It’s the question we hear most. The short answer is that the mountain gorillas are the same, and the hour you spend with them is just as unforgettable in either country. The trip around that hour is what’s different.
Cost
This is the biggest difference. A gorilla permit costs US$800 in Uganda (US$600 in April, May and November) and US$1,500 in Rwanda. For a couple, that’s a saving of US$1,400 or more in Uganda, before lodges are even counted. Uganda also has a wider spread of budget and mid-range lodges near the parks.
Travel time
Rwanda wins on convenience. Volcanoes National Park is roughly two and a half hours by road from Kigali International Airport, so a gorilla trek can fit into a three-day trip.
Bwindi, in Uganda, is a full day’s drive from Entebbe or Kampala. Most people either break the journey with a night at Lake Mburo or Queen Elizabeth National Park, or take a short domestic flight to an airstrip near the park. There’s also a useful shortcut: Bwindi’s southern sectors (Rushaga and Nkuringo) are only about four to five hours’ drive from Kigali, so you can fly into Rwanda and trek in Uganda at Uganda’s permit price.
The trek itself
Volcanoes National Park is bamboo forest and open volcanic slopes, and the treks are often a little shorter. Bwindi really is an “impenetrable” rainforest: steeper, denser and muddier, and more atmospheric because of it. In both countries a trek can take anything from one hour to most of the day, depending on where the family has moved overnight.
Only Uganda offers the Gorilla Habituation Experience: up to four hours with a family still being habituated, in a group of just four people.
What else you can do
Uganda is easy to turn into a full safari: chimpanzees in Kibale, tree-climbing lions and boat safaris in Queen Elizabeth, and the Nile at Murchison Falls, all in one loop. Rwanda offers golden monkeys in Volcanoes, chimps in Nyungwe, the Big Five in Akagera, and Kigali, one of Africa’s cleanest and most walkable capitals.
So which one?
- Choose Uganda if you want the best value, have a week or more, or want gorillas plus chimps and classic savanna safari in one trip.
- Choose Rwanda if time is tight, you want the shortest possible transfer, or the permit price doesn’t matter much to your budget.
- Do both if you can: fly into Kigali, trek in southern Bwindi, and finish in Rwanda. We arrange the cross-border transfer for you.
Tell us your dates, budget and how many days you have, and we’ll suggest the route that fits.
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