By Foday Moriba Conteh
The New York Times has listed Sierra Leone as the 21 out of 52 places in the world to visit in 2022 for its Ecotourism. It could be recalled that in the 1980s, the sandy, palm-fringed beaches of Sierra Leone used to attract high-flying tourists from Europe and beyond.
Lamentably, visitors disappeared when the civil war broke out in the 1990s, and today — after nearly 20 years of peace and nearly six years after an Ebola outbreak ended — most have yet to return. But this small nation has an enormous amount to offer adventurous visitors, and authorities hope that tourism will be a more sustainable resource than diamonds or gold.
Visitors who make the trip can spend the night in a jungly eco-lodge at the Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary enjoy a cold beer and fresh lobster on the beaches of the Western Peninsula; learn about a painful chapter in history on a tour of the ruined slave fort on Bunce Island; and make the three- or four-day expedition to the top of 6,381-foot Mount Bintumani, the country’s highest peak.
