Senegal is a country I visited for the first and second time in early 2025. And I loved it! I spent a total of 26 days from Saint-Louis at the border with Mauritania to Cap Skirring and Ziguinchor in Casamance. Before this trip, distance-wise, the only time I’ve come ‘close’ to Senegal when I was in Cabo Verde in 2019. Jonas and I also passed through The Gambia on the way to southern Senegal.
Things to Do in Senegal (Next Time)
- Hitchhike just a little bit here and there ✅
- Visit the capital city Dakar. It’s a major goal to stand on the westernmost point of mainland Africa ✅
- Pick up some words and phrases in a local language, such as Wolof or Mandinka ✅. Perhaps I’ll also meet some Arabic speakers, which I hope I will be comfortable in by then
- Visit lighthouses, markets, the Juche-style African Rennaisance Monument ✅, Mosque of the Divinity, Cap Manuel lighthouse and ‘la caverne’ bunker, Henriette Bathily Women’s Museum,
- When arriving or departing via Dakar, use the TER train ✅ to get to or from the airport (edit: in 2025, it still only went between Dakar Plateau and Diamniadio). It’s a very new train!
- From the capital Dakar, make a day trip to Gorée Island ✅ with its museums about the Atlantic slave trade and history of (also Dutch) colonization
- Go to Lake Retba, which is a salty pink lake, which is at its pinkest between November and May
- Travel off to Touba, Senegal’s second-biggest city. It’s a religious center of the Mouride order with the Great Mosque of Touba (open to tourists) as its main draw
- Visit Saint Louis ✅ at the mouth of the River Senegal. Besides attractions inside the city, such as the Hotel de la Poste and the
Faidherbe Bridge (it was perhaps supposed to cross the Danube in Romania near Cernavodă!), I’d love to visit the island of Langue de Barbarie NP ✅ and its ruins
- See the Great Green Wall of Africa in northern Senegal. It’s an attempt to hold back the encroaching Saharan sands
- Enjoy not having a peanut allergy ✅ (I ate lots of veggie maafé), since Senegal produces and consumes a lot of groundnuts
- On the way to Gambia, visit the Stone Circles of Senegambia UNESCO World Heritage Site
- Visit some national parks to see nature and wildlife. I mainly have my eyes set on Niokolo-Koba NP, which I read is the only place in West Africa to see lions (big kitties) in the wild. While in that area, I might as well go to Dindefelo Falls, which is a waterfall about 100 meters tall on the border with Guinea
- Drink bouye ✅ (baobab) juice. I liked baobab in Madagascar, so I’d like to try the Senegalese variety. Also, café Touba ✅ is a local spiced coffee drink that sounds interesting, along with juices such as dakhar ✅ (tamarind), bissap ✅ (I know it from Madagascar, it’s hibiscus), and ditakh ✅
- Visit Cap Skirring ✅ or Ziguinchor ✅. OSM says there’s a ferry from Dakar to Carabane/Elinkine/Ziguinchor, which would be big if true
- Witness some Kankurang initiation rites, if I come across them.
- Kayak on the Senegal, Gambia, or Casamance rivers. One of these must have a guided tour available as a day trip
- Senegal appears to have some veg(etari)an native foods, such as ndambé (beans in tomato sauce) for breakfast, ngalakh (peanut, baobab, and couscous), sombi (rice pudding), lakh, sombi, and thiakry ✅ for dessert. I don’t know what else will be vegetarian in Senegal and I bet things won’t be easy. Perhaps there’s a vegetarian version of fattaya, chere, or tchou or some recipe using baobab lalo powder
- Go to some remote places, such as Mar Lodj Island ✅, Joal Fadiouth ✅ village plus clamshell island
Map of Things to Do in Senegal
Here’s a preliminary map I made with all the places and then some marked. Note that I haven’t been to Senegal yet, so I can’t give advice about open border crossings and such.
If you know cool places and things to do in Senegal, comment at the bottom of this page so I can always find your suggestions again! Tips are especially welcome if you are Senegalese or have lived there for a while
Are you a travel blogger and do you have good posts about Senegal? Drop them in a comment below and I’ll read them!
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Photo credits:
Demba JooB on Unsplash
Curioso Photography on Unsplash
Omoniyi David on Unsplash
TD AD on Unsplash
E. Diop on Unsplash