Rwanda

Rwanda is called the Land of a Thousand Hills, and that barely does it justice. This tiny country, roughly the size of Maryland, is a corrugated landscape of steep green hills, volcanic peaks, and mist-shrouded forests where roughly half the world's remaining mountain gorillas live. But what makes Rwanda truly extraordinary is not just its geography - it's the story of what happened here and what came after.

Three decades after the devastating 1994 genocide, Rwanda has undergone one of the most remarkable transformations in modern history. Kigali is now one of the cleanest cities in Africa, with a ban on plastic bags that predated Europe's by over a decade. The country has near-universal health insurance, some of the fastest economic growth rates on the continent, and a parliament with the world's highest percentage of women. Whether you come for the gorillas in Volcanoes National Park, the chimpanzees of Nyungwe Forest, or simply to witness a nation that refused to be defined by its darkest chapter, Rwanda leaves an impression that is impossible to shake.