Traveling into the Congo Rainforest – Tours and Expeditions | CLICK HERE ALL GUESTS AND INQUIRIES

Dear

Great to see that you’re interested in coming to the Congo, and let me assure you that you have come to precisely the right place. – We are the only professional agency operating in the country, in fact the only operation and team at all actually in the country…let alone outside of Kinshasa/Brazzaville and with boots on ground in the bush.

Our guys and girls do this full time, all directly experienced setting up all kinds of literal expeditions (not really “tours” in that sense often out there) providing extremely complicated logistics all over the country.

We run some regular awesome tours though yep, running the grand length of the Congo River, far jungle bonobo tracking (we are the only agency offering this) in the rainforest way off the banks of the river, gorilla tracking for cheaper than Rwanda or Uganda (currently only in Kahuzi-Biega, Lefini, and Central African Republic, as Virunga NP and the volcano are closed and the wilder gorillas in the middle of the bush need 2-3 months or more to track and see) and professional and generally relaxing tiger fishing trips (Goliath Tiger Fish.)

While all routes in the Congo due to climate and politics are still at times fluid and changing itineraries, we also deploy genuine photogenic cultural tours (pygmy tribes, forest plant and medicine,) and run the upper Congo not just the main populated part, towards the lower Lualaba gorge and Ubundu and Lomami deserted forests (where there are still many animals birds and insects far from people) and Salonga abyss. Finally, we have trips out of the forest on the southern savannah, the isolated subethnic and lingual groups in the forest and the Angola frontier.

We most love to stage and support rainforest exploration and bush camp and base camp pinning ops for science and surveys and studies, trekking to the abyssal zones of the inner Congo basin in DRC and Lake Télé and tristate reaches in RoC, and deep interior lakes and rivers farther off the path than away from people.

We can and love to set up broadly any real expedition as long as security, legal, tactical and finance requirements are met strictly, and our guests have the right intent, attitude, and awareness of what they’re getting into. Please carefully completely review the below, and welcome!

PRICING

If you’re looking for just a few days in and around the capital, we offer tours in which we visit the city, show you nightlife and can also add overnight stays just outside the capital. A five-day itinerary for Kinshasa for example will be in the 3,000 to 6,000 usd range depending on the activities and type of accommodation. We include visa support in these tours only for tours of touchdown to takeoff. You are not allowed to “hack” the tourist visa and violate the spirit of the law for tourism visas. The DGM and the government view the “buy a cheap day tour to get in for 30 days visa” as fraud, which technically it is on the books, and they punish you and us for jumping on via visa, under our name and aegis, only to wing it off into the wild or the city yourself. You are supposed to be on a paid tour the entire time you are in Congo with us to BE on the tourist visa. Please do not write asking to cheat and fraud the immigration.

Any kind of tour outside of Kinshasa / Brazzaville will always surpass $10,000 and can cost up to $100,000 usd (for certain isolated places) for a week to two or more weeks, depending on the duration, the zone, and the project SOW. It is simply not possible to do anything for less if you are really going into the Congo and not just drifting around a few dirt roads in the capital and villages and seeing nothing

Out of a vast vast world of green and adventure, seeing a few blocks of Kinshasa or Goma and the Virungas isn’t really an expedition and is an experience without any real wilderness or tour….You won’t see the Congo, despite what you may wish to report and frame on blogs or in your memory. These are not decent tours nor interesting unless you’re into only culture and history. The parks and forests and best sites are simply expensive, remote and tough here. You cannot access them on a budget, and if you do it’s dangerous for everyone and you can be held up or thrown into jail and in trouble, while in delayed roads and miserable accommodation. You cannot ask tour guides to meet crazy or irresponsible plans or budgets, which you will only complain and suffer from yourself. There is no budget travel here.

As soon as you’re down the road and off it there are too many human and natural variables which can alter, threaten, or destroy the tour (and you.) It is best to have something customized according to your wishes and interests and adapted acutely to the current security situation accurately in the target zones where it is needed to do so.

We only used licensed guides and alignment and approval with Congo state security, and we are aligned for collaborating only with the minister of tourism and state authority. – We do NOT assign or segue you to freelance or foreign fixers who have no clear permission and personal experience and ability to work within the interior and the jungle. It is illegal and very dangerous to do otherwise. In principal, random independent freelance guides exist in Congo or sometimes from Uganda and Rwanda and phase in and out of the internet market, about 1-3 of them at a time and then disappear… but about 1 in 5 to 10 times these freelance guides run their clients into:

the end of a mud path without any capacity of cash to see any animals or parks;
run out of gas on the main choked busy river, or;
simply get their clients stuck caught in trouble or hurt or worse;
getting clients stopped and jailed by accident;
occasionally get visitors killed or they disappear. Each year a few tourists disappear this way.

We do not offer or condone these and we don’t sponsor visas for people who then negotiate with local freelance drivers and guides either. Zero tolerance for guests who hide this intent in their trips by adjoining one tour with us to a second tour they booked discretely afterwards once they’re on the ground.

VISAS AND PAYMENTS

Visa LOIs and assistance are granted only after a tour is fully paid, not after deposits. A 25% deposit is due at the time of booking, with full balance due 60 days before the tour. You may pay the full balance earlier if you can.

You are supposed to be on a paid tour the entire time you are in Congo with us to BE on the tourist visa. Please do not write asking to cheat and fraud the immigration. The letter of the law and the spirit of the law in Congo is that a tourist on a tourist visa is on a tour from touchdown to takeoff. We will not sell you an LOI for an airport transfer for example or a “minimum effective dose” day tour to “hack the system,” and let you spin off into the interior or the city on your own, under our name as sponsor.

If the balance is not paid by 60 days before the tour defined as 60 calendar days, you lose the deposit with no right of refund and the tour is cancelled. It is not safe or smooth to try to arrange and pay balances of all tour components in this country at the last minute, so this is strictly enforced and we honor our own rules on this to the letter. Exceptions are case by case and usually only extended when there are additional people joining and extra capacity or assets on the ground are being added.

Some larger and all custom tours usually have a higher deposit amount and balance lead time (such as 35-50% and 100 days before) for some complicated expeditions such as the Congo River.

PREPARATION

Even for country-counters, 160 countries traveled does not, even a little, preview or presage what it is like to travel here outside the main boulevard in the capital and the now closed route up Virunga park. That’s typically why this nation is often last to visit. No travel experience can prepare you for Congo. Having traveled to places such as the deep Amazon jungle, fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan or Zaire-Angola’s Cold War Conflict, or even living in Somalia and Mali or biking from Morocco to Cape Town WILL NOT PREPARE YOU TO TRAVEL ACROSS DRC.

The Congo is a different kind of nut to crack and is not for your typical tourist, and while Congo is a unique and fantastic destination, it is also extremely hard to travel due to lack of infrastructure and local information, ambushes, blockades, hostile locals in some locales that don’t match people’s “sunny African experiences” they’ve had elsewhere, and in all tranches and tracts of the nation – corruption and all guarantees of multitudes of leftfield factors which can heavily alter your tour.

This is not a country where you can wing it successfully. We have seen a steady parade over 20 years here of “vanity voyaging” people who think they can do it on the cheap from the internet and self-aggrandizing / misreporting strange solo travelers, or veteran nomads with no life experience in the wilderness or bush. These people are immediately or soon confronted with the Congolese species of “obstacles,” such as being kidnapped and detained (or disappearing, as has happened and it is often assumed dead)…

We simply do not go into these regions without enough realism and resources around local forces and fixers we need, to be able to resolve situations and sourcing matters quickly and effectively with local leverage. It is vital that this is understood, crystal clear, as dangerous motives meeting Congolese ground reality from “hacking the destination” communities online are manifold from proud accomplished travelers who love their hobby but just don’t understand.

PRE-QUALIFICATION AND REGISTRATION

All of our clients have to sign their program, our booking terms and conditions, and our waiver, without exception, during which you’ll do a video screening with us and we will decide if you can participate or not, as we value our safety and our guests’ safety as well.

This is not a country where anybody can mess around, and guests will take this soberly and seriously or they really can’t go traveling with us.

We coordinate all of our tours with the authorities (and often directly with the Minister of Tourism for tours in the DRC for large scale ops) as we only do things by the book. We have a small, dedicated, experienced spec ops team and a broad network of local fixers, guides, befriended village chiefs and authorities. We have even evacuated actual security companies, whereas we are the ones doing their evacuation.It is better to be safe here than brave. You’ll see, learn, and experience more that way too…and with that,

Welcome to Africa’s Last Frontier.