Rwanda Gorilla Trekking Cost per Person: The Whole Trip

The Rwanda gorilla trekking cost per person for the whole trip runs from about US$1,750 for a one day trek from Kigali to about US$2,600 each for a three day mid range trip shared by two, and past US$7,000 at the top lodges. Most visitors book through a licensed operator or buy the permit on the RDB portal. Every trek runs in Volcanoes National Park, northwest Rwanda, and the fixed US$1,500 permit sits inside every figure.

This page adds up the whole trip, line by line, in US dollars. The permit itself, with every rate tier and the booking rules, has its own page in our Rwanda gorilla permits guide, and a full country itinerary is priced in the Rwanda safari cost guide.

What Goes Into the Rwanda Gorilla Trekking Cost per Person

A Rwanda gorilla trekking quote looks like one number. It is really two kinds of cost bolted together: lines you carry alone, and lines split with whoever shares your car or room. That split is why a solo traveller and a family of four see very different per person prices for the same hour with the same gorillas.

On a short budget trip the permit is about 85 percent of the bill. At a top lodge two nights cost more than three permits.

Rwanda Gorilla Trekking Permit Price per Person and the Low Season Offer

The gorilla trekking permit is the one line no operator can discount. RDB charges foreign visitors US$1,500 per person per trek, all year, whoever sells it. It covers park entry, the 7am briefing at Kinigi, the ranger guide, trackers and armed escort, and one hour with a habituated family. A second trek means a second full permit.

RDB lists the two lower rates as promotional, and the resident promotion is worth confirming with RDB before booking. The low season offer is little known: from November to May, RDB takes 30 percent off the international permit, to US$1,050, for anyone who also stays two nights in Akagera or Nyungwe, or one in each on consecutive nights, with a paid hotel receipt and one paid activity. One discounted permit per person per qualifying stay.

Adding park nights only for the discount rarely pays, since they cost more than the US$450 saved. On a week that already includes Nyungwe Forest or Akagera National Park, it is close to free money, US$900 for a couple; our 7 day Rwanda safari is built that way. Tiers, availability and booking steps are in the Rwanda gorilla permit price guide.

Worked Total: 1 Day Gorilla Trek from Kigali per Person, Two Travellers

The cheapest whole trip is the one day gorilla trek from Kigali: pickup around 4am, the 7am briefing, the trek, and back that evening. No lodge night, one vehicle day. This sum is for two foreign travellers sharing a private car and driver.

Packaged day trips land in the same place. Visit Rwanda lists a Volcanoes gorilla tour from US$1,750 per person with permit, transport, guiding and lunch, and one Kigali operator’s own page prices its day trek at US$1,950 each for a couple and US$1,970 solo. Timings are in our 1 day gorilla trekking in Rwanda guide.

Cheap, and tiring. A trek can run from half an hour to most of the day, so a group that finds its family late gets back to Kigali after dark. Most travellers who have done both say the Musanze night was worth paying for.

Worked Total: 3 Day Mid Range Rwanda Gorilla Safari for Two

The most common Rwanda gorilla safari is three days: drive up on day one, trek on day two, golden monkeys on day three, then back for an evening flight. Here it is for two people sharing a room at a full board lodge, in the shoulder months of October to mid December or March to May.

Solo, you pay the other US$200 of the car and a single room, which adds a few hundred dollars over two nights here, so plan on US$3,000 or more. Four friends sharing the car cut that line to US$100 each.

Packages cost more than the raw sum. On operators’ own rate pages, Kabira prices budget three day trips at about US$2,100 to US$3,000 per person, Private Tours Cape Town lists a three day trek from US$4,000, and Follow Alice sells four days with Le Bambou Gorilla Lodge from US$3,600, permit, meals and car included. The extra buys a Kigali night, airport transfers, a newer vehicle and someone to call when a flight is late. Our Rwanda gorilla tours page compares itineraries.

Rwanda Gorilla Safari Lodge Prices per Night by Tier

Where you sleep moves the price of a Rwanda gorilla safari more than any other choice. Musanze town sits half an hour from the park office; mid range lodges nearer Kinigi offer full board and fireplaces against cold nights; on the volcano slopes, Singita Kwitonda, Bisate, One&Only Gorilla’s Nest, Sabyinyo and Virunga Lodge are among the dearest rooms in Africa. Our guide to luxury gorilla trekking in Rwanda and Uganda compares these lodges with the best of Bwindi.

Season moves every rate except the cheapest. Singita Kwitonda charges US$2,720 per adult sharing from January to May and November to mid December, and US$3,630 from June to October and over the holidays, with meals, premium drinks and laundry in but permits, levies and transfers out; guests must also book a driver guide for every day. Volcanoes Safaris prices four nights at Virunga Lodge from US$7,240 per person sharing in the low season and US$10,325 in the high season, with a single supplement of US$1,240 or US$2,685; check whether the permit sits inside that figure.

Three days at Singita off peak, with the permit and a shared car, come to roughly US$7,200 per person before levies and tips. More names at that level are in our guide to luxury lodges near Volcanoes National Park. Whatever the tier, compare the whole stay: meal plan, the drive to the trailhead, a packed lunch and the single supplement. To set Rwanda against other trips, see our African safari cost guide.

Transport Costs on a Gorilla Trip: Driver Guides, Self Drive and the Bus

Nearly every packaged Rwanda gorilla tour uses a private 4×4 and an English speaking driver guide, billed per day for the car. Kigali to Kinigi is about 110 kilometres of paved road, two and a half hours.

Ask whether fuel is included: RURA sets pump prices, and petrol has risen steeply in recent months. The bus only gets you to Musanze. After the briefing each group drives itself to its own trailhead, sometimes an hour away on rough volcanic tracks, so bus travellers hire a car and driver in town for the day; forum posts suggest drivers at the bus park will bargain, though a saloon car struggles on those tracks. Self drivers mention speed cameras and slow trucks on the Kigali road. Our car hire for gorilla trekking guide explains rental terms.

Group Size, Single Supplements and the per Person Price of a Gorilla Tour

The permit never moves on a gorilla trekking trip; the car and the room do. On the three day sum above, here is the vehicle line alone by party size.

Single supplements hurt most at the top. A Musanze single pays US$80 where a couple pays US$45 each, but at Virunga Lodge the supplement on four nights is US$1,240 to US$2,685. Families should know that trekkers must be 15 and pay the adult permit; children from 12 can track golden monkeys at the same US$100. On the day, rangers sort everyone into groups of up to eight, so a solo traveller treks with company anyway.

Package Prices for Rwanda Gorilla Tours by Trip Length

Each extra day of a Rwanda gorilla tour adds a lodge night and a vehicle day while the permit is paid once, so longer trips cost more in total and less per day. Starting prices from operators’ own pages, per person sharing:

Two treks mean a second US$1,500 permit, far more than one extra night. Gorillas and chimpanzees on consecutive days rarely work, since Nyungwe is a long drive across the country. See our budget gorilla trekking in Rwanda and luxury Rwanda gorilla safari pages.

Hidden Costs on a Gorilla Trek: Porters, Tips, Visas, Drinks and Add On Hikes

Extras on a gorilla trek are small beside the permit, but all are per person and few appear on a quote. Porters come from a local cooperative, some of whose members once poached in the park, and cost roughly US$10 to US$20 plus a tip. One usually walks with the group anyway, and people who waved theirs off on a muddy trek tend to regret it. A carried chair for limited mobility is booked ahead, quoted by one operator at US$350 to US$400; see gorilla trekking for travellers with special needs.

Carry tips in cash. Card machines and ATMs thin out beyond Kigali, francs suit small tips, and small or worn dollar notes change badly, so bring clean, recent bills. Some find golden monkeys a let down the day after gorillas; read our Rwanda golden monkey treks page before spending the US$100. Boots, gaiters, a rain jacket and gardening gloves for the nettles appear on every trip report; the Rwanda gorilla trekking packing list covers the rest, or rent the gear.

Why the Rwanda Gorilla Trekking Permit Costs So Much

The high price is policy. Rwanda runs gorilla trekking as a low volume, high value product: groups of eight, one hour a day with each family. When RDB doubled the permit from US$750 to US$1,500 in May 2017, it also raised the community share of park revenue from 5 to 10 percent, money that has built schools, clinics and water supplies around Volcanoes. The rest pays for ranger guides, trackers, armed patrols, veterinary monitoring and crop compensation. With about a dozen families taking eight visitors each, fewer than a hundred permits exist per day, so June to September and Christmas sell out.

Cheapest Place for Gorilla Trekking: Rwanda, Uganda and Congo Costs Compared

Rwanda’s permit is the dearest of the three mountain gorilla countries, though the gorilla trekking safari is much the same in each: groups of eight, one hour, minimum age 15.

Uganda is the cheapest place to trek right now: US$800 for foreign non residents, US$700 for foreign residents and UGX 300,000 for East Africans, falling to US$600 and US$500 in April, May and November, paid in full at booking and not reschedulable. The four hour gorilla habituation experience costs US$1,500, with US$1,800 announced. Part of the saving goes on distance, but Bwindi’s southern sectors are four to six hours from Kigali through Cyanika, as our gorilla trekking in Uganda from Kigali guide explains. Our guide to gorilla tours in Bwindi explains how the Uganda trek day works.

DR Congo lists the lowest permit, but Virunga shows its gorilla treks as closed until further notice and Kahuzi Biega has had no tourists since rebels took Bukavu; our Congo gorilla trekking page tracks this. See also Uganda vs Rwanda for your safari, the Uganda gorilla permits guide and our gorilla trekking cost overview.

How to Pay Less on a Rwanda Gorilla Trip

The permit is fixed, so savings on a Rwanda gorilla trip come from the other lines. Trek between November and May on a week that already includes Nyungwe or Akagera and the permit drops US$450. Share the car: four people pay US$100 each for three days, a solo traveller US$400. A Musanze room priced per room saves a couple several hundred dollars against a full board lodge. The bus plus a local car for trek day is cheapest of all. Buying direct on the RDB portal removes the operator margin; cash is not accepted at the park. And pick your dates once, since moving a permit costs 20 percent, US$300.

Booking a Rwanda Gorilla Trip and Checking the per Person Quote

Most visitors use a registered operator, who buys the permit on the RDB system and adds car and lodge. The permit rules are RDB’s either way: rescheduling more than seven days ahead is approved automatically for the 20 percent fee, inside seven days it needs RDB approval, and a no show means the permit has expired. If you track all day and the family is not found, RDB returns 75 percent of the fee; late arrival and flight delays earn nothing back.

Book June to September and Christmas six months or more ahead, as Kinigi’s best lodges fill as fast as the permits. Kigali’s direct flights to Nairobi and Kilimanjaro make it easy to add a gorilla and Masai Mara safari or a 7 day Tanzania safari.

Is a Rwanda Gorilla Trek Worth the Money? The Hour and the Hike

US$1,500 for sixty minutes works out at US$25 a minute, and most people who pay it say yes anyway. The gorilla trek starts at the briefing, where rangers match families to fitness, then climbs through farmland into bamboo and nettles above 2,500 metres. It can take thirty minutes or most of the day. Once the trackers lead you in, the group stands about seven metres from the family, and many say the hour felt like ten minutes.

The hike is what people underestimate. Moderate to hard, with mud and altitude doing more damage than any gorilla. Ask for a closer group, take the walking stick offered and hire the porter. Trek day from start to finish is in our Rwanda gorilla trekking guide.

Rwanda Gorilla Trekking Cost per Person: FAQ