Pocket Treasure is a 52-page paper booklet made by an international team of experts to serve as a handy guide to an incredible region, and a special souvenir after your visit. It is being printed in Kampala in December 2025 and will be officially launched in Kigali on 8 January 2026.
The A6-format booklet focuses on three parts of the region: Gorilla National Parks, Lake Bunyonyi and the Congo Nile Trail. It is packed with useful information and local context, lists all habituated gorilla groups and their locations, offers a phrasebook page with Kinyarwanda/Rufumbira, Rukiga and Swahili and doesn’t lack humour and surprises. It encourages the readers to jot their impressions down, and protects these memories in the long run with a decorative case.
The cover price of the Pocket Treasure is USD 10 (or UGX 35,000/RWF 15,000). All profits go towards the Ilumineers youth program by Gorilla Highlands Experts (GHE).
Distributed with Youthful Energy
In addition to coffee shops, bookstores and hotels in Rwanda, Uganda and DR Congo (DRC), Pocket Treasure also offers the youth an opportunity to earn some income through selling the booklet on the street. Carefully vetted and clearly branded with a GHE t-shirt, these are both the ambassadors and the beneficiaries of the project.
We have decided to print 5,000 booklets and we will do our best to make them available wherever practical.
Built on the Foundation of the Pocket Guide
Pocket Treasure has a famous predecessor. Last published in 2019, the Gorilla Highlands Pocket Guide was a popular free booklet that had nine editions in total, each in 10,000 copies. In 2013 it first appeared as a guide to southwestern Uganda and then gradually covered more and more territory. Rwanda was added in 2016 and the eastern part of the DRC included in 2019. The Covid-19 pandemic put a stop to the project, and changed many things — but not the pleasure of holding a tangible product in your hands in an increasingly digital world.
For more information please email pockettreasure@gorillahighlands.com or WhatsApp +250 783 118 421.
cover photo: Marcus Westberg; other photos: Miha Logar
Stories About Pocket Treasure:
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First 100 Pocket Treasures
Merry Christmas 🎁!The first 100 copies of the Pocket Treasure were ready in Uganda’s Kampala last night, neatly packed in box. Meanwhile in Rwanda’s Kigali, we have been checking on potential venues for the launch.As you wait for the place information, save the date and time: Thursday, 8 January 2026, 5pm. Join us for a…
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Our Gift to the Region: Pocket Treasure
What do you want for Christmas? Our region wants a beautiful little booklet! The team at MPK Graphics in Kampala has just started turning our “Pocket Treasure 2025” file into 5,000 paper copies. Pocket Treasure is the successor to the Gorilla Highlands Pocket Guide, last published in 2019. It will cost USD 10 (RWF 15,000…
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Behind the Scenes of the Groundbreaking Pocket Guide
We feel that we have something world-class, a mini-magazine that has to stop being a shooting star and become the sun.
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We Are Still Alive. Very Alive. In 3 Countries!
Rainy greetings from Nyungwe where the Gorilla Highlands team has embarked on the last week of photography and video work.
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Close-Up: Who’s Behind the Pocket Guide?
They followed him around, wanting to be photographed…
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Pocket Guides will Conquer the World, with Mirika’s Help
“Why didn’t I find the Pocket Guide before coming here?!” often lament travellers.
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Jump into the Future: Our Pocket Guide Roadmap
In 2013, the first 10,000 copies of the GH Pocket Guide hit the counters across Uganda.
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Fascinating Results of the First Ever GH Survey
UPDATE, 5 June 2018: Virunga National Park won’t open before 2019, therefore we are slowing down our integration of Congo into the Gorilla Highlands region. More here. CLIQUEZ ICI POUR LA VERSION EN FRANÇAIS DU RAPPORT It was a bold and delicate move, so we asked for advice, and then took some quality time to…
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Be a Man: Gorilla Highlands Pocket Guide is Your Friend
Ah, Easter… It’s a moving target.
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Pocket Guide Nightmare is Over
Even only one out of thousands of readers deciding to spend a night would mean that the investment has paid off.
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Let’s Be Fair: Kampala versus Kigali
It’s an undisputable fact that Kigali and Kampala are hard to compare.
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Get Your Copy of the New Gorilla Highlands Pocket Guide
Will this be enough to meet the demand? Let’s hope so!
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30,000 Chinese
It all happened very quickly—and was rather personal.
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China, the Superpower We Need on Our Side
“So you would want to translate it into Chinese?” he wanted to understand our plans.
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Pocket Guides Covering Our Transboundary Region
It was not a little job to add Rwanda, almost double the number of pages and make it all happen during the high tourism season.
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Pocket Guide with Rwanda on the Way
If you are from Musanze, you can truly help us a lot with your feedback!
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Background Story: Global Team behind the Video Map
Over three years, sleeping in grass-thatched huts and working in mud structures whose glass-less windows open towards a magnificent mountain lake, or from their homes across the globe, a small group of expert volunteers worked on a project like no other, the Gorilla Highlands Video Map. They cared about an outstanding region in the middle…
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Our Most Popular Product Will Include Rwanda
You cannot claim that you cannot afford a trip to our region while considering the budget you would invest in a city weekend…
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Mapping, Exploring, Adding Musanze
This time we are beginning from scratch.
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Gorilla Highlands Embraces Rwanda
Many Rwandans are jealous of Ugandans, many Ugandans are jealous of Rwandans.
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On the Way to the Total Guide
Sunny greetings from Lake Bunyonyi, from The Heart of Edirisa, where we have entered September 2015 with a new Gorilla Highlands website. It will be under construction throughout the month as we, slowly by slowly, update and post online a lot of great content from our award-winning Interactive eBook. This is not for international guests…