Virunga Lodge

All of these luxuriouss rooms are complete with a fireplace, en-suite bathrooms with flushing toilet, double vanity and shower with hot & cold running water. The spacious interiors are welcoming to all guests, ensuring you a pleasant stay during your time at Virunga.

The 10 bandas are split between 6 doubles, 2 twins and 2 deluxe bandas. Every banda has a private terrace from which guests can watch the sunrise over the dramatic landscape of mountains and lakes. Luxuriously appointed, with the accent on vibrant Rwandese fabrics and stylish locally inspired furniture

Room Specifications:

• Wifi access in the main lodge building and Dian Fossey Map Room
• One complimentary massage per guest
• Full board accommodation including all soft drinks and house alcoholic beverages. Premium beverages paid at consumption
• Complimentary laundry and boot cleaning service
• Personal butler service for all guests
• Guide cottage available
• Bandas are individually named after lakes in the area.
• Power sockets/charging facilities and hair dryer in the rooms. No air conditioners.

Dining at Virunga is communal, with a menu that consists of a mixture of delicious local and international dishes. The chefs will make sure that your tastebuds are delighted, and following your meal you can head to the bar and wash it down with a refreshing beverage. Premium wine, whisky, and cocktail menus can be found here so there is plenty to choose from.

Tracking mountain gorillas through the dense African forests is a magical experience. Only eight visitors are allowed per gorilla group each day, and to minimise the transmission of human diseases, visitors are required to maintain a distance of 7 metres (22 feet) from the gorillas. Tracking can take 3 to 8 hours on a typical day and requires some agility and fitness; however, all fitness levels can be accommodated and no one should feel exempt from missing this totally unique experience.

Rwanda offers some of the world’s best bird watching, with a vast diversity of bird species to find. Rwanda has over 700 bird species and is home to the 2nd highest number of Albertine endemics in the Albertine region. Here, you get the chance to see a number of different birds, with the vast majority endemic to the region.

Guests of Virunga lodge have easy access to the Virunga chain of volcanoes, offering challenging hikes and stunning panoramas. The three most popular volcanoes to climb are Mt. Gahinga, Mt. Sabyinyo, and Mt. Muhavura and each of them represent a great opportunity to see these forces of nature up close. These hikes are of varying difficulty and normally take a full day. The treks start at 7am from the park headquarters, from where visitors will have to drive / be driven to the base of their chosen volcano.

When you have a free afternoon at Virunga Lodge, take advantage of the lodge’s unique position by winding down the mountain slope, through local villages, to Lake Bulera, which sits at its base. Passing through the local communities offers a great peek into village life and opportunities to visit local schools and community centres.

The Volcanoes Safaris Partnership Trust (VSPT), created in 2009, is a non-profit organisation that connects Volcanoes’ Rwanda and Uganda luxury lodges with the neighbouring communities and conservation activities. The VSPT is funded through Volcanoes Safaris, which directly contributes $100 from safari bookings, as well as private donations by our guests and others.

The VSPT aims to create long-term, self-sustaining projects that enrich local communities, promote the conservation of the great apes, restore natural habitats that have been damaged and work with communities and institutions to reduce human-wildlife conflict. Guests get an opportunity to visit VSPT projects and to meet the local communities as part of their stay.

Bwindi Bar, near Bwindi Lodge, gives training in hospitality to local disadvantaged youths. It won the 2016 PURE Community Engagement Award.

Gahinga Batwa Village, a permanent village for one of the oldest surviving indigenous people in the Central African Forest, the Mount Gahinga Batwa Community, was launched in May 2018 in Gahinga, Uganda.

The Kyambura Gorge Eco-tourism Project was also launched in February 2019. VS and VSPT have been working to safeguard the gorge ecosystem for over a decade, and today represent the largest stakeholder in the gorge ecosystem after the Uganda Wildlife Authority.

In 2018, VSPT launched a microfinance savings scheme for members of Sunzu Village. The objective is to provide a loan that will help to generate income from investment in small scale sustainable agricultural projects, as well as weaving baskets and breeding domestic animals.

Although it rains heavily around Virunga Lodge, there aren’t many facilities for water catchment and storage and in the dry season there is a marked shortage of water. The villagers in Sunzu village around the lodge, where 138 families live, do not have enough clean water either for drinking or for growing crops.

Starting in 2016, Virunga Lodge has been providing water tanks to the local community and with the support of their guests, Virunga Lodge has donated 138 tanks as of March 2019, one to each family in the village.

The Virunga Lodge Solar Power project aims to provide access to eco-friendly electricity to local communities near Virunga Lodge. Electricity is a key step in improving the welfare of households, essential for further progress, to allow school-going children to read in the evening and for families to quickly access vital information.

Volcanoes Safaris has partnered with BBOX in Rwanda in order to supply solar panels to families around Virunga Lodge. Guests are also invited to donate a solar panel to a family. A donation of $500 covers the cost of purchase, installation and 2 years of support for a solar panel from BBOX. The first solar panel was donated in December 2020, and the target is to provide 75 families with solar panels by the end of 2021.