The guides on Peek Rwanda's women-only retreats are either female or specifically trained to centre the stories of Rwandan women in their interpretation of the country. This changes what you hear and what you see. A visit to Iby'iwacu Cultural Village that includes extended time with the women who run the cooking and craft sections is different from a standard tour. 

Rwanda's specialty coffee industry has been transformative for rural women, who make up the majority of coffee pickers and a growing number of washing station managers. A guided visit to a women-led coffee cooperative, including a farm walk, a washing station tour, and a cupping session with female cooperative members, is one of the most compelling experiences available on the retreat. The women you meet here are not performing their work for tourists. They are doing exactly what they do every day, and welcoming you into it. 

Every Peek Rwanda women's retreat includes time on Lake Kivu, because every group of women who arrives at the lake stays longer than they planned. Kayaking in the morning, boat trips to Napoleon Island at dusk, swimming off the rocks, sitting on terraces with cold drinks and the evening light doing everything it can. Lake Kivu is the part of the retreat where the agenda dissolves and what replaces it is the kind of unhurried conversation that only happens when you are somewhere genuinely beautiful with no reason to leave. 

Gorilla trekking is available on all retreat formats of seven days or more. Women who have trekked gorillas on the retreats consistently describe it as the most powerful shared experience of the trip: a group of women, moving through volcanic forest together, finding a gorilla family, and spending one hour in a silence that requires no translation. The trek is physically accessible for most fitness levels and the intimacy of a small, all-female group in the forest creates a quality of experience that mixed groups sometimes don't have.