Combining gorillas with Akagera and Nyungwe

They are genuinely different, not variations on a theme. The Virungas are cold, steep, bamboo-and-Hagenia forest at 2,500 metres. Akagera is warm savannah, lakes and papyrus swamp in the east. Nyungwe is dense Afromontane rainforest that has stood for millennia. A traveller who does all three has seen three ecosystems rather than one country three times.

Rwanda's Big Six is the neat framing: lion, leopard, rhino, elephant and buffalo in Akagera, and the mountain gorillas in Volcanoes National Park. Few itineraries anywhere deliver that in under two weeks of gentle driving.

Akagera's recovery is one of Africa's real conservation successes: lions returned in 2015, rhinos in 2017, and the park now supports all of the Big Five. Game drives are productive, the boat safari on Lake Ihema puts you among hippo and enormous crocodile, and the birding is exceptional.

Magashi, on a peninsula in the north-east, is the standout camp — small, tented and quietly luxurious. Two or three nights is right.

Nyungwe holds thirteen primate species. Chimpanzee tracking is genuinely hard work — early starts, steep ground, no guarantees — while the enormous Angolan colobus troops of Cyamudongo and Gisakura are far more reliable and just as memorable. The canopy walkway, sixty metres above a ravine, is the park's set piece.

One&Only Nyungwe House and the Nyungwe Top View lodges make comfortable bases. Two or three nights, with Lake Kivu three hours away for a swimming stop on the way north.

The cleanest loop runs Kigali, Akagera in the east, back through Kigali or south directly to Nyungwe, north along Lake Kivu, then into the Virungas for the trekking finale, and back to Kigali. No single driving day exceeds four or five hours, and the trip builds towards the gorillas rather than peaking on day two.

Because the itinerary includes Akagera National Park and Nyungwe National Park, the gorilla permits qualify for Rwanda's discounted USD $1,050 rate. The saving across two travellers with two permits each is substantial, and it is a real incentive rather than a marketing line.