Your tour guide/driver shall pick you from your hotel/residence in Kigali at 7.00am and depart for Akagera National Park in the east of Rwanda. The distance from Kigali to entrance gate of Akagera National Park is about 110km and the travel time is about two and half hours. Upon arriving in Akagera you shall immediately go on a game drive for your first wildlife sightings and enjoy the beautiful scenery. Later you shall continue to your lodge and have lunch. At 2.30pm you shall go for a one hour boat trip on Lake Ihema. This is the biggest lake in the park. The boat trip offers wonderful views of hippos and crocodiles and other wildlife along the lake shores and the islands.

Meal plan: Lunch, Dinner

Accommodation options to choose from:

Upmarket: Ruzizi Tented Lodge

Midrange: Akagera Game Lodge

Meal plan: Lunch, Dinner

Today you are set to do a morning game drive in Akagera National Park. You shall cover more game trails and reach more areas of the park to see more animals and enjoy the beautiful landscape.

Later you shall return to the lodge for lunch and thereafter spend the rest of the day at leisure or go out for another game drive.

Optional tour activities:

Today you can include any or all of the following activities:

Night safari: You can do a night game drive after 6pm to look for the elusive nocturnal animals such as leopard, hyena, jackal, genet, bushbabies, porcupine, serval, etc…

Hot air balloon safari: You can start with the hot air balloon safari over Akagera that starts from 5am. It is a 45 minutes flight, and provides access to areas of the park not reachable by car giving you incredible views of the breathtaking Akagera landscape and a chance to spot more animals. After balloon safari you would continue with the game drive.

Meal plan: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

You will have breakfast as early as 6am and at about 6.30am check out and set off for the full safari in Akagera National Park. This is a 6 hour game drive from the lodge/entrance in the south to the exit in the north of the park. You will cover a variety of habitats from woodland, wetlands, bushes and thickets, forest and grassland, which will provide a variety of wildlife, and finally get to the Kilala plains in the north. Kilala plains are beautiful flat savanna plains where a lot of animals graze such as antelopes, buffaloes, and zebras. The variety of grazing animals in the Kilala plains makes it a favorite hunting ground for the predators, and it is therefore the place to look for the lions, hyenas and other predators. These plains are the main animal watching area of the park one cannot afford to miss.

After fully exploring the Kilala plains you shall have picnic lunch and then exit the park and head back to Kigali

Optional activity:

Morning rhino tracking: You can join the park’s Rhino monitoring team who track down the rhinos each morning on foot, to check on the rhinos safety, health and collect other important information about them. Note that the rhino tracking in Akagera park takes place in the Kilala plains in the north of the park and is available only to guests staying at the Karenge Bush Camp which is located in the north of the park overlooking the Kilala plains. This therefore means you would need to spend the second night of the tour at Karenge Bush Camp after spending the first night at Akagera Game Lodge or Ruzizi Tented Lodge which are located in the south of the park where the Akagera tour starts from.

Meal plan: Breakfast, Lunch