Primates
Flashes of gold and orange in green bamboo: a troop feeding, squabbling and leaping around you on the lower slopes of the Virungas.
Golden monkey trekking is the other primate encounter in Volcanoes National Park, and plenty of travelers end up loving it as much as the gorillas, for completely different reasons. The golden monkey is a subspecies of the blue monkey found only in the Virunga highlands and a few nearby forests, where it lives mostly in bamboo. Where gorillas are calm and deliberate, golden monkeys are all motion — stripping bamboo shoots, chasing through the stems, dropping to the ground for a second and vanishing upward again.
The trek is usually shorter and gentler than a gorilla trek, on the lower bamboo slopes, and you spend about an hour with a habituated troop. The Rwanda Development Board (RDB) permit costs US$100 per person at the time of writing (September 2026), and the minimum age is 12, which makes this the natural primate outing for younger teenagers who cannot yet trek gorillas. It is built into the 4-Day Rwanda Gorilla Trekking Private Safari as a dawn outing on the final morning.
Golden Monkey Trekking
We reserve your RDB permit alongside your gorilla permits, usually for the morning after your gorilla trek.
You report to Kinigi park headquarters by 7 am for a briefing, then drive with your guide to the trailhead for your assigned troop.
Trackers already with the monkeys radio their position, and you walk through farmland and into the bamboo to meet them.
You spend about an hour with the troop, keeping the distance your ranger sets, before walking back out to the vehicle.
The afternoon is free for the Ellen DeGeneres Campus, a village walk or the drive back to Kigali.
Golden Monkey Trekking
Safaris
Kigali · Kinigi (park HQ) · Volcanoes National Park · Kigali International Airport
Couples and experienced travelers with limited leave who want the gorillas without a long safari around them
Kigali · Akagera National Park · Volcanoes National Park · Kigali International Airport
First-time visitors to Rwanda who want gorillas and a classic game drive in a single week
Kigali · Huye · Nyungwe National Park · Karongi (Kibuye) · Volcanoes National Park · Akagera National Park · Kigali International Airport
Primate enthusiasts, photographers and returning safari-goers who want the whole country rather than one park
Kigali · Volcanoes National Park · Kilimanjaro Airport · Arusha · Serengeti · Ngorongoro Crater · Kilimanjaro Airport
Travelers who want East Africa’s two headline wildlife experiences in one trip, at luxury or ultra level
Good to know
At the time of writing (September 2026), RDB charges foreign non-residents US$100 per person for golden monkey trekking. The permit is issued for a specific date, like a gorilla permit, and we secure it at the same time as the rest of your permits.
Twelve. That makes it the main primate activity in Volcanoes National Park open to children aged 12–14, who are too young for gorilla trekking. Younger children can join the park’s guided nature walk instead, which accepts ages 5 and up.
Most people who do both say yes. The mood is completely different — livelier, more playful and less intense — and the bamboo forest is beautiful in its own right. It also gives you a second morning in the park for a fraction of the price of a second gorilla permit.
It is generally the easiest of the park’s treks, on lower and gentler slopes, though mud can make the bamboo slippery. Anyone comfortable walking for an hour or two on uneven ground should manage well, and a porter makes it easier still.
Experiences
On foot
Climb through montane forest to Karisoke, where Dian Fossey studied mountain gorillas and now lies buried among them.
Adventure
Climb 3,711 m Mount Bisoke through bamboo and giant lobelias to a lake in the summit crater, right on the DRC border.
Adventure
Walk a suspended bridge high above a rainforest valley in Nyungwe, level with the treetops, the monkeys and the birds.
Share your dates, who is traveling and what you hope to see. We check permit availability first, then design a private Rwanda journey around it, and nothing is booked until you approve it.
Plan My Rwanda Safari