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Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda

Wilderness Bisate

Price per night from$5,570.00

Price information

If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (inclusive of taxes and fees) available in the next 60 days.

Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (USD5,570.00), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

Wilderness Bisate Photos

Style

Great esc-ape

Setting

Volcano-fringed rainforest

Explore

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The volcanic views at small safari camp Wilderness Bisate are mega — particularly from your suspended thatched suite and the bar’s sun-dappled terrace. But it’s the up-close-and-personal encounters with Rwanda’s fauna that makes this all-inclusive retreat oh-so-special: marvel at mountain gorillas and golden monkeys on awe-inspiring treks, and listen out for birdsong orchestras. Tailored-to-you meals, alfresco sundowners and in-room massages are your post-adventure antidotes, but nothing is as soul-healing as your days in the wild.

 

Standard prices listed on Mr & Mrs Smith are per night for two adults sharing. 

Smith Extra

Get this when you book through us:

A locally crafted souvenir gift (worth around $50)

Facilities

Photos Wilderness Bisate facilities

Need to know

Rooms

Six suites.

Check–Out

10am, and check-in is at 2pm. Both are flexible, on request and subject to availability.

More details

Rates include all meals, drinks (apart from some premium alcohol) and some excursions, such as tree planting and nature walks. Extras to pay for include travel between camps, specialist excursions (Gorilla Permits are around $1,500) and spa treatments.

Also

Unfortunately, this remote camp is not suitable for guests with limited mobility. An electric golf cart can shuttle you between the main lounge and your suite.

At the hotel

Day lounge, tree nursery, wine cellar, library, boutique, laundry service and WiFi in main lodge and suites. In rooms: air-conditioning, two-way radio, coffee- and tea-making kit, minibar, free bottled water, yoga mats and weights, hairdryer and Healing Earth bath products.

Our favourite rooms

It’s easy for us and for you: Wilderness Bisate has only one type, the Guest Room. Looking like a pair of heavily lashed eyes peeking out of the thicket, its pod-like curvaceous design is consciously constructed out of stone and thatch, and takes inspiration from the palaces of traditional monarchs with its jungle-gazing balcony and intricate ceiling-canopied bed.

Spa

At Bisate, a resident spa therapist is on hand to offer massages at Bisate Kwandwa Day Lounge or in your suite at additional cost.

Packing tips

Some stamina and patience: you could trek for up to five hours before you glimpse a mountain gorilla.

Children

This jungle retreat is for over-15s only.

Sustainability efforts

Wilderness takes a threefold approach to sustainability, aiming to protect (with sensitive management between people and wildlife), empower (by investing in the local community) and educate (supporting pathways out of poverty). In total, its camps help to protect six million acres of land, highlighting conservation and bringing tourism to rural areas across the African continent. Each camp treads lightly following a set of strict standards that apply to the construction and operation of each stay. Standards cover water and energy consumption; monitoring of waste and recycling, and supply chain management. Camps are audited twice yearly and must comply with at least 85 per cent of the requirements. Any shortfalls are targeted to be addressed before the next audit. Wilderness Bisate is 100 per cent solar powered.

Food and Drink

Photos Wilderness Bisate food and drink

Top Table

Those on the terrace get you that little bit closer to the line-up of Virunga’s volcanoes.

Dress Code

Brush off in the camp’s dedicated ‘mud room’ before slipping out of your adventure kit into something less weather-worn and more comfortable.

Hotel restaurant

There’s nothing as formal in camp as a restaurant in the traditional sense: meals are tailored to fit with the day’s scheduled activities, but evenings are often a chance to come together with other guests and staff over drinks before sitting down to an à-la-carte menu that’s guided by regional ingredients and seasonal crops, but will always provide a small choice of dishes for each course. If you’re up and out early, expect a basic breakfast at camp, bolstered by drinks and snacks on the trail, before returning to an early lunch or brunch. Similarly, guided afternoon outings are always accompanied with on-location drinks and/or nibbles.

Hotel bar

Like a gleaming emerald, the jewel-toned bar sparkles at golden hour, as sunlight floods through the glass balcony doors and over the surrounding jungle and its volcanic peaks. Alfresco sundowners may well become part of your daily routine at Wilderness Bisate, as well as fire-warmed apéritifs in Bisate Kwanda Day Lounge or another cosy, convivial corner. 

Last orders

Banish any expectations of set dining hours and embrace the fact that food and drink will be seamlessly integrated into your day just when you want it.

Room service

A minibar in your suite is stocked with soft drinks and low-alcohol options. When hunger strikes, head over to the lodge, where staff will be happy to help.

Location

Photos Wilderness Bisate location
Address
Wilderness Bisate
Volcanoes National Park
Ruhengeri
Rwanda

Rainforest-wrapped Wilderness Bisate sits in northern Rwanda’s lush Volcanoes National Park, which is home to the Virunga volcano chain and mountain gorillas.

Planes

Fly into Kigali International Airport, which is over three hours’ drive from the camp. Wilderness can arrange helicopter transfers for an extra charge: it’s half an hour by air to Bisate helipad, which is a five-minute drive to the camp.

Automobiles

You’ll want to put someone else in the driving seat and let your Wilderness hosts take care of transfers, which are speedier by air. Should you choose to self-drive, there's free parking at the camp.

Other

Once you’ve booked your safari stays, the Wilderness team will be in touch to arrange travel between camps — for Rwanda, this usually involves scheduled or private helicopter transfers.

Worth getting out of bed for

We won’t beat around the bush: if you’re at Wilderness Bisate, it’s probably for the mountain gorillas. On gorilla trekking excursions, your savvy guides will lead you on challenging hikes through Volcanoes National Park’s dense rainforest to seek out these endangered giants. Less intense — but equally rewarding — are the golden monkey trek and walk to Dian Fossey Grave. Scale mist-ringed Mount Bisoke with its crater-lake views, or follow other nature trails that are birdwatching central. Learn more about the camp’s do-good mission by assisting its reforestation efforts at its tree nursery, visiting its community beehive project or touring its organic kitchen garden.

Safari adventures with Wilderness in Rwanda have the geographical range to deliver incredible variety in a shorter time frame. Start, here, in the north with Volcanoes National Park, which is home to the mountain gorillas of Virungas, as well as Wilderness Bisate and its Smith-approved sister stay Wilderness Bisate Reserve. Next, for opportunities to track the Big Five, head by helicopter (or road) to Wilderness Magashi Peninsula — a savannah stay in Akagera National Park. 

Local restaurants

All meals and snacks are included with your stay — whether back at the lodge for dinner or out in the bush for a mid-drive pitstop. 

Reviews

Photos Wilderness Bisate reviews

Anonymous review

By Mr & Mrs Smith

Every hotel featured is visited personally by members of our team, given the Smith seal of approval, and then anonymously reviewed. As soon as our reviewers have returned from this Earth-kind safari camp in Rwanda and unpacked their binoculars and camera lenses, a full account of their gorilla-ogling break will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside Wilderness Bisate in Volcanoes National Park…

You’ll soon understand Rwanda’s moniker ‘the land of a thousand hills’ at Wilderness Bisate, an in-the-thick-of it safari camp set amid gorilla-roaming rainforest and the Virunga volcano chain. The leave-no-trace suites, constructed out of local stone and thatch, scale the verdant hillside and look out over the national park’s glossy canopy. 

It’s tempting to hole up by your fireplace or in your egg-shaped tub, but nature (figuratively) calls. Climb those famous peaks on a mountain-gorilla trek — a singular experience where you’ll roam the jungle before sitting for an hour to watch these majestic beasts (a live nature documentary, if you will).

This intimate experience might fill up your travel journal, but golden monkey sightings, Mount Bisote hikes and helping the camp’s reforestation projects are just-as-momentous occasions. You’ll have more than a story or two to share back at base, on the bar’s terrace or around one of the convivial fireplaces.

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Price per night from $5,570.00

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