2 min summary When to go Map & highlights Uganda Rwanda Central African Republic Other wildlife Gorillas & Covid -19 Gorilla photography Gorillas & safaris Advice Responsible tourism

Gorilla safari travel guide

Considered by many to be one of the most magnificent wildlife safaris in the world, this gorilla safari travel guide attempts to capture why. Although sometimes it is hard to put into words. You just have to see them to believe it. First, because they are so rare, second because their habitats make for superb trekking, and so the whole trip feels like a real expedition. And third, they are gorillas for goodness sake. They are one of the world’s most successful conservation stories. And they are, quite simply, the dons.

Home\Wildlife\Gorilla safaris

Gorilla safari travel guide

Gorillas are like the godfathers. The largest and most powerful of the great apes, you are only granted an hour's sitting with them. That is the law of the gorilla wildlife viewing world, mostly Uganda and Rwanda, where primate permits are like gold dust. Godfathers don't mix with any old hangers on either, with permits costing as much as US $1,500. And family is everything to them, as they congregate in family groups of five to 10, the silverback being the don.

You can just look into their eyes and see their intellect and of course they have emotions too. They can feel happy and sad or fearful.

- Dr. Jane Goodall, The Jane Goodall Institute

Unlike other wildlife watching you get very close to gorillas, allowing you to see their human-like behaviour. Not surprising, given that they share 98.3 percent of their genetic code with us, making them our closest cousins after chimpanzees and bonobos. Which is why even just an hour with gorillas has such an impact - a time when the line between animal and human is briefly blurred, leaving you with a profound understanding of what it means to be a part of the primate family.

See all our Gorilla safari Vacations

Give us a call

Is a gorilla safari for you?

Go and see gorillas in the wild if…

...you want a wildlife experience like none other. It’s up close and personal. ...a family wildlife experience of a lifetime is what you are after. Albeit for older children, as you need to be 15 to get a permit. ...you enjoy sharing the knowledge and expertise of highly trained, conservation aware local guides. ...you are organised. You need to book gorilla trekking vacations well in advance, as the number of permits are highly restricted.

Don’t go and watch gorillas in the wild if…

...watching wildlife from the comfort of a vehicle is your thing . Gorilla watching is for trekkers only. ...you're not in good shape. Walking three hours is usually the norm over steep, slippery terrain. ...you are on a very tight budget. Permits range from $400 to $1,500. ...you want to stare at gorillas all day. An hour a day is your limit, to help protect them.

Need some help? Give us a call

Sir David Attenborough, Life on Earth: “There is more meaning and mutual understanding in exchanging a glance with a gorilla than with any other animal I know. Their sight, their hearing, their sense of smell are so similar to ours that they see the world in much the same way as we do. We live in the same sort of social groups with largely permanent family relationships. They walk around on the ground as we do, though they are immensely more powerful than we are. So if there were ever a possibility of escaping the human condition and living imaginatively in another creature's world, it must be with the gorilla.”

Travel Team

If you'd like to chat about Gorilla safari or need help finding a vacation to suit you we're very happy to help.

1-866-821-6866

Call toll free

Calling from outside the USA

rosy@responsibletravel.com

1-866-821-6866

Call toll free

Calling from outside the USA

rosy@responsibletravel.com

What does a gorilla safari entail?

Most importantly, you need to book your gorilla safari vacation as far in advance as possible, due to the high demand for the limited permits that give you access to the gorillas. We would recommend a year to 18 months to guarantee a date that suits you, especially if you are planning to travel during the most popular months. The good news is that you can see gorillas all year round, so you are not limited by the seasons. And if you don't mind rain showers, permits in Uganda can be discounted during the wettest months of April, May and November to as little as US $450 (compared with the normal US $600 - or US $1,500 in Rwanda). Democratic Republic of the Congo permits can be even cheaper in rainy season. This doesn't happen every year, so do discuss this with your tour operator before you book. Finally, if you are hoping to travel as a family, the minimum age for a gorilla permit is 15.

There are only eight permits issued per gorilla group, per day, which allow you to observe one family of gorillas for an hour. Rwanda's Volcanoes National Park has 80 permits for its 10 habituated groups, and there are over a dozen habituated gorilla families in Bwindi, Uganda. The majority of gorilla safaris take place in these two countries, and seeing gorillas in the wild here is driven by conservation not capitalism. Research has proven that gorillas should not be exposed to humans for more than one hour a day to minimise distress and limit their exposure to diseases - even a common cold can prove serious for a gorilla.

This system of small, tightly controlled tour groups, paying big fees, which are reinvested in conservation, is considered a great success in wildlife tourism, as the increasing number of mountain gorillas shows. If one hour isn't enough, you can buy a second permit for another day of your vacation, and most tour operators recommend this. The first visit is often so overwhelming, and tourists are rushing to take photos, that by the second trip, you are more chilled and just sit back and take in the awesomeness of it all.

Gorilla trekking starts at 7am, so you will stay in a local lodge the night before. You will be allocated into groups of up to eight people, sometimes six, according to how far you want or feel able to trek. But it is important to know that you will be trekking and that there is some physical exertion involved. This is not a jeep safari vacation, but nor is it like trekking in Nepal. Depending on which family of gorillas you are allocated, you could be trekking from an hour to eight hours in total, so do consult carefully with your guides.

If you're a wheelchair user, or have mobility issues, there are tours available that involve you being carried in a throne chair out to see the gorillas. It's not the most comfortable way to travel, and you'll need to watch out for overhanging branches, but the journey is more than worth it. Find more details in our guide to wheelchair accessible vacations.

So, how do the park rangers know where the gorillas will be every day? Every morning, at sunrise, and like clockwork, gorillas go in search of a new 'nest'. They settle here to eat, rest, and play for the day, and park rangers track these movements from sunrise too. They then radio the nesting location back to base, and you are guided by other rangers to one of the gorilla families. These could vary from one hour to five hours’ hike away.

Before you head off on your trek, you will be offered the services of a porter to carry your daypack. You might not think that you need it, but this is a vital source of income to men and women from local communities. They are also great company and will enhance your trip, so don’t hesitate in supporting this fantastic service.

Once you find the gorilla family, you are briefed to keep silent and submissive. These gentle giants allow you to infiltrate their world, and you can watch them communicate with each other, mother to child, father to mother, using barks, screeches and grunts, as they move around on all fours using the knuckle walking technique. Whatever they do, be prepared for 60 seriously stimulating minutes.

The gorillas which can be tracked in Rwanda’s and Uganda’s national parks have gone through an habituation process over a period of up to two years sometimes whereby, slowly but surely, each family is exposed to human presence, so that they are not freaked out when a group of tourists arrives. This is a very carefully managed process, and it is not in any way a training procedure. It is a gentle habituation process that is supported by the funds raised through the sale of tracking permits. Some tour operators offer the chance to join the experts on a day of habituation, which gives you a longer time with the gorillas, and an even wilder experience.

As you will only see gorillas once or twice, tour operators arrange other activities during your gorilla watching vacation, such as chimpanzee tracking or a traditional safari. On the day of the gorilla trek itself, you probably won’t want to plan too much, as you will be exhausted, emotionally and physically.

Gorilla trekking– a brief history

One of the first gorilla safaris by a tourist was not, sadly, for conservation purposes, but for preservation purposes. In a glass case, stuffed, as was the way in the early 20th century. American naturalist, and museum taxidermy expert, Carl Akeley, led an expedition to Mount Mikeno in the Virunga Mountains on a mission to ‘collect’ gorillas. During this expedition, it is said that he had an ecological epiphany, and campaigned for this region - in the then Belgian Congo - to be protected as a national park. In 1925 it became the first national park in Africa. It is worth noting that Akeley still supported the collection of gorillas for scientific and educational purposes, but opposed hunting them for sport. Shooting, no. Stuffing, yes.Read more

Still, without Akeley, this first national park to protect the mountain gorillas would almost definitely not have happened. Formerly known as the Albert National Park, it is now called the Virunga National Park (VNP), and lies in the now Democratic Republic of the Congo. Conflict in this region has led to extremely high levels of poaching, and although the national park started to open up to tourism in relative peacetime, it closed once again in 2018 following rebel activity. It is hoped that it will reopen in 2019.

Another leading American in his field, zoologist George Schaller, who still lectures on conservation in the USA, undertook research studies of the mountain gorillas in VNP in 1959, which led to the publication of two important works entitled, The Mountain Gorilla: Ecology and Behavior in 1963, and The Year of the Gorilla in 1964, both of which started a wider appreciation by the general public of just how extraordinary these primates are. And most importantly, how important it was to protect them from extinction.

It was Schaller's work that inspired another American zoologist, Dian Fossey, to continue more in depth studies on the mountain gorillas, commencing in 1967. She became known the world over following the publication of her book, Gorillas in the Mist in 1983, which recounted the 13 years she spent in the remote rain forests of the Virunga Mountains, establishing an unprecedented relationship with gorillas. When the book was made into a hit film in 1988, gorilla watching really hit headlines. Fossey's research took place mainly in Volcanoes National Park in in Rwanda, and this really was the beginning of the habituation process of gorillas. A process that still happens today, in order that gorillas adjust to albeit small and very strictly controlled numbers of tourists coming in to observe them. Ironically, Fossey strongly opposed wildlife tourism, knowing that gorillas were susceptible to human disease as well as adjusting their natural behaviour patterns in the presence of humans. She was also a fierce opponent of poaching, of course. Today, the prolific Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International recognises the importance of gorilla tourism as a way of generating conservation education and income for local communities, which has proven to greatly reduce poaching.

Gorilla trekking for tourists began in the 1970s in Kahuzi-Biega National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It did not last long, following expert opinion that not enough research had been done regarding the impact of such trekking and human intervention upon the gorillas. The Mountain Gorilla Project was created by the Rwandan government in 1979, working with private conservation organisations such as WWF to create a standard for responsible gorilla watching practices. This involved the habituation of two groups of gorillas near Karisoke so that they would be ready to receive visitors. Which they did later that year, with trekking groups limited to six people and visits to an hour. They were given strict guidelines for visiting so as to have the least possible impact on the gorillas. And nothing much has changed today, except that groups of eight can visit a family, just once a day.

Gorilla trekking in Rwanda came to a stop during the civil war of the 1990s, and during this time many gorillas were poached. Thankfully, in peaceful times, the sector is thriving again since Volcanoes National Park was reopened in 1999. Uganda had already opened up its gorilla trekking opportunities in 1991, when Bwindi Impenetrable National Park was gazetted, also following a period of much civil unrest. The authorities spent two years habituating the Mubare gorilla family, until they felt ready to invite tourists in to watch them in the wild in 1993.

It is hoped that the developing gorilla safari countries of the Republic of Congo and Cameroon, as well as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, will adhere to such strict policies as tourism opportunities grow. In the Republic of Congo, for example, researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society studied gorillas in heavily forested Sangha Region only to discover a population of as many as 125,000 western lowland gorillas, compared with the approximate 1,000 mountain gorillas still living in the wild in Uganda, Rwanda and DRC.

Gorilla poaching is still an issue in many regions, mainly for bushmeat, which sells at a good price in countries where many people struggle to gain a living wage. There are many international conservation organisations overseeing how gorilla tourism develops, such as WWF, the International Gorilla Conservation Programme and Born Free. Creating good, responsible gorilla tourism must always, therefore, focus on people as well as gorillas, as concurred by the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International, which states "We believe that when people thrive, gorillas thrive."