Rwanda

Kigali Genocide Memorial

The primary national memorial to the genocide against the Tutsi, built on the site at Gisozi where more than 250,000 victims are buried in mass graves. The museum within is one of the most carefully considered memorial spaces anywhere in the world: it moves through the history of Rwanda, the build-up to 1994, the hundred days, and the aftermath with unflinching honesty. Essential, and not easy.

Belgian UN Peacekeepers Memorial

A memorial at the former École Technique Officielle to the ten Belgian UN peacekeepers who were murdered on 7 April 1994, the opening hours of the genocide. Their deaths caused Belgium to withdraw its forces and led to the UN reducing its mission, a decision that allowed the killing to continue. The site is a stark reminder of international failure at a moment when intervention could have changed everything.

Parliament Museum

Rwanda's parliament building in central Kigali houses a museum that traces the country's political history from pre-colonial kingdoms through colonisation, independence, and reconstruction. It is an honest account of how Rwanda has governed itself, including the failures, and a striking counterpoint to the memorials: the same country, seen through the lens of what it is trying to build.

Presidential Palace Museum

The former residence of President Juvénal Habyarimana, preserved much as it was on the night of 6 April 1994 when his plane was shot down on approach to Kigali airport, triggering the genocide. The wreckage of the aircraft still lies in the garden. A visit here closes a loop that the other memorials open: this is where it started, in the most literal sense.

Kigali

Consistently ranked among Africa's cleanest, safest, and most liveable cities, a reputation it has built in thirty years from near-total destruction. The city is ordered, walkable, and genuinely prosperous in a way that defies what you know going in. The Inema Arts Center showcases contemporary Rwandan art with real energy; the Kimironko Market is one of the most authentic in the region; and the hillside neighbourhoods give the city a topography that makes it unlike any other African capital.

Virunga Mountains & Volcanoes National Park

A chain of eight volcanoes straddling the borders of Rwanda, Uganda, and the DRC, and home to more than half the world's remaining mountain gorillas. Rwanda's Volcanoes National Park covers the slopes of five of the Virunga volcanoes, and gorilla trekking here is among the most profound wildlife experiences on earth: an hour in the presence of a habituated gorilla family, in dense bamboo forest at altitude, with no barrier between you. The volcanoes themselves, Karisimbi, Bisoke, and Muhabura, are hikeable, with Bisoke's crater lake at the summit one of the most dramatic landscapes in central Africa.

Lake Kivu

One of Africa's Great Lakes, stretching 90 kilometres along Rwanda's western border with the DRC. The lakeside town of Rubavu (Gisenyi) sits right on the water with views across to the Congolese city of Goma and the Virunga volcanoes beyond, a landscape of volcanic drama and extraordinary beauty. The lake is unusually deep, unusually warm, and holds vast reserves of dissolved methane and CO₂ beneath its surface. Boat trips and kayaking on the lake, with the green hills of Rwanda descending to the water's edge, are among the most peaceful experiences the country offers.