East Africa’s forests hold more primate diversity than most travellers expect walking in. Gorillas and chimpanzees get the headline treks, but the same forests, and a few others besides, hold a supporting cast worth knowing about before you go.
Uganda, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo are the only three countries where mountain gorillas exist in the wild, and Uganda and Rwanda are the two this site covers. Everything else on this page, chimpanzees especially, is easier to combine into a single itinerary than most travellers expect.
Mountain Gorilla
The last full count put mountain gorillas at 1,063 individuals: 604 in the Virunga Massif as of the 2016/17 survey, and 459 in the Bwindi-Sarambwe population as of 2018. A new Bwindi census launched in May 2025, with results still pending, so current totals may differ once published. Gorillas live in family groups led by a dominant silverback, and trekking involves following rangers through forest until the group is located, then spending a fixed hour in their company at a required distance. Uganda’s permit costs US$800 (US$600 in the low-season months of April, May and November); Rwanda’s costs US$1,500.
Read how the permits compare, or the guide to how hard trekking actually is. For a longer, closer visit, there is also the gorilla habituation experience.
A gorilla family typically holds somewhere between five and thirty individuals, with the silverback, identifiable by the band of silvery-grey hair across his back, making most of the group’s decisions about where to feed and rest. Trekking difficulty depends far more on where the family happened to be that morning than on the trek itself, which is why start times and group assignments are handled by rangers on the day rather than booked in advance.
Chimpanzee
More vocal and more visibly social than gorillas, chimpanzee groups can number in the dozens, and a morning with them often means fast walking as the group moves through the canopy overhead. Kibale National Park in Uganda is the region’s best-known chimp destination, with Nyungwe Forest in Rwanda and Budongo or Kyambura Gorge in Uganda as strong alternatives.
Chimpanzee trekking in Kibale, in Nyungwe, or read what a Kibale morning actually looks like.
Chimpanzees share roughly ninety-eight percent of their DNA with humans, and it shows in the small things: tool use with sticks to extract termites, coordinated group hunts of smaller monkeys, and a vocal range that includes the far-carrying pant-hoot call used to keep a scattered group in contact through dense forest. A morning permit runs about an hour with the chimps once found; a full-day habituation permit, where offered, extends that considerably for a closer look at daily behaviour.
Golden Monkey
Found only in the bamboo zones of the Virunga volcanoes, golden monkeys are smaller, faster-moving and considerably more restless than gorillas, which makes tracking them a livelier outing. Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda and Mgahinga Gorilla National Park in Uganda are the two places to trek them.
Golden monkeys move in troops that can number over thirty, feeding on bamboo shoots and leaves, and their bright orange-gold flanks against the green bamboo make for some of the more colourful primate photographs in the region, even without the drama of a gorilla encounter.
The Smaller Primates
Kibale alone holds thirteen primate species, which is as good a reason as any to spend a full day there beyond the chimp permit. Black-and-white colobus move in striking contrast through the high canopy; red colobus and grey-cheeked mangabey are Kibale specialities; L’Hoest’s monkey favours dense undergrowth and is more often heard than seen. Olive baboons and vervet monkeys are common enough to appear at lodge grounds and roadsides across the region, while galagos, or bushbabies, are the nocturnal primates you are more likely to hear calling after dark than to actually spot.
What a Trekking Day Actually Involves
Most primate treks start early, with a briefing at the park headquarters before rangers assign groups and set off. The walk itself varies widely: some groups are found within an hour of easy trail, others take four or five hours over steep, muddy ground, and there is no way to know in advance which you will get, since it depends on where the animals moved the day before. Porters are available to carry day packs and, more usefully, to offer a steadying hand on the steeper sections, and hiring one is also a direct way of supporting the local community around the park.
Trekking Rules, in Brief
Permits are booked in advance and are non-refundable once purchased. Groups are kept small, a guide sets the pace, and time with the animals is limited and supervised, whether that is the standard hour with gorillas or a similarly structured chimp trek. Fitness requirements vary by species and terrain, but none of these treks are a casual stroll.
Matching the right primate trek, or combination of them, to your fitness and time is exactly what a planner works out with you. Start planning your primate trekking trip.
