Where to See Gorillas in Africa: Every Country and Park for Gorilla Watching Holidays

Yes, there are gorillas in Africa, and where to see gorillas in Africa comes down to Uganda, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo for mountain gorillas, plus Congo Brazzaville, Gabon and the Central African Republic for western lowland gorillas. Most gorilla watching holidays are booked as a trek in Bwindi or Volcanoes National Park. Wild gorillas live only in the forests of equatorial Africa, across ten countries.

Being in a gorilla country is not the same as being able to visit gorillas there. Tourism depends on habituated families, groups that researchers and rangers have spent years getting used to people, and only a handful of parks have them. This guide goes park by park through every place a traveller can realistically see gorillas, which ones are open right now, and how the experience differs between the misty volcano slopes of the east and the swampy lowland forests of the Congo Basin.

Use the finder below to filter every gorilla park in Africa by country, gorilla type and current status, then jump to the section on each one.

Gorilla Species You Can See on an African Safari

Africa holds two gorilla species, each split into two subspecies, and which one you see decides where your gorilla safari goes. The eastern gorilla covers the mountain gorilla and the eastern lowland, or Grauer’s, gorilla. The western gorilla covers the western lowland gorilla and the Cross River gorilla. Our guide to the types of gorillas goes deeper into each, and the mountain gorilla vs lowland gorilla comparison sets size, fur, diet and behaviour side by side.

Where do gorillas live, in plain terms? Only in tropical forest along the equator, from the Atlantic coast of Gabon and Cameroon east to the Albertine Rift on the borders of Uganda, Rwanda and DR Congo. Western gorillas hold the big lowland block in the west, eastern gorillas the highlands and eastern Congo forests. The Congo Basin and the Congo River sit between the two, which is why no single trip covers both kinds without flights.

Mountain gorillas have long, thick coats for the cold at altitude and live in two populations: the Virunga volcanoes shared by Uganda, Rwanda and DR Congo, and the Bwindi forest block in Uganda. The 2018 census of Bwindi counted 459, which brought the world total to 1,063. Results of the 2025 census are still awaited. They are the only subspecies that is growing, and the only one with a fully developed trekking industry.

Grauer’s gorillas are the largest of the four. A 2016 assessment put them at about 3,800 animals, and a later Wildlife Conservation Society survey revised that to roughly 6,800, mainly because researchers could finally reach more of the range. They live only in eastern DR Congo.

Western lowland gorillas are the most numerous. A large study published in 2018 estimated about 361,900 across Central Africa, while warning of a decline near 2.7 percent a year from poaching, disease and logging. Smaller, browner and more fruit dependent than their mountain cousins, they move further each day and live in swampy forest where visibility is short. The rarest subspecies, the Cross River gorilla, numbers about 250 to 300.

Mountain Gorilla Trekking in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Uganda

Bwindi Impenetrable National Park is the single best place in Africa to see gorillas, by numbers alone. Gorilla trekking in Bwindi runs every day of the year from four trailhead sectors: Buhoma in the north, Ruhija in the east, and Rushaga and Nkuringo in the south. Around twenty habituated families are open to visitors, with a maximum of eight people per family per day, so Bwindi issues more permits than any other gorilla park.

The forest earns its name. Trails are steep, often muddy and cut through by vines, and the trek can last thirty minutes or most of a day depending on where the family slept. Trackers set out at dawn, find the group and radio its position, and the rangers try to match slower walkers with closer families, which is worth asking for at the morning briefing. Once you reach the gorillas you get one hour, standing about ten metres away in Uganda, or seven in Rwanda, while a silverback feeds or youngsters roll about in the undergrowth.

Bwindi also offers the gorilla habituation experience in Rushaga, where up to four visitors spend around four hours with a family still being habituated, alongside researchers. It is the longest legal time with mountain gorillas anywhere. The minimum age for both activities is 15.

Getting there takes planning. The drive from Entebbe or Kampala is long, roughly nine to ten hours, so many travellers fly into the Kihihi or Kisoro airstrips, or come overland from Kigali, which puts the southern sectors about four or five hours away. The getting there guide covers each route, and Bwindi lodges range from simple community bandas to high end forest lodges. Plenty of gorilla trekking tours pair Bwindi with chimpanzees in Kibale and a game drive in Queen Elizabeth National Park, which is why Uganda works well for a first primate safari.

Gorilla Trekking in Mgahinga Gorilla National Park, Uganda

Mgahinga Gorilla National Park is Uganda’s slice of the Virunga Mountains, a small park on the slopes of Muhabura, Gahinga and Sabyinyo volcanoes in the far southwest corner of the country. Gorilla trekking in Mgahinga centres on a single habituated family, the Nyakagezi group, which used to wander into Rwanda and Congo but has stayed on the Ugandan side for years. Hirwa, a family long trekked from Rwanda, is now listed under Mgahinga in the International Gorilla Conservation Programme archive, but whether UWA sells permits for it is something to confirm before you plan around it.

One family means only eight permits a day. The terrain is open bamboo and volcanic slope rather than Bwindi’s tangled ravines, so the walking is often easier, though you are hiking at altitude. Mgahinga is also the only Ugandan park for golden monkey tracking, and the park’s tagline about gold meeting silver refers to doing both. Other options include the Batwa trail, led by members of the forest people who once lived here, and a climb of Sabyinyo, whose summit touches the borders of all three Virunga countries. Most visitors stay in Kisoro town or in the lodges near the park gate.

Mountain Gorilla Trekking Safaris in Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda

Volcanoes National Park is where most people picture gorillas: bamboo on the flanks of Karisimbi, Bisoke and Sabyinyo, and the old research ground of Dian Fossey. A Rwanda gorilla trekking day starts at the Kinigi headquarters at about seven, where rangers assign each visitor to one of the park’s twelve habituated families. At eight people per family, that is 96 permits a day.

Access is the big advantage. From Kigali the park is roughly two and a half to three hours by good tarmac, so a fly in, trek, fly out trip of two or three nights is realistic, and it works neatly as an add on to a Kenya or Tanzania safari. The trade off is cost: Rwanda’s permit is the highest in Africa, and the lodge scene around the park leans upmarket, although mid range and budget rooms exist in Musanze.

How difficult is the trek to see the gorillas in Rwanda? Easier than Bwindi for most people, though not easy. Walks to the family run from about thirty minutes to four hours or more each way, starting from farmland at the park edge and climbing through bamboo and nettle beds on volcanic slopes, with the gorillas ranging between roughly 2,500 and 4,000 metres. The ground is more open than Bwindi’s ravines, but the altitude makes you breathe hard, and in the rains the paths turn to slick mud. At the Kinigi briefing rangers place visitors in groups by fitness, so ask for a nearer family if you want a short walk, and ask for one of the far groups such as Susa if you want a long one. Porters wait at every trailhead.

Beyond the gorillas, the same park offers golden monkey tracking, the hike to Fossey’s grave at the Karisoke site, and the Bisoke crater lake climb. The Kwita Izina naming ceremony for baby gorillas takes place near Kinigi each year. See our full Volcanoes National Park guide for lodges and activities.

Virunga National Park Gorilla Trekking, DR Congo

Virunga National Park is Africa’s oldest national park, founded in 1925, and its southern Mikeno sector holds the Congolese share of the Virunga mountain gorillas. In open years, a Congo gorilla trekking safari here meant small groups, the lowest mountain gorilla permit price in Africa, nights at Mikeno Lodge near Rumangabo and an optional overnight climb to the lava lake on Nyiragongo.

That is not possible at present. The park’s own visitor site states that gorilla and Nyiragongo treks are closed until further notice, after M23 rebels took control of much of the area around Goma. Rangers have paid a heavy price protecting this park over the years, and conservation work continues in very hard conditions. At the latest check the US State Department rated the DRC Level 4, do not travel, and the UK advised against all travel to North Kivu. Treat any operator still selling Virunga gorilla trips with caution, and check the park’s official channels and your government’s travel advice before believing otherwise. Uganda’s Mgahinga and Rwanda’s Volcanoes park protect the same Virunga gorilla population and are open.

Eastern Lowland Gorilla Trekking in Kahuzi Biega National Park

Kahuzi Biega National Park, west of Bukavu at the south end of Lake Kivu, is the only place where tourists have been able to track Grauer’s gorillas, the largest gorillas on earth. Our Kahuzi Biega lowland gorilla guide covers the park in detail. Treks set off from the Tshivanga visitor centre to habituated families such as Bonane and Mpungwe, through highland forest that is less steep than the Virungas but often boggy.

The visits that did happen were quiet, often with only a couple of trekkers on the day, and the sight of a Grauer’s silverback climbing for fruit is something few people have seen. Tourism has been widely reported as halted since M23 rebels took Bukavu in February 2025, and reports since then describe armed groups inside the park making even gorilla monitoring difficult. At the latest check we found no official notice from ICCN, the Congolese park authority, either confirming a closure or announcing a restart, and the UK advised against all travel to South Kivu. Some vendors still list trips. Until ICCN confirms visits have restarted, assume eastern lowland gorilla trekking is unavailable. The larger Maiko National Park also holds Grauer’s gorillas, but it has never had tourism.

Western Lowland Gorilla Tracking in Odzala Kokoua and Northern Congo

Odzala Kokoua National Park in the Republic of Congo, often called Congo Brazzaville, is the leading place for western lowland gorilla tracking. The base for it is Ngaga Camp, a small camp built around a primate research project on the park’s edge, where two habituated groups range nearby. Getting there usually means a charter flight from Brazzaville to Mboko, then a road transfer of about three hours, so most trips are packaged with the camps and last a week or more. Visas must be arranged before you fly, and at the latest check arrivals in the Republic of Congo were being screened for Ebola.

Groups are capped at four, with a local guide and a tracker and no porters, and treks often leave before first light because no advance team has found the gorillas first. African Parks, which manages Odzala with the government, also runs Camp Imbalanga on the eastern side of the park, while Ngaga is run by the Congo Conservation Company.

This feels very different from a mountain gorilla trek. The ground is flat but the Marantaceae thickets are dense and wet, it is hot and humid, and the gorillas cover more ground because they follow fruiting trees. Trackers often work from fresh signs rather than radioed positions, so a search can take minutes or hours, and the group may watch you from further back than in Bwindi. In return you share the forest with almost nobody. Odzala’s other camps add boat trips, forest walks and bais, the open mineral clearings where forest elephants and buffalo gather. You can read more on this subspecies in our western lowland gorilla profile.

Further north, Nouabalé Ndoki National Park is known for Mbeli Bai, a swampy clearing where researchers have watched gorillas wade in to feed on water plants for many years, seen from a viewing platform rather than on a trek. Near Brazzaville, the Lefini reserve has run a programme returning orphaned gorillas to the forest. These are add ons for committed primate travellers rather than the main event.

Loango National Park Gorilla Tracking, Gabon

Loango National Park on Gabon’s Atlantic coast is the place where rainforest runs down to the beach, and forest elephants, buffalo and hippos all use the sand. Its gorilla trekking in Gabon comes from a habituation project started by the Max Planck Institute in 2005 with the national parks agency, which opened one western lowland group to small numbers of visitors.

Trips usually start with a boat ride to a research camp and a forest walk of under an hour to a couple of hours before the hour with the gorillas. Permits are few and tend to be booked with a lodge stay, so they go early. Gabon has also worked with gorilla projects in Moukalaba Doudou National Park, and older habituation work at Lopé ended years ago, although gorillas are still seen there by chance. Gabon pairs gorillas with whale watching off Loango in the dry season and mandrill tracking in Lopé.

Dzanga Sangha Gorilla Tracking Expeditions, Central African Republic

The Dzanga Sangha protected area, in the far southwest of the Central African Republic and part of the Sangha Trinational World Heritage Site, has run gorilla tracking for longer than almost anywhere in the Congo Basin. Visitors drive out from Bayanga to the Bai Hokou or Mongambe camps, where three western lowland groups have been habituated, with a cap of three visitors per group.

The trackers are BaAka foresters who read broken stems and listen for feeding sounds, and following them through the forest is a large part of the experience. Searches can take a few minutes or several hours, and the low light under the canopy makes photography hard. Dzanga Bai, a short drive away, draws more forest elephants into one clearing than anywhere else, so most trips combine the two. Getting there is the problem: the country’s politics have made Bangui routes hard, and many visitors now fly in on charters linked to Odzala trips in Congo. At the latest check the reserve reported a habituated group led by a silverback called Limo open to visitors, with more groups in habituation, while the UK advised against all travel to the Central African Republic outside Bangui. Check current travel advice carefully before booking.

Cross River Gorilla Watching in Nigeria and Cameroon

The Cross River gorilla lives in scattered hill forests along the Nigeria and Cameroon border, at Afi Mountain, the Mbe Mountains and the Okwangwo division of Cross River National Park in Nigeria, and in Takamanda National Park in Cameroon. With only 250 to 300 left across an area of about 12,000 square kilometres, it is listed as Critically Endangered, and no group is habituated for visitors.

A Cross River gorilla trip is really a forest hike with a slim chance of a sighting; you are far more likely to see nests and feeding signs. Afi Mountain has a canopy walkway, and Calabar has primate rescue projects for drills and chimpanzees. Visit for conservation interest, not for a guaranteed sighting.

Gorilla Tours in Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and Angola

Three more countries have wild western lowland gorillas but little tourism to match. Cameroon holds gorillas in Lobéké and Campo Ma’an national parks, where tracking is basic and sightings rare, and the easiest way to see gorillas there is with rescued orphans at Mefou near Yaoundé, a rehabilitation centre rather than the wild. Equatorial Guinea has gorillas in Monte Alén National Park on the mainland, with only early guided walks. In Angola, gorillas survive in the Cabinda enclave north of the Congo River mouth, and Angola has joined the international Gorilla Agreement. Our Angola gorilla tours page has the detail. For any of these, expect expedition style travel.

Comparing Gorilla Trekking Destinations Across Africa

The table sums up where a gorilla trekking trip is bookable today. “Open” means permits are being sold now; “Closed” means officially suspended for security; “Unconfirmed” means visits are reported halted but no official notice exists either way. Status is as at the latest check.

For most people the real choice is between Uganda and Rwanda. Uganda gives more families, a cheaper permit, the habituation option and easy add ons such as chimpanzees and savannah game drives, at the price of longer drives. Rwanda gives speed and polish at a higher cost. So which is better to see gorillas, Rwanda or Uganda? Neither, on the gorillas themselves: both protect habituated mountain gorilla families, the hour with them is the same, and sightings on a standard trek are very likely in both, though never guaranteed. Pick Rwanda if time is short and the budget is generous, Uganda if you want more permit choice, the habituation experience or chimpanzees and savannah on the same trip. Our Rwanda vs Uganda vs Congo comparison goes further. Lowland gorilla trips suit travellers who have already seen mountain gorillas, or who want deep rainforest and very few other visitors.

Still undecided? Answer four quick questions in the selector below. It only suggests parks that are open, and it explains why the others drop out.

Gorilla Trekking Permits, Rules and Booking in Each Country

Every open gorilla park in Africa caps visitor numbers, so a gorilla trekking permit booked for a set date and park is the thing that makes or breaks a trip. In Uganda permits are issued by the Uganda Wildlife Authority for a named sector of Bwindi or for Mgahinga. In Rwanda the Rwanda Development Board sells them online through the Irembo portal and through licensed tour operators. Both release a fixed number per family per day, first come first served, and the June to September and December to February peaks sell out months ahead. Six months is a sensible lead time for those dates, longer for a big group. Rwanda also offers a seasonal discount for travellers who combine Volcanoes with nights in Akagera or Nyungwe; the FAQ has the detail. In the Congo Basin camps, the gorilla visit is reserved with your lodge stay.

Enter your group size and trek month below to compare permit costs across the open parks side by side.

Plenty of travellers book through a licensed safari company, which secures the permit, transport and lodge together and can move things around if a road washes out. Arranging the rest yourself works too, though in Uganda the permit itself is booked through a licensed operator that is a recognised member of AUTO, the Association of Uganda Tour Operators. Either way the permit is tied to one date and one park, Uganda now asks for full payment at booking, and its discounted low season permits cannot be rescheduled, so lock in flights and transfers before you pay.

Once you have a permit, the rules on the day are close to identical across Uganda, Rwanda and the lowland camps. Report to the park office early for the briefing; in Rwanda that means Kinigi at seven. Groups are capped at eight visitors per mountain gorilla family, and smaller at lowland sites. You get one hour once you reach the gorillas, at about ten metres in Uganda and seven in Rwanda. Anyone with a cold, flu or other infection can be refused entry, since human illness is one of the main threats to gorillas, and coughing or sneezing near the group is something you turn away from. No eating near the gorillas, no flash, no littering, and no trekking under the minimum age of 15 for mountain gorillas.

Best Time for Gorilla Watching Holidays in Africa

Gorilla trekking in Uganda and Rwanda runs every month. The drier spells, June to September and December to February, make trails less slippery and are the busiest months for permits. March to May and October to November bring heavier rain, muddier slopes and fewer people. The gorillas stay put in either season, and in the wet months they are often lower and closer to the trailheads. Our guide to the best time for gorilla trekking in Uganda goes month by month.

What is the best time of year to see the gorillas in Rwanda? The same pattern holds in Volcanoes National Park: the long dry season from June to September is the easiest walking and the busiest, with a shorter dry spell from December to February, while March to May is the wettest stretch and the slopes at altitude are cold and muddy. Kwita Izina, the gorilla naming ceremony near Kinigi, usually falls in September, though the date moves. Rwanda’s seasonal permit discount runs from November to May, so travellers who do not mind rain gear can save there.

In the Congo Basin the pattern differs from one camp to another, and some lodges close in the wettest weeks, so check operating months first.

Combining Gorilla Trekking with a Kenya or Tanzania Safari

There are no wild gorillas in Kenya, Tanzania, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Namibia or South Africa, which surprises many first time visitors. Because Kigali and Entebbe are a short flight from Nairobi and Kilimanjaro, the most popular combination pairs a Masai Mara safari or the Serengeti with three or four days in Bwindi or Volcanoes. Our Tanzania safari and gorilla trekking page sets out how these trips are routed, and a Botswana or Okavango Delta safari can be linked the same way through Johannesburg.

Frequently Asked Questions About Seeing Gorillas in Africa