Democratic Republic of Congo

Perhaps DRC's most magnificent single sight, active volcano Nyiragongo soars above the city of Goma and the surrounding Virunga National Park and sends plumes of smoke into the sky, before becoming a flaming beacon visible for miles around after sundown. The trek to the top is an absolutely unmissable experience (when the park is open to visitors), with those who undertake the five-hour climb being rewarded with views into the volcano's explosive lava lake below.

DRC's magnificent calling card is Virunga, Africa's oldest national park and home to mountain gorillas, chimpanzees and the incredible, active Nyiragongo volcano (climbed on a thrilling two-day expedition). Having been the subject of the Oscar-nominated documentary Virunga in 2014, the park grew fast in popularity until May 2018 when the kidnapping of two British nationals led to it indefinitely suspending all tourism operations. The pair were released unharmed, but management have said they won't welcome more visitors until they can guarantee their safety.

Ninety minutes west of Kinshasa, just beyond the city's sprawl, this excellent project provides a home for orphaned bonobos. Long thought to be chimpanzees, bonobos are actually a separate species known for being much more peaceful than their cousins. They're also endangered, with only around 50,000 surviving in the wild. Trails here lead around the large, forested enclosures, but the playful bonobos often hang out right at the front, especially in the morning.

Sub-Saharan Africa's second-largest city, Kin (as locals universally call it) sprawls seemingly forever from the banks of the Congo River to its distant shanty towns. Shot through with chaos, music and a lust for life that is as infectious as it is overwhelming, Kinshasa is a city you experience rather than visit. While its road safety record and poverty rates are among the world's worst – and its mounds of trash and consistently high levels of unsafe air pollution all but unavoidable too – there's no better place for a whirlwind introduction to Congolese life. Everything in Kinshasa is all bigger, faster and louder than you've probably experienced before.

South Kivu's star attraction is this national park, where you can track habituated eastern lowland gorillas (Grauer’s gorillas) for just US$400 per person, a relative bargain! The park also contains a chimp orphanage at Lwiro (US$30 per person), where between 40 and 50 chimps are kept in excellent conditions.

This likeable border town on Lake Kivu is unlike anywhere else in DRC, being home to an enormous UN and NGO presence that gives it an unusually cosmopolitan feel. Having been almost wiped off the map by the eruption of the nearby Nyiragongo volcano in 2002, Goma has done much rebuilding in the past decade and a half, and as a result the city has a surprisingly attractive centre. Indeed, it's fascinating to visit the parts of town that are covered in the lava field, and see how the resilient locals have gone back to their lives and rebuilt their houses in these new and challenging conditions.

People generally visit Goma en route to tracking mountain gorillas, climbing Nyiragongo or trekking in the Rwenzori Mountains. The city itself has no proper attractions, but it's a great pre- and post-Virunga hang-out, with some excellent sleeping and eating options.

Kisangani was known in colonial times as Stanleyville, and it is where the Lualaba River 'becomes' the Congo River. Despite being the same river, they were named at different ends, and each part has since retained its original name. Even though it's the third largest city in DRC, Kisangani is a real backwater, and few travellers make it here. It feels far more authentically Congolese than either Kinshasa or Goma, however, and its sandy streets, raucous riverside market and the steamy brown Congo River all produce a languorous air that's infectious. The city was founded by Henry Morton Stanley in 1883 as the last point ships can travel upriver from Kinshasa before being blocked by the Boyoma Falls, a 100km stretch with seven treacherous stretches of rapids.