Gambia
Banjul
A pocket-sized capital on the mouth of the Gambia River, and the way in to the Smiling Coast's beaches, mangroves and birds.
Banjul is one of Africa's smallest capitals, a low, unhurried island city at the mouth of the Gambia River, founded by the British as Bathurst and ringed by mangrove creeks. Its sights fit into a day or two: Arch 22 at the entrance to the city, a busy central market and weathered colonial streets. Most visitors sleep on the Atlantic beaches a short drive west and come for winter sun, some of the easiest birding in Africa and the Roots trail upriver to Kunta Kinteh Island, a UNESCO-listed slave-trade fort.
Suggested stay
3–5 days
Language
English
Currency
GMD
Timezone
UTC
Why you'll love Banjul
The river mouth Banjul sits on an island where the Gambia River meets the Atlantic, wrapped in mangrove creeks, with the Barra ferry churning across the estuary to the north bank.
Birds More than 500 species have been recorded in this sliver of a country, and kingfishers, bee-eaters and herons turn up minutes from the beach hotels, with local bird guides to find them.
The Roots trail Boats run upriver to Kunta Kinteh Island, the slave-trade fort renamed for the hero of Alex Haley's Roots, and to the village Haley traced his ancestor to.
Food Domoda in peanut sauce, benachin, yassa sharp with onion and lemon, grilled fish and creek oysters, and small glasses of attaya green tea poured in three rounds.
Best time to visit
Oct-Jun
28-30° days
13.455° N, 16.576° W
UTC · Africa/Banjul
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Weather & when to go to Banjul
Month by month: typical highs and lows, rainfall and rain days.
✓ Best Oct-Jun
Watch for Jun-Nov cyclones & hurricanes risk · Aug-Sep monsoon flooding risk
Cards tinted by calculated verdict · big number = typical daily high, small = low · hover for conditions
When to avoid Banjul
August and September are the height of the rainy season, with heavy downpours, sticky humidity and flooded streets in low-lying Banjul, and the coast goes quiet as many hotels close or scale back. The rains build through July. From November to May it is dry and sunny, though the Harmattan wind can haze the sky with Saharan dust around the turn of the year.
Top things to do in Banjul
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Arch 22 - the gateway with a view
scenic culture arts 👍 PopularThe monumental arch at the entrance to the city, built in the 1990s, is Banjul's best-known landmark. Climb to the gallery at the top for the widest view in town, over the tin roofs, the river mouth and the mangroves, and look into the small museum inside.
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Albert Market - Banjul's great bazaar
shopping culture arts 👍 PopularThe capital's main market since colonial days, a warren of stalls in the city centre. Cloth rules: tie-dye, batik and bright wax prints sold by the length, with tailors ready to sew them up, alongside spices, fish, produce and a craft section of carvings and jewellery. Go in the morning and bargain with good humour.
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National Museum of The Gambia - the country in one building
culture arts historyA modest museum in the centre and the best primer on the country: musical instruments including the kora and balafon, masks, farming tools and traditional dress, with old maps and photographs of colonial Bathurst and the river trade.
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Old Banjul - the colonial quarter on foot
history culture artsThe grid of streets between the market and the waterfront still holds weathered colonial buildings and two-storey houses with timber balconies and tin roofs, along with the Anglican and Catholic cathedrals and the King Fahd Mosque. One old quarter, Half-Die, takes its name from a cholera epidemic in the 1800s that killed much of its population.
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Kunta Kinteh Island and Juffureh - the Roots river trip
history culture arts 👍 PopularBoats head up the Gambia River to the ruined fort on Kunta Kinteh Island, a slave-trading post fought over by the Courlanders, British and French, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site and slowly washing into the river. Trips usually add the small slave-trade museum at Albreda and Juffureh, the village Alex Haley traced his ancestor Kunta Kinte to.
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Kotu Creek - birding from the bridge
nature wildlife ⭐ Highly recommendedThe Gambia is one of Africa's easiest birding countries, and Kotu Creek, beside the resort hotels, is where many people start. From the bridge and the ponds nearby expect kingfishers, herons, waders, bee-eaters and rollers, ideally with one of the local bird guides who work the area. Pirogue trips into the Tanbi mangroves around Banjul add more.
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Kachikally Crocodile Pool - Bakau's sacred crocodiles
culture arts nature wildlifeA sacred pool in the middle of Bakau, where women come to pray for fertility and dozens of crocodiles, well used to people, laze on the banks close enough to touch. A small museum of Gambian culture and a short forest trail sit beside it.
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Banjul-Barra ferry - across the river mouth
scenic historyThe ferry across the wide mouth of the Gambia River to Barra is the country's busiest crossing: crowded, slow and full of life, with traders, cars and foot passengers packed together. On the far bank, Fort Bullen, built by the British in the 1820s to enforce the ban on the slave trade, looks back across the water. Expect queues and delays.
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Serrekunda Market - the country's biggest
shopping culture artsSerrekunda, the largest town in the Gambia and a short ride inland from the coast, has its busiest market: a crush of cloth, produce, fish, hardware and phone stalls, loud, hot and entirely local. Nearby batik workshops let you watch cloth being waxed and dyed.
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Domoda and benachin - eat Gambian
foodOrder domoda, the national dish of meat or fish in a peanut sauce over rice; benachin, rice cooked in one pot with tomato and fish or meat; yassa, sharp with onions and lemon; and superkanja, an okra stew. Grilled oysters from the mangrove creeks, afra from roadside grills and wonjo, a hibiscus drink, round it out.
Best areas to stay in Banjul
$ Budget $$ Mid-range $$$ Premium
Central Banjul
Sightseeing on foot $$Faded colonial capital on the river
Explore hotels in Central Banjul →
Bakau and Cape Point
Character and culture $$Old fishing town above the Atlantic
Explore hotels in Bakau and Cape Point →
Fajara
Quieter stays $$Leafy lanes, golf course, quiet guesthouses
Explore hotels in Fajara →
Kotu
Beach and birds $$Beach resorts beside a birding creek
Explore hotels in Kotu →
Live nightly prices from Booking.com, Agoda and others, centred on Banjul
Getting to & around Banjul
Getting there
Fly into Banjul International at Yundum, inland from the coast; most visitors arrive on winter-sun flights from Europe.
Flight
Banjul International Airport (BJL)
Around 24 km by road through Serrekunda and over Denton Bridge onto the island, typically 30-45 minutes by taxi and less to the coastal hotels. Package holidays include a coach transfer; otherwise take a tourist taxi from outside arrivals.
Ferry
Banjul ferry terminal
From Dakar, shared taxis and buses run south through Kaolack to the Karang border and on to Barra, where the ferry crosses the river mouth to Banjul. Allow most of a day; ferry queues can add hours.
Drive
From Ziguinchor and the Casamance to the south, shared taxis cross the border at Seleti and run north through Brikama to the coast, with no river crossing.
Getting around
Walking
Central Banjul is compact and flat, and Arch 22, the market, the museum and the ferry are all within an easy walk.
Free
Tourist taxi
Green tourist taxis wait outside the hotels and charge set rates, dearer than ordinary taxis but handy for day trips. Confirm the fare first.
TBC
Shared taxi and gele-gele
Yellow-and-green shared taxis and gele-gele minibuses run set routes between Banjul, Serrekunda and the coast, leaving when full. Pay the driver or apprentice in cash.
TBC
Ferry
The Banjul-Barra ferry is the main crossing to the north bank. Queues can be long and departures irregular, so allow plenty of time.
TBC
Day trips from Banjul
Kunta Kinteh Island and Juffureh
Full daySlave-trade heritage
The classic Roots excursion: the ruined fort on Kunta Kinteh Island, part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the slave-trade museum at Albreda and the village of Juffureh, which Alex Haley traced as Kunta Kinte's home. River trips often add birdlife along the banks and a stop at Fort Bullen near Barra.
Getting there
ferry | tour | car
A few hours upriver by tour boat, or the Barra ferry and a drive along the north bank
Abuko Nature Reserve
Half dayForest wildlife reserve
The country's oldest nature reserve, a small patch of gallery forest around a stream and pools, with trails, hides, crocodiles, green vervet and red colobus monkeys, and forest birds such as turacos and paradise flycatchers. Go early, when the birds are busiest.
Getting there
car
About 30 minutes inland from the coast by taxi
Tanji fishing village and bird reserve
Half dayFishing beach and lagoons
In the afternoon painted pirogues run up onto Tanji's beach and the catch is hauled ashore, sold and carried to the smoking sheds behind the dunes, one of the most vivid scenes on the coast. The bird reserve next door protects lagoons, dunes and scrub for waders, gulls and terns.
Getting there
car
About 40 minutes south along the coast road by taxi
Janjanbureh and the Wassu stone circles
2 daysUpriver heritage and wildlife
The long road inland reaches Janjanbureh, an old colonial river town on MacCarthy Island, and the Wassu stone circles, part of a World Heritage Site of megalithic circles shared with Senegal. Boat trips pass the islands of River Gambia National Park, home to rehabilitated chimpanzees, with hippos in the channels.
Getting there
car | tour | ferry
Most of a day by road upriver each way, usually with a driver or tour, plus boat trips on the river
A little history of Banjul
Mandinka, Wolof, Jola, Fula and Serer peoples lived along the Gambia River long before Portuguese navigators sailed into its mouth in the 1450s, and the river became one of the first highways of the Atlantic slave trade. The Baltic Duchy of Courland built a fort on the island now called Kunta Kinteh in 1651, the English seized it a decade later, and British and French traders fought over the river for more than a century. After Britain outlawed the slave trade in 1807, it founded Bathurst on St Mary's Island in 1816 as a base to police the river mouth, naming it after the colonial secretary, Earl Bathurst.
Bathurst became the capital of a British colony drawn tight along both banks of the river, its borders with French Senegal agreed in 1889, which is why the Gambia is a narrow strip almost surrounded by its neighbour. Independence came in 1965 and a republic in 1970, and in 1973 the capital took back the island's Mandinka name, Banjul, said to come from the rope fibre once gathered there. Alex Haley's Roots, which traced his family to Juffureh upriver, made the Gambia a place of pilgrimage for many African Americans.
Portuguese navigators sail into the mouth of the Gambia River.
The Duchy of Courland builds a fort on St Andrew's Island, later James Island and today Kunta Kinteh Island.
The English take the island and rename it James Island after the Duke of York.
Captain Alexander Grant founds Bathurst on St Mary's Island as a base against the now-banned slave trade.
Britain and France agree the borders that leave the Gambia as a strip of land along the river.
The Gambia becomes independent, with Bathurst as its capital.
Bathurst is renamed Banjul.
Alex Haley publishes Roots, tracing his ancestor Kunta Kinte to Juffureh and drawing visitors upriver.
James Island and related sites on the river are inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site; the island is renamed Kunta Kinteh Island in 2011.
Know before you go
Payment
Cash preferred
English
Everywhere
Wifi
Workable
Power
Type G
230 V, 50 Hz
Dialing
+220
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Monsoon flooding risk in this window; check current conditions before you go.
The months our climate read flags to avoid: the wettest, lowest-rated weather of the year.
FAQs about Banjul
▸ When is the best time to visit Banjul?
The dry season from November to May is the main season: sunny, rainless and warm, and the best time for birding, when European migrants winter here. June is still good. The rains build through July and peak in August and September, with heavy downpours, high humidity and flooding in low-lying Banjul. October is warm and green as the rains ease and the season starts again.
▸ How many days do I need in Banjul?
A day covers Banjul itself: Arch 22, Albert Market, the National Museum and a walk through the old colonial streets. Base yourself on the coast for three to five days to add Kachikally's crocodiles in Bakau, birding at Kotu Creek, Abuko Nature Reserve, the fishing beach at Tanji and the boat trip upriver to Kunta Kinteh Island. Winter-sun visitors often stay a week or two.
▸ Is Banjul safe for visitors?
The Gambia has a reputation as a relaxed, friendly place to travel. The standing nuisance is bumsters, young men on the beaches and tourist strips offering friendship, guiding or deals; a polite, firm no usually ends it, and your hotel can arrange a guide instead. Keep valuables out of sight, take taxis after dark and check your own government's current advice before travelling.
▸ What language is spoken in Banjul?
English is the official language, used in government, schools and on signs, a legacy of British rule. On the street Wolof is the everyday language of Banjul, while Mandinka is the most widely spoken language in the country, with Fula, Jola and Serahule also common. A few greetings in Wolof or Mandinka go a long way.
▸ What should I eat in Banjul?
Domoda, meat or fish in a peanut sauce over rice, is the national dish. Try benachin, a one-pot rice dish; yassa, with onions and lemon; and superkanja, an okra stew. Grilled fish, oysters from the mangrove creeks and afra, roadside grilled meat, are everywhere. Drink wonjo, made from hibiscus, baobab juice and attaya, sweet green tea poured in three rounds.