Rubavu, the old Gisenyi, is Rwanda's beach: the main resort town on Lake Kivu, with sand, palm trees, an elegant promenade and a relaxed holiday atmosphere on the shores of one of Africa's Great Lakes. Located on the border with the Congo — bustling Goma is literally next door — it combines downtime by the water with the energy of a lively town, and it is the perfect stop to slow down after gorilla trekking, which is just a couple of hours away.
Its waters are safe for swimming (Kivu has no crocodiles, no hippos and no malaria mosquitoes), which invites you to swim and lie in the sun; its lakeside promenade, inherited from the colonial days when Gisenyi was an elegant resort, comes alive at sunset, when the sun sinks behind the mountains of the Congo. Add to that boat trips to the hot springs and the islands, the lake's historic brewery, the tea and coffee plantations in the surrounding area, and the start of the famous Congo Nile Trail.
This guide covers Rubavu (Gisenyi) with a practical eye: what to do and see in the town and its surroundings, how to get around, how to combine it with the gorillas in the north and the rest of Lake Kivu, where to stay and eat, and what to keep in mind given its location on the border. A destination of beaches, rest and sunsets that brings a calm, luminous finish to any trip through Rwanda.
Gisenyi developed during the Belgian colonial era as an elegant resort on the shores of Lake Kivu, with hotels, villas and a lakeside promenade where settlers and officials spent their holidays. Its border location, right next to Congolese Goma, made it a hub for trade and transit, but it also put it at the centre of the storm during the upheavals of the late 20th century: hundreds of thousands of refugees fled through here after the 1994 genocide, and the region experienced the Great Lakes wars at close range. Renamed Rubavu after the 2006 administrative reform, today it is a quiet, safe destination for beaches and relaxation. The full story is told on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The great freshwater lake on the border with Congo: beaches and sunsets, a volcanic geological past and a huge store of methane beneath its waters.
Read the history of The west and Lake Kivu →A local guide tells you in half an hour what no sign at the site will ever explain. We look ours up on Civitatis: guided in Spanish and booked online with no fuss. They have 7 activities in Kigali. And there are free tours here: you book without paying and tip the guide whatever you think at the end, so trying one costs you nothing. Have a look below: tap any of them to see them all.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Rubavu, the historic Gisenyi, sits in a privileged spot on the northern shore of Lake Kivu, at the foot of the mountains and right where Rwanda meets the border with what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Its landscape comes from the geology of the Great Rift Valley and the volcanic activity of the nearby Virunga Mountains: a lake hemmed in by high ground, sandy shores and a mild, pleasant climate despite the equatorial latitude. That combination has made the place a human settlement since ancient times, tied to fishing and to trade along the water.
Before the Europeans arrived, the region was part of the world of the Kingdom of Rwanda and of the trade networks of the Great Lakes area. Lakeside communities lived off the lake and the fertile volcanic slopes, in a setting of great beauty but relatively isolated. Being close to what would become the borders with the Congo made this corner a meeting point between peoples and, later, between colonies and countries. That border status would shape its entire later history.
The nearby Nyiragongo volcano, on the Congolese side, and the whole Virunga chain are a reminder that this is a living land, shaped by fire. Lake Kivu itself, with its dissolved gases and volcanic origin, is proof of that. Against this striking natural backdrop, the lakeside resort and border town we know today would grow up over the 20th century.
During the first half of the 20th century, under Belgian colonial administration, Gisenyi became one of the most elegant holiday and leisure spots in the region. The pleasant climate, the sandy beaches and the beauty of the lake drew settlers, officials and travellers, who built hotels, villas and a tree-lined lakeside promenade. Gisenyi earned a reputation as a refined resort, a place where the colonial elite spent their holidays on the shores of Lake Kivu, among gardens and terraces and swims in the lake.
That calling as a place for tourism and rest, born in the colonial era, is the seed of the role the town still plays today. Much of the charm of Gisenyi's waterfront (the promenade, the palm trees, the villas) dates from that time. At the same time, the town grew as an urban and, later, industrial centre: in the middle of the century the Bralirwa brewery set up here, using water from the lake to make Rwanda's national beers, and it remains one of the town's signature industries.
Its border position was key from the start. Gisenyi grew right next to the Congolese city of Goma, on the other side of the line between the territory under Belgian administration (Rwanda) and the Belgian Congo. The two twin cities, separated by little more than a border post, were bound together by trade, family and everyday life, in an intense relationship that would last, with all its ups and downs, to the present day. Gisenyi was thus a resort, an industrial town and a border crossing all at once.
With Rwanda's independence in 1962 and the Congo's in 1960, Gisenyi became for good a border town between two sovereign countries, though it stayed linked to Goma through trade and daily life. Like the rest of northern Rwanda, the region carried particular political weight in the following decades, in a country torn by the manipulated tensions between Hutus and Tutsis that would end in the tragedy of 1994.
During that year's genocide against the Tutsi and, above all, after the victory of the Rwandan Patriotic Front that ended it, Gisenyi became one of the main exit points of the mass exodus to the Congo. Around two million Hutus crossed the border here, among them many of those responsible for the killings, mixed in with terrified civilians, and huge refugee camps went up on the other side in dire conditions. The area saw that humanitarian crisis and the tensions it caused at close quarters.
In the years that followed, the border region was caught up in the upheavals of the Great Lakes: the Congo wars, which brought bloodshed above all to the Congolese Kivu provinces across the lake, and the chronic instability of eastern Congo. In 2002 neighbouring Goma was also hit by the devastating eruption of the Nyiragongo volcano, whose lava destroyed part of the city and reached the lake. Gisenyi, on the Rwandan side, went through difficult years shaped by how close all these conflicts were, before Rwanda managed to build the stability and security it is known for today.
With Rwanda's stabilisation and development in the 21st century, and after the 2006 administrative reform that gave it its official name of Rubavu, the town has been reborn as the country's main beach and leisure destination. Its side of the lake, calm and safe, stands in contrast to the lasting instability on the Congolese side. Being close to Musanze and the gorillas (just 1.5-2 hours away) has made it the go-to place to unwind on the northern Rwanda tourist circuit.
The town has restored and expanded its tourist infrastructure: the flagship resort (the Lake Kivu Serena Hotel) and other waterfront hotels, restaurants serving fish from the lake, the lakeside promenade inherited from colonial times and a range of activities that mixes relaxation with adventure. The Congo Nile Trail starts in Rubavu and heads south; boat trips run to the hot springs and the islands; and you can visit the Pfunda tea plantations and the coffee farms on the hillsides. The Bralirwa brewery is also still one of the town's industrial landmarks.
Today Rubavu (Gisenyi) is a place where a laid-back resort and a lively border town live side by side, with its colonial, industrial and tragic history written into the landscape. For travellers, it is the calm finale to a trip through Rwanda: the beach where you slow down after the thrill of the gorillas, swim in the safe waters of Lake Kivu and watch the sun set behind the mountains of the Congo. A town that, like the whole country, has managed to rebuild itself and offer, on top of a difficult past, a bright present on the shores of the lake.
