Getting Nyungwe National Park

Getting to Nyungwe National Park

Getting to Nyungwe National Park is quite easy and with the right directions and navigation within Rwanda, one can access Nyungwe for their tour activities.

Description

Rwanda is a small country which is located in the central heart of Africa and moving around from one place to another is much easier. Nyungwe National Park is a diverse area of the montane rainforest of about 1000 square kilometers, located in the southwestern part of Rwanda. Nyungwe extends to the border of Burundi and changes the name to Kibira National Park (trans-frontier park). 

Nyungwe national park attracts more visitors because of the nature and wildlife experiences that it offers like Hiking the trails, biking the beautiful hilly terrain, the chimpanzee trekking, experiencing the canopy walkway, watching beautiful and colorful birds and relaxing nearby the waterfalls 

Nyungwe touches five districts which means that there are different ways of reaching to the Park.

When traveling to the Nyungwe national park, you get to experience the Sounds of the melodious birds and other animals living in the park and the marvelous views collaborate to create a tremendous wildlife experience even before reaching the park entrance because there is the main road that passes through the forest.

Getting to Nyungwe National Park

There are about three ways connecting roads to the Nyungwe national park including about two main roads interconnecting Kigali and Nyungwe national park and 1 connecting Nyungwe with Rubavu and even using the air transport.

Traveling by Road Transport

With the long distances to be covered from Kigali to the Nyungwe forest, a good functional car is required and advisable to make your journey comfortable and memorable. You can either travel by bus or hire a car.

By private car; hiring a car is advisable, comfortable, and convenient as it takes a shorter time than any other means of road transport. When driving, the park has some difficult stretches that you will have to avoid such as the stretch between Uwinka and Gisakura tourism centers.

By public bus; you can take a bus headed to Rusizi district from Nyabugogo Bus Park in Kigali, stopping at Uwinka Center. But Travelling by bus is very tiresome as it takes a long time, and the bus ride might even be 8 hours long.

Getting to Nyungwe From Kigali 

Kigali-Muhanga-Nyungwe national park: Taking a road from Kigali passing Muhanga and Ngororero districts to Nyungwe’s visitor reception center of Gisakura, it acquires you to cover a distance 218km and about 4h41min drive with a private car.

Kigali-Nyanza-Nyungwe national park: Covering the distance of 225km from Kigali to Nyungwe’s Uwinka Reception Center will take you about 5hours by a private car.

The road is full of other attractions along with such like Amacumu ya papa also known as “holly hoes’ by pope john II”, Kamegeri rock, Nyanza king’s palace at Nyabisindu, the arboretum natural forest that habituated more chimpanzees and birds and Huye cathedral.

Direction: You will drive southward to Muhanga city and then turn southwards to Nyanza, which leads to Huye, turn westward to Nyamagabe which is near the park. 

Rubavu-Karongi-Nyungwe: 3h 56min, with a distance of about 191 km to cover from Rubavu to Nyungwe’s reception of Gisakura via Karongi district. It will take you about 3h 56 min drive by a private car.

The road is magnificent and offers a one of a kind view of the hilly terrain and tea plantation fields of the western part of Rwanda as well as the view of Lake Kivu.  

Direction: You can also take a boat from Rubavu to Karongi and take a car from Karongi to Nyungwe national park.

Traveling by Air

When looking for the fastest mean of transport of getting to the Park, we may recommend the air transport as it takes only 30 minutes from Kigali/Kanombe international airport to Kamembe international airport, located within 32km from Nyungwe forest, then you can book a flight with Rwandair or Akagera aviation from Kigali/Kanombe international airport to Kamembe international airport. RwandAir offers about 8 flights a week from Kigali/Kanombe international airport to Kamembe international airport.

Akagera Aviation also offers charter services from Kigali international airport to Kamembe airport or to one and only Nyungwe house’s helipad and even offer helicopter for those who want to take the aerial photos only taken from the aircraft.

Moreover, some hotels located in a Nyungwe National park-like one and only nNungwe house and Nyungwe forest lodge offer airport pickup services from Kamembe Airport to the resort.

With all means of transportation mentioned above getting to Nyungwe Forest national park shouldn’t be difficult and tiresome if it will be well planned, and you can even hire a travel company or guide for planning a journey/tour on your behalf.

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