CORE EXPERIENCES
Standard Permit — $1,500 Exclusive Experience — $15,000 Behind the Scene Package Uganda Habituation Experience Photography & Film PermitsPOPULAR PARKS
Volcanoes National Park Nyungwe National Park Akagera National Park Bwindi Impenetrable National Park Mgahinga Gorilla National ParkBuilt specifically for solo travellers — private guide and vehicle throughout with no single supplement games, staying at Sabyinyo Silverback Lodge’s small, personal scale rather than a large group property.
KIGALI
Private transfer to your Kigali hotel.
VOLCANOES NATIONAL PARK
Drive to Kinigi and check into the eight-room Sabyinyo Silverback Lodge.
VOLCANOES NATIONAL PARK
Check in at Kinigi Park Headquarters at 07h00 for your hour with a habituated gorilla family.
VOLCANOES NATIONAL PARK
A shorter morning trek to a habituated golden monkey troop, afternoon free.
KIGALI
Drive back to Kigali for your departure flight.
From approximately $7,600 per person, no single supplement, double occupancy, excluding international flights.
START PLANNING ↗A non-refundable deposit confirms your dates and secures your gorilla permit with the Rwanda Development Board. We recommend booking at least three to four months ahead, and earlier still for peak season (June–September, December–February) when Sabyinyo Silverback Lodge’s eight rooms fill quickly. The balance is due ahead of arrival on a schedule confirmed in your written proposal.
Because this itinerary is built specifically around solo travel, we waive the single supplement entirely rather than quoting a discounted rate that still penalises travelling alone — the $7,600 figure is the genuine per-person cost, full stop.
WHO THIS SUITS
This itinerary suits solo travellers who want a genuinely private gorilla trekking experience without paying a punitive single supplement or being placed into a shared-vehicle group tour. Every vehicle, guide, and pace throughout this trip is yours alone — there is no requirement to coordinate with other travellers’ schedules or preferences, and Sabyinyo Silverback Lodge’s intimate eight-room scale means the property itself never feels like a large, impersonal group hotel.
Rwanda is consistently ranked among Africa’s safest countries for travellers, including solo women, with low crime rates and a strong culture of hospitality toward visitors. Having a private guide and vehicle throughout this itinerary — rather than relying on public transport or shared shuttles between activities — adds a further layer of comfort and predictability specifically valuable for anyone travelling alone in an unfamiliar country.
What exactly is included in the $7,600 price?
The standard gorilla trekking permit, golden monkey trekking permit, four nights across Kigali and Sabyinyo
Silverback Lodge on an all-inclusive basis, your private guide and vehicle throughout with no single
supplement, and all transfers. International flights are not included.
Will I be grouped with other travellers during
the gorilla trek itself?
Gorilla trekking groups are formed by the Rwanda Development Board on the day, capped at eight visitors per
habituated family regardless of how you booked — this is a fixed park rule, not something any operator
can change. Everything else on this itinerary — your vehicle, guide, and pace — remains entirely
private.
Is Rwanda safe for solo women travellers
specifically?
Yes — Rwanda has one of Africa’s strongest safety records, and a private guide and vehicle
throughout this itinerary removes most of the logistical uncertainty that can make solo travel feel more
exposed elsewhere.
Can I extend this trip or add activities?
Yes — common additions include a Lake Kivu stop, Dian Fossey’s grave hike, or upgrading to the
Exclusive Mountain Gorilla Experience for a
genuinely private trek rather than the standard eight-person group.
How quickly will we hear back after
enquiring?
We respond to every enquiry within 48 hours with a bespoke written proposal covering the exact details,
pricing, and day-by-day plan for your specific dates.
This five-day structure is a flexible starting template — common adjustments include adding a Lake Kivu night, a Dian Fossey grave hike, or upgrading to the Exclusive Mountain Gorilla Experience for a fully private trekking session. Tell us what matters most to you and we’ll build a final proposal around it.
A NOTE ON PRICING
This figure reflects a single traveller staying at Sabyinyo Silverback Lodge during standard season, with the single supplement waived entirely. Peak-season dates and alternative lodge tiers shift this figure. We always confirm exact, all-inclusive pricing in your written proposal before asking for any commitment.
Many operators quote solo travellers a discounted single supplement rather than removing it, and default to placing them into larger shared-vehicle group tours to cut costs. We built this itinerary specifically around genuine solo travel — private guide, private vehicle, no supplement, and a small eight-room lodge — because travelling alone shouldn’t mean travelling compromised.
Travelling privately doesn’t mean travelling in isolation — Sabyinyo Silverback Lodge’s shared dining room and communal fireplace naturally bring guests together each evening, and your gorilla trekking group itself is capped at eight visitors drawn from across different bookings and operators. Many solo travellers on this itinerary find a comfortable middle ground: genuine privacy and flexibility during the day, with the option of easy, unforced conversation over dinner if they feel like company.
WHY SABYINYO SILVERBACK LODGE
Sabyinyo Silverback Lodge deliberately caps itself at eight cottages, keeping the property genuinely intimate rather than built around large tour groups. For a solo traveller, this matters more than it might for a couple or family — a smaller property means staff who quickly learn your name and preferences, a dining room that never feels overwhelming to walk into alone, and an atmosphere built around personal attention rather than volume.
This itinerary deliberately avoids overloading a short trip with back-to-back activities — one full day dedicated to gorilla trekking, one lighter morning for golden monkeys with a genuinely free afternoon, and travel days kept simple at each end. For a solo traveller without a companion to share the logistics of a trip, this unhurried pacing matters: there’s no pressure to keep up with a group’s itinerary, and no one else’s preferences to negotiate around.
A FIRST-HAND ACCOUNT
Briefing at Kinigi Park Headquarters starts at 07h00 sharp, with coffee, a cultural dance performance, and your ranger assigning you to a specific gorilla family based on your fitness level and preference — ask for a shorter, easier trek if you want one, and say so clearly, since the assignment is genuinely responsive to what you tell them. From there, a short drive takes you to your trailhead, where a porter (optional, inexpensive, and worth hiring even if you don’t think you need one) can carry your daypack and offer a steadying hand on the steeper volcanic mud sections.
The walk itself varies enormously by family and season — anywhere from 30 minutes to four hours each way through increasingly dense vegetation, often on narrow trails cut fresh by trackers ahead of you with machetes. The altitude at Volcanoes National Park sits between 2,500 and 4,500 metres, so the pace is deliberately unhurried; your guide sets a rhythm built around steady breathing rather than speed. The moment you’re told to leave bags and walking sticks behind and approach the final few metres on foot is genuinely difficult to describe in advance — most solo travellers report needing a moment simply to process the encounter before reaching for a camera.
You get exactly one hour with the family, timed precisely by your ranger and enforced strictly under Rwanda Development Board rules designed to limit stress on habituated groups. It passes remarkably quickly. The walk back down, by contrast, often feels shorter than the walk up, partly relief and partly the different psychological weight of a return journey.
Volcanoes National Park sits considerably higher than most travellers’ home elevations, and the terrain is steep, muddy, and uneven regardless of which specific gorilla family you’re assigned. Moderate cardiovascular fitness is genuinely enough — you don’t need to be an athlete — but a realistic self-assessment matters more here than for most trips, since a shorter, gentler family assignment exists specifically for travellers who ask for one honestly rather than overestimating their own capability on the day. Trekking poles (rented cheaply at the trailhead) and comfortable, broken-in boots make a genuinely material difference to how the day feels, far more than raw fitness level alone.
Mild altitude effects — slightly faster breathing, occasional light-headedness on steeper sections — are common and not typically a cause for concern at these elevations, though anyone with existing cardiovascular or respiratory conditions should discuss the trip with a doctor beforehand and mention it to us when booking so we can factor it into your gorilla family assignment request.
ABOUT YOUR GUIDE
Every guide we assign is licensed by the Rwanda Development Board, the government body that regulates all gorilla trekking nationwide, and has led trekking groups professionally for a minimum of several years before joining our network. For a solo traveller specifically, this relationship matters more than it might for a group — your guide is with you for the entire trip, not just the trekking day, and becomes the single point of local knowledge, language interpretation, and on-the-ground problem-solving for the whole five days.
Gorilla trekking permits in Rwanda are issued exclusively by the Rwanda Development Board, and we book every permit directly through official channels — never through unofficial resellers or inflated grey-market pricing. Sabyinyo Silverback Lodge itself holds international eco-tourism certifications reflecting its conservation-linked ownership model, under which lodge proceeds directly fund community and conservation programmes around Volcanoes National Park. We’re happy to share references from previous solo travellers on request, and to answer any question about our licensing, insurance coverage, or specific safety protocols before you commit to a deposit.
Rwanda has two dry seasons — June through September and a shorter window in December through February — when trekking trails are firmer and generally easier underfoot, though gorilla trekking runs year-round regardless of season since the forest is rainforest by definition and rain is always a possibility. The wetter months (March–May and October–November) bring lower rates and considerably fewer trekkers on the trail, which some solo travellers specifically prefer for the quieter, more solitary atmosphere, provided they come prepared for genuinely muddy conditions underfoot.
Forest light is low and green-tinted even at midday, so a fast lens (f/2.8 or wider) and a willingness to shoot at a higher ISO than usual matter more than a long zoom — you’ll typically be within seven metres of the gorillas, sometimes much closer if a juvenile approaches out of curiosity. Flash photography is strictly prohibited to protect the animals, so practising your camera’s low-light autofocus performance before the trip is worth the effort. A single all-purpose zoom (roughly 24–105mm equivalent) covers the vast majority of situations better than switching lenses mid-trek, which costs precious minutes of your one-hour window.
Permit rules, pricing, and habituated family numbers cited on this page reflect current published policy from the Rwanda Development Board, the government authority responsible for gorilla trekking nationwide, and are updated whenever official policy changes. For broader planning context beyond this specific itinerary, see our Rwanda Standard Gorilla Permit guide and our Best Time to Visit page.
A NOTE FROM OUR RWANDA GROUND TEAM
Our ground team in Kigali has watched solo travellers get quietly shortchanged for years — quoted single supplements that erase any savings from travelling without a companion, or folded into large shared-vehicle group tours that dictate someone else’s pace and preferences. This itinerary exists because we felt the honest answer to “what should a solo traveller book” shouldn’t be a discounted version of a couples’ trip. It should be built around solo travel from the first line, with pricing that reflects the real cost of a private guide and vehicle for one person, not a padded number designed to look generous while still penalising you for travelling alone.
Rwanda requires proof of yellow fever vaccination for travellers arriving from countries with risk of transmission, and a consultation with a travel health clinic four to six weeks before departure is worth scheduling regardless of your specific itinerary, since altitude, malaria risk in lower-lying areas, and general travel fitness are all worth discussing with a professional ahead of time. Malaria prophylaxis is commonly recommended for this region, though Volcanoes National Park’s higher elevation carries lower risk than Rwanda’s lower-altitude areas — your doctor can advise based on your full itinerary and personal health history.
For solo travellers specifically, we recommend registering your trip with your embassy or consulate’s traveller registration programme if your home country offers one, and sharing your detailed itinerary and our contact details with someone at home before you depart — a simple precaution that costs nothing and adds meaningful peace of mind.
The Rwandan franc is the local currency, though US dollars (printed 2009 or later, without tears or heavy marks) are widely accepted at lodges and for tipping. Gorilla trekking guides, porters, and lodge staff are customarily tipped in cash at the end of each service — typically $15–20 for your trekking guide, $10–15 for a porter, and a discretionary amount for lodge staff, though this is genuinely optional rather than obligatory. As a solo traveller, budgeting a modest cash reserve specifically for tipping across the trip is worth doing before you arrive, since ATMs are limited outside Kigali.
A typical budget group tour places solo travellers into a shared minivan alongside strangers, running to a fixed schedule dictated by the slowest or most demanding member of the group, with a single generic itinerary regardless of individual fitness or interest. This itinerary removes every one of those trade-offs at once: your vehicle is private, your schedule is entirely your own within the trip’s structure, and your gorilla family assignment can be tailored to your stated fitness level rather than defaulting to whatever the group as a whole is assigned. The eight-person cap during the trek itself is a fixed park rule that applies to every visitor regardless of how they booked, so it’s the one place where a private and a group booking genuinely converge — everywhere else on this trip, the difference is substantial.
EXPLORE MORE
