November 2019: I visited Senegal twice. In Senegal I only had one goal..to visit Gorée Island. My first Senegal visit was via on a one-night stop-over from Mali enroute to Sierra Leone. In Mali, I met this loud and boisterous American security contractor, who checked...

November 2019: My favorite travel destinations tend to be islands, especially seldom-visited island nations. One of the highlights of my travels is São Tomé, a former Portuguese colony with a mysterious, mountainous interior covered in rainforests, dotted with...

First Impressions of Guinea November 2019 – Into the Unknown Before this trip, Guinea was a country I knew almost nothing about. I had never met anyone from there—nor had I encountered a fellow traveler who had been. It was a blank spot on the map for me, which only...

Exploring Ghana’s Lesser-Known Slave History: A Journey to Apam November 2019: With just two days in Ghana, I wanted to delve into the country’s harrowing past and visit some of its slave castles—remnants of a dark chapter in both European and African history. As one...

Into the Rainforest of Côte d’Ivoire November 2019 – Seeking the Wildest Corner With only five days to spare in Côte d’Ivoire, I wanted to spend my time in the wildest, most ecologically significant corner of the country—Taï National Park. This UNESCO World Heritage...