1 Day Akagera National Park Safari

1 Day Akagera National Park Safari – Big 5 & Scenic Escape

Sometimes, a single day is all you have. But when you spend it in Akagera, it’s enough. Enough to remind you how wide the sky can stretch. How still the land can stand. How close you can come to something ancient—and walk away changed.

This 1-day safari to Akagera National Park is for those who crave a taste of Rwanda’s wild side without needing to disappear for days. And with Friendly Gorillas Safaris, every moment is crafted to feel spacious, intimate, and true.

Itinerary Overview

06:00 AM – Pick-up from Kigali & scenic drive to Akagera
09:00 AM – Park entry & morning game drive
12:30 PM – Bush lunch or lodge meal
02:00 PM – Afternoon game drive or Lake Ihema boat safari (optional)
04:30 PM – Begin return to Kigali
07:30 PM – Drop-off at your hotel/residence

Full Safari Itinerary – A Day in the Wild

06:00 AM – Kigali Departure: Watching the Hills Wake Up

Your Friendly Gorillas safari guide picks you up early—just before the city stretches fully into the day. Kigali is quiet, kissed by the first light. As you drive east, the land begins to soften. Small towns blur past. Hills rise and fall.

And somewhere between your last email and the first cattle crossing, the silence starts to settle into you but, this isn’t even the beginning of the adventure.

You’re not rushing. You’re arriving.

09:00 AM – Entering Akagera National Park: The Gate Between Worlds

Upon arrival at the park entrance, the road gives way to wilderness and yes, you stop briefly for formalities, stretch your legs, and the game drive begins. Giraffes, elegant and still, emerge between acacia trees. Antelopes flick their ears and disappear. A lone elephant may cross the track like it’s his own—and it is.

Your guide knows every bend, every bird call, every recent track. It’s not just about sightings. It’s about knowing how to wait. Knowing how to watch.

12:30 PM – Midday Meal in the Wild

Lunch is served either as a packed bush picnic at one of the scenic picnic spots inside the park—or at a nearby lodge restaurant overlooking the savannah. Either way, you eat with views and wind, not walls. Maybe a troop of baboons passes by. Maybe a buffalo grazes in the distance. The food is warm. The silence is full.

02:00 PM – Optional Boat Safari or More Game Viewing

After lunch, you choose:

• Continue the game drive, perhaps heading north to explore new habitats and improve your chances of spotting lion, leopard, or rhino.
• Or opt for a boat safari on Lake Ihema (optional, time-dependent and at additional cost). Glide over papyrus-edged water as hippos rise and sink like breathing stones. Crocodiles bask. Kingfishers dive. The world slows down.

Whatever you choose, the hours unfold gently, like sunlight through the grass.

04:30 PM – Depart Akagera: Back Through the Hills

As the shadows grow long, you exit the park with dust on your boots and something quieter in your chest. The return journey is contemplative. You replay the giraffe’s stare. The flick of a lion’s tail. The vastness. The hush.

07:30 PM – Arrival in Kigali

You’re back in the city now. The streets shine under streetlights. The rhythm picks up again. But inside, something hasn’t returned with you. It stayed behind—in the rustle of the reeds, the space between hooves, the stretch of land that asked nothing from you but to notice it.

What This 1 Day Akagera Safari Really Gives You

• It gives you a sunrise that isn’t filtered.
• It gives you elephants, not in books—but in front of you.
• It gives you silence. Real silence. The kind that leaves something behind.

With Friendly Gorillas Safaris, your 1-day Akagera adventure becomes more than a trip. It becomes a memory you’ll tuck quietly into your week—and return to when the noise gets too loud.

Are you ready to trade your screen for savannah—even if just for one day?