Treks 2 Rwanda

"My mom, sister and I did a two week trip in August 2021 with time spent both in Tanzania and Rwanda. This review will be for the Rwanda portion of the trip, which was planned with Treks2Rwanda (T2R). Our sole purpose of visiting Rwanda was for the gorilla trek, which was absolutely incredible! We were supposed to go in 2020, but due to COVID we had to reschedule and make alterations to our itinerary due to travel requirements with Rwanda. We worked with Casey, Karen and Norbert who are very passionate and knowledgeable about Rwanda. It was very evident they have visited the parks and lodges they work with numerous times, have done both gorilla and golden monkey treks, plus know the guides personally. Our guide was Tim and he was very knowledgeable and kind. He taught us so much about Rwanda and answered our million questions. It is evident he is so happy to represent T2R and teach others about the wonderful country and people of Rwanda. We also had an opportunity to meet Norbert because he stopped by our hotel to say hello, which was very nice of him. Tim suggested visiting the Genocide Memorial in Kigali and the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund Museum. The Genocide Museum was very emotional, moving and taught us a lot about the wonderful people and country of Rwanda. The Dian Fossey Museum was a nice stop and gave more background information to prepare us for our upcoming trek. We wish we were able to see more of Volcanoes National Park, such as going on a short hike or a scenic drive, since visiting animals/nature was our number one goal of our trip. Unfortunately due to COVID restrictions we felt we had a lot of “wasted” time due to needing to quarantine for 24 hours, not being able to drive past curfew, flight changes to Tanzania due to quarantine restrictions for the other passengers, etc. T2R and our guide Tim helped save time with our second COVID test by making arrangements for a doctor to come to our lodge for the test instead of us having to go to a facility, which was greatly appreciated. I took one star off of the review because communication was sometimes a challenge due to lack of information or delayed responses. For example, we were under the impression our T2R guide was going to meet us at the airport when we landed in Kigali, but when we landed, we could not find a T2R guide. We finally found a hotel staff member with our names on a sign and they directed us towards a shuttle. It turns out the hotel staff had to pick us up due to the curfew from COVID, which was perfectly fine, but a heads up would have helped minimize some confusion. Also, the visa process guide was out-of-date at the time and resulted in numerous emails/questions to both T2R staff and the Rwanda’s IREMBO platform for clarification. Overall, the trip to Rwanda for the gorilla and golden monkey trek was amazing and totally worth it! We truly appreciate all of Trek2Rwanda’s guidance and their coordination of our trip! Other useful tips: T2R coordinated our stay at Mountain Gorilla View Lodge which was incredible; definitely hire porters for the treks – it helps the community and they helped us tremendously during both treks; American USD was accepted everywhere; we visited in August 2021 and the weather was great."