Hi Everyone! I'm in the midst of planning a trekking trip to Africa. The trek part is planned out 🙂

I'm struggling with the flights and looking specifically for suggestions on arriving in Kigali, Rwanda and departing Entebbe, Uganda.

Flying out of the USA the last few days of January 2025 to arrive Feb 1 in Kigali and departing Entebbe Feb 20, 2025 (or the next few days)

I'll be coming from Nevada USA but am happy to have a departing / arriving airports be Reno, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Sacramento or the general Los Angeles area - maybe even Salt Lake City.
My goal is cost effective - I'm good with economy.
My thought is to use somewhere in Europe as a first leg both going to Kigali and coming from Entebbe.

Anyone have experience with flights like this willing to share your tips?
Thoughts? Best European city to fly into either direction - I won't be spending any time there, so what I want to see doesn't really matter...also that list is increasingly long 🤣

Thank you!

EBB and KGL each have only a few flights through Europe on major carriers, but don't count out the major Mid East carriers (Turkish, Qatar, Emirates). See here for all your options:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entebb...d_destinations

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kigali...d_destinations

If your goal is cost effectiveness, just play around with Google flights from the various airports you mentioned and look at times, routings, and costs. It'll undoubtedly end up being 3 flights (2 stopovers) no matter what from any of those airports you mentioned except LAX or SFO. I don't see why you wouldn't just take a flight from whatever your home airport is in presumably NV; you're going to waste way more time and money driving to LA or SF.

Thank you LAX Esq. I hadn’t thought of the mid east airlines. I’ll be checking those out. My airport is smaller and so adds to the overall flight cost. I’ve family near the other airports so I could visit with them before and or after the trip. I need to do some more digging.

Thanks for bringing this up! Kigali is becoming a more popular destination, and it’s great to see more flight options opening up. I’ve noticed that flights to Kigali can sometimes vary greatly in price depending on the time of year. It’s definitely worth keeping an eye on deals or looking for alternative routes through major hubs like Nairobi or Addis Ababa. Has anyone found a particularly good deal or route recently?

Looking at ITA (the gold standard for flight research) it seems that Qatar Airways, flying from either LAX or SFO, would likely be the best choice for your dates with round trip prices in the $1075 range. You'd have a longish layover at Doha in both directions, but it's a decent airport for such layovers.