Top 5 vacation stopovers in Senegal, the new Africa 2019

Senegal is one of those North African countries you set foot into and you immediately fall in love with. Besides being the home to celebrated RNB artiste, Akon, it has beautiful and jaw-dropping sites which are worth a visit.

Here is its tip 5 destination in Senegal;

Table of Contents

IFAN Museum in Dakar

IFAN Museum, Dakar [Photo by Flickr]

The Musée de l’Institut Fondamental d’Afrique Noire or IFAN Museum of African Arts in Dakar, Senegal is one of the oldest art museums in West Africa. IFAN Museum has an amazing collection of artworks from West Africa.

Senegalese masks, which talk of a rich culture coupled with the French way of life are some of the things you will find here. Musical instruments and statues are also a major attraction here. The museum is one of the regular locations used in the Dakar Biennale exhibition, showing art by contemporary African and diaspora artists

Goree Island

Goree Island in Senegal [Photo by Easyvoyage]

It is one of the most popular destinations for African-American tourists on the premise that their ancestors were once held here as slaves and later sold off to Europe and America. Gorée is a tiny, car-free island off the coast of Dakar, in Senegal. It’s known for its role in the 15th- to 19th-century Atlantic slave trade. On the narrow streets, colonial buildings include the House of Slaves, now a museum

Did you know: In 1978 Gorée Island was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site and several of its historic structures were restored in the 1980s and ’90s

Pink Lake

Lake Retba (Pink Lake), Senegal. Photo by YouTube]

Imagine a lake with a pink-purple colour, and you will be thinking about the Pink Lake on the or Retbal lake on the northern part of Dakar. It has colossal deposits of salt which have earned many people livelihoods through salt harvesting.

The lake is separated from the Atlantic Ocean only by a narrow corridor of dunes and is named for its pink waters, caused by Dunaliella salina algae. The algae produce a red pigment to assist in absorbing light, which provides energy to create ATP. The colour is particularly visible during the dry season (from November to June) and is less visible during the rainy season (July to October).

The pink-purple colour shines brightly with sunrise.

St. Louis

Pirogues, many painted with names of Sufi leaders, jam the Saint-Louis wharf. Today they are used for fishing, transport, and tourism. [Photo by iExplore]

It is a small town that oozes with memories of French colonialism. It was a residential area for French squires but it has since been invaded by fishermen of Senegalese nationality. St Louis houses the oldest church in the region, built-in 1825. It is located in the northwest of Senegal, near the mouth of the Senegal River, and 320 km north of Senegal’s capital city Dakar.

From 1920 to 1957, it also served as the capital of the neighbouring colony of Mauritania. Saint-Louis has a hot desert climate. It only has two seasons, the rainy season from June to October, characterized by heat, humidity and storms, and the dry season from November to May, characterized by the cool ocean breeze and dust from the Harmattan winds

Cap Skirring

Cap Skirring, one of the world’s best beaches in Dakar, Senegal [Photo by Flight Network]

A beautiful town bedecked along the Atlantic Ocean popular with golf course and seaside resorts. Cap Skirring has beautiful beaches with good palm tree shade. The town was first occupied by fishermen. It was discovered by the French of Ziguinchor as a balneal zone in the 1960s. A landing strip for small planes was built at the end of 1960 by members of the Aero Club de Ziguinchor.