, on the eastern border, is the savannah half of the country and the one most itineraries skip. Distances are short and the roads are good, so a week covers more here than it would anywhere else in the region.
1 Rwanda city guide
Fun fact
Rwanda banned plastic carrier bags in 2008 and widened the law to single-use plastics in 2019. Bags are still confiscated from arriving travellers at Kigali airport, which is why the country looks the way it does.
Stereotypes, sorted out
The realityThe gorillas are one morning of a week. Nyungwe in the south is rainforest with chimpanzees, thirteen primate species and a canopy walkway, Akagera in the east is savannah with lion and rhino back in it, and Lake Kivu is a lake holiday with beaches and boats. Kigali itself is worth two nights before any of it.
The realityIt is not avoided and it is not the whole story. The Kigali Genocide Memorial is a serious, well-made place and most visitors go, but the Rwanda you travel through is a young country with the highest share of women in any parliament on earth, a convention centre lit up on the skyline and a coffee industry that exports to Tokyo.
The realityRwanda is the exception that annoys its neighbours. The tarmac is good, the coaches leave close to schedule, the streets are swept, and moto drivers carry a spare helmet because the law says so. Coming overland from Uganda or the DRC, the change at the border is immediate.
The realityYou need neither French nor Kinyarwanda. Rwanda switched its schooling and its government to English in 2008, so anyone under thirty was taught in it. French still turns up with older Rwandans and in official life, and a few words of Kinyarwanda buy you more goodwill than either.
The realityRwanda sits high. Kigali is around 1,500 metres and the volcano parks are far above that, so days are mild and nights near the volcanoes are genuinely cold. Pack a fleece and a rain layer, not shorts. The land of a thousand hills is also a land of afternoon downpours.
Cultural notes that actually help
- Greet before you ask. Mwaramutse in the morning, muraho any time, and a handshake that lasts a beat longer than you expect. Opening with the question reads as rude however warm the tone.
- Do not use the words Hutu and Tutsi conversationally. Rwandans identify as Rwandan by design and by law, and a visitor sorting people into groups lands badly. If someone brings up their own history, listen; do not go looking for it.
- Treat the memorials as memorials. No photographs inside the Kigali Genocide Memorial, quiet voices, and no selfies at Nyamata or Murambi. Guides there are often survivors.
- Dress tidily. Rwanda is a neat country and it notices. Smart-casual is normal in Kigali restaurants, and torn or scruffy clothing reads as disrespect rather than as travel.
- Plan around Umuganda. The last Saturday of the month shuts the shops and clears the roads from eight until eleven. Joining your neighbourhood's session is welcomed and is the fastest way into a real conversation.
- Leave the plastic bags at home. The ban is enforced at the airport and enforced again by anyone who sees you with one.
- Ask before photographing people, and expect no as an answer sometimes. Children will crowd a camera; adults are more reserved, and a gorilla trek has its own rules that the guides will set out.
- Public affection is kept low key, and public criticism of the government is a subject Rwandans navigate carefully. Read the room rather than steering the conversation there.
Famous Rwandan faces
Paul Kagame
Louise Mushikiwabo
Scholastique Mukasonga
Cécile Kayirebwa
Adrien Niyonshuti
Joël Karekezi
Immaculée Ilibagiza
Agnes Binagwaho
Jean-Paul Samputu
Meddy
The Ben
Bruce Melodie
Valens Ndayisenga
Salomé Nyirarukundo
Eric Kabera
Moses Turahirwa
Clarisse Iribagiza
Must-try Rwandan food
Isombe
Cassava leaves pounded and simmered down with palm oil, onion and often groundnut. Deep green and faintly bitter.
Brochettes
Skewered goat, beef or fish grilled over charcoal. Goat is the default and the chips beside it are not optional.
Urwagwa
Banana beer fermented with sorghum. Rural, potent, and poured at ceremonies rather than in bars.
Ubugali
Cassava or maize flour worked into a stiff dough with boiling water. The plate almost everything else is served against.
Ibishyimbo
Beans, cooked long and eaten most days. The quiet backbone of the Rwandan plate rather than a side.
Ibirayi
Potatoes from the volcanic north, which grows them better than anywhere else in the region. Boiled, fried, or stewed into the sauce.
Igisafuriya
Chicken and plantain cooked down together in one pot. The name simply means pot, which is the recipe.
Agatogo
Green plantains stewed with beef and spices until the whole thing thickens into itself.
Umutsima
A denser paste of cassava and maize flour, served against a vegetable stew rather than eaten alone.
Akabenzi
Pork salted, marinated and roasted until the edges crisp. A Kigali evening dish, eaten with a beer and your hands.
Sambaza
Tiny Lake Kivu fish, battered and fried whole by the bowlful. Ordered at sunset on the lakeshore, eaten head and all.
Grilled tilapia
Whole lake tilapia charred over coals and served with chips and a chilli sauce. The standard Kivu order.
Melange
The buffet plate: one flat price, a bit of everything, and the way most of Kigali eats lunch.
Chapati
Layered and pan-fried, sold at the roadside and folded around egg, beans or nothing at all.
Sambusa
The samosa, in beef or vegetable, kept warm in a glass case beside the bus stand.
Ibitoke
Ripe plantain fried until the edges caramelise. Sweet enough to eat on its own, usually served as a side.
Roast maize
Corn blackened over charcoal at the roadside and eaten off the cob while it is still too hot.
Igikoma
Sorghum or maize porridge, drunk hot from a mug. The standard Rwandan breakfast.
Mandazi
Lightly sweet fried dough, best within a minute of leaving the oil and taken with tea.
Passion fruit and tree tomato
Piled at every market and better here than they ever are after a flight. Buy more than you think you need.
Rwandan coffee
Bourbon arabica grown on the hills above Lake Kivu and Huye, and now roasted and poured in Kigali rather than only exported.
Rwandan tea
Grown on the high ridges beside Nyungwe. Taken with milk and ginger, and strong enough to stand a spoon in.
Ikigage
Sorghum beer, cloudy and sour, shared at gatherings and an acquired taste worth acquiring.
Ikivuguto
Fermented milk, thick and tart, drunk cold. Milk carries real cultural weight in Rwanda and this is its everyday form.
