Considered by many the jewel of West Africa, this former French colony makes a fascinating visit for both its history/culture offerings and its ecotourism, both near its dynamic capital Dakar and other regions such as Casamance. And the country's founding president Léopold Senghor was an intellectual at the forefront of the négritude movement, which disavowed colonialism and argued for the importance of a pan-African identity among people of African descent worldwide. The former is concentrated of course in Dakar, with contemporary African culture on display in its streets, clubs, markets, and museums including the IFAN Museum of African Arts and the recently opened, 150,000-square-foot Museum of Black Civilisations.

But the capital region's most famous attraction is a 20-minute ferry ride away: UNESCO World Heritage Gorée Island (pictured here), which preserves the complex used to administer a sgnificant portion of the brutal West African slave trade; they say many were processed here through the “door of no return” (though historians remain divided on that, with some holding that Gorée may have been used for administration only). Regardless, the spooky buildings and museum of slavery here never fail to leave a strong impression on visitors, who have included presidents, popes, and prime ministers (there are a couple of other worthwhile museums on the island, one devoted to women in Senegal and the other to the sea in Senegalese culture).

Read more about cultral and heritage tourism in Africa and elsewhere in my post 12 Top Destinations for African Diaspora Travel.

Homo Cosmicos