Travel deep dive
Akagera: Rwanda's Savanna of Lakes, Grassland and Big Game
Akagera National Park is Rwanda's savanna, in the east of the country on the border with Tanzania, lower, warmer and drier than the green hills of the west. It is where a journey through Rwanda turns from treks on foot to game drives, with big animals watched from a vehicle on open tracks. A visit of a day or two often closes a loop through Rwanda that has taken in the gorillas, Lake Kivu and the forest of Nyungwe.
Updated 2026-10-05
Savanna, lakes and papyrus
The park takes its name from the Akagera river, which runs along its eastern edge on the border with Tanzania. Beside the river lies a chain of lakes and broad papyrus swamps. The south is the more wooded half, low hills of acacia and thicker bush around the southern lakes; the north opens into rolling grassland and the widest views in the park. Along the western side, a fence marks where the park ends and the farmland begins.
Getting there and the entrance
Akagera is reached by the road east from Kigali, about two and a half hours to the main entrance at the southern end of the park, where visitors register and an entrance fee is charged. Most visitors come in a car with a driver, the usual way of travelling between Rwanda's parks. The health preparation for Rwanda, malaria tablets included, covers a stay in the park.
The animals of the park
The park holds the Big Five — lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo and rhino — since lion and rhino were brought back to it as part of the restoration of its wildlife. Zebra and giraffe graze the grassland together with antelopes, from topi, impala and waterbuck to the large eland; elephants move between the woodland and the water, hippos live in the lakes and crocodiles on their shores. Leopards live in the woodland but are seldom seen. Baboons and vervet monkeys are common along the tracks, and the lakes, swamps and woodland make the park a place for birdwatching as much as for big game.
Game drives
A game drive follows the park's unpaved tracks in the vehicle a visitor arrives in. A park guide, hired at the entrance, can ride along: the guides know the tracks and where the animals have been seen in the last days. The tracks of the south wind between the lakes and the wooded hills and fill a morning or an afternoon; the drive north through the open grassland to the northern gate takes a full day, with stops along the way. The animals are most active in the early morning and the late afternoon, and the heat of midday is the time for the lake or a rest in the shade.
A boat trip on Lake Ihema
Lake Ihema lies near the southern entrance, and the park's boats go out on it from its shore. The lake's hippos spend the day in the water and its crocodiles on the banks, and the papyrus along the shore is home to water birds, fish eagles, kingfishers, herons and cormorants among them. The trip is booked through the park and fits into a day in the south, between a morning and a late-afternoon drive.
Staying in or near the park
Inside the park, a lodge stands on a hill above Lake Ihema, tented camps lie by the lakes, and campsites take visitors with their own tents. Outside the park, lodges and guesthouses stand near the southern entrance, and the towns on the road from Kigali have hotels.