Rwanda

Now into its seventh edition and written by Philip Briggs, the world's leading writer of guidebooks to Africa, Bradt's Rwanda has been the go-to guide for visitors to this historical and resurgent 'Land of a Thousand Hills' for nearly two decades, and it continues to be in a class of its own when it comes to in-depth information on this emerald slice of East Africa. With freshly researched and updated details on developments across the country, Bradt's Rwanda includes up-to-date maps of rapidly modernising Kigali, information on hiking to the summit of Mount Bisoke and a newly expanded chapter on excursions into the neighbouring DRC. In this new edition are extensive and recently updated maps and natural history information, details of kayak and canoe excursions on Lake Kivu and the Mukungwa River, all you need to know about tracking not only mountain gorillas in Rwanda's Volcanoes National Park but also lowland gorillas in the Congo, and information about overnight stays on tea plantations at Sorwathe or Gisovu. Also covered are Nyungwe Forest National Park, where a wealth of endemic birds and primates inhabit the largest surviving montane forest in East Africa; Nyanza, where the hilltop Rukari Palace Museum marks the site of the old mwami's (king's) palace; and the National/Ethnographic Museum of Rwanda, the top cultural site in Rwanda's second city, Huye (Butare). Coverage of nearby cities and national parks in the neighbouring DRC has been expanded since last edition, providing all the necessary information to take an excursion into Rwanda's enormous and poorly understood neighbour. Rwanda continues to change and develop at an unprecedented pace, and there's hardly a more accessible part of Africa to be found anywhere on the continent. It's no less intriguing for the convenience, however, and Rwanda's superlative natural attractions seem to improve by the day, with growing animal populations and an on-going rhino reintroduction program in Akagera National Park.Having now gone through nearly 18 years of editions, Bradt's Rwanda is not only the most in-depth guide available, but also the guide with the longest history in the country itself.
About the Author: AUTHOR Philip Briggs (e phil@philipbriggs.com) has been exploring the highways, byways and backwaters of Africa since 1986, when he spent several months backpacking on a shoestring from Nairobi to Cape Town. In 1991, he wrote the Bradt guide to South Africa, the first such guidebook to be published internationally after the release of Nelson Mandela. Over the next decade, Philip wrote a series of pioneering Bradt guides to destinations that were then - and in some cases still are - otherwise practically uncharted by the travel publishing industry. These included the first dedicated guidebooks to Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique, Ghana and Rwanda, all of which have been updated for several subsequent editions. More recently, Philip wrote the first guidebook to Somaliland, published by Bradt in 2012, as well as new guidebooks to The Gambia and Suriname. He still spends at least four months on the road every year, usually accompanied by his wife, the travel photographer Ariadne Van Zandbergen, and spends the rest of his time battering away at a keyboard in the sleepy South African village of Wilderness. CONTRIBUTER Janice Booth's career has included stage management, archaeology, compiling puzzle magazines, travelling, editing Bradt guides and co-writing Bradt guides to south and east Devon. Since the first edition of this guide she has lectured and written about Rwanda and led tours there. UPDATER Sean Connolly first travelled to Africa as a student in 2008, and since then has been returning to the continent regularly to research, teach English or simply to soak up the ambiance in Africa's countless little-visited corners. When he's not discussing verb tenses, diplomatic recognition or the merits of camel meat, you may find him riding in the back of a grain truck, sampling questionable local delicacies or seeking out a country's funkiest records. Raised in Chicago, Sean has been poring over maps since before he could read them, and has updated or contributed to the Bradt guides to Somaliland, Malawi, Mozambique, Ghana, Uruguay and Sierra Leone, along with the 6th edition of Bradt Rwanda. He's also the author of the first Bradt guide to Senegal.