Abuko Nature Reserve, The Gambia's first reserve, was established in the early twentieth century to safeguard a water gathering source for surrounding people. It was officially established in the 1960s. This region, which is rich in Gambian wildlife, is currently the country's most popular tourist destination, with over 33,000 tourists each year.

Three monkey species, as well as antelope, porcupine, African palm civets, crocodiles, galagos, and around 300 bird species, are all found in this 260-acre reserve. Abuko Nature Reserve is also the nearest tropical forest to Europe, which is a great fact.

Nile crocodiles and other slithering species such as pythons, puff adders, green mambas, spitting cobras, and forest cobras are particularly well-known in the reserve. Sunbirds, green hylias, African goshawks, oriole warblers, yellowbills, and leafloves abound in the small Abuko region.

The 106-hectare reserve has 5 kilometers of pathways and a field station with views over a watering hole that is frequently a wonderful spot for animal observation.

• Location: Brikama Hwy, Lamin, Gambia
• Timing: Open all day
• Famous for: pythons, puff adders, green mambas
• Entry Fee: Free
• Best Time To Visit: early morning or late afternoon.

The Gambia's capital is Banjul. It's a harbor city on the island of Saint Mary's. Banjul, once known as Bathurst after the Secretary of State for the British Colonies, is the country's capital. Many visitors pass through Banjul without giving it a second thought for whatever reason. However, the city has a lot to offer, including a bustling harbor, a rich history, colonial architecture, and an urban market.

Enjoy the street hawkers from Senegal and Guinea, as well as the shopkeepers crammed into historic colonial trade houses, all adding to the commercial district's hectic liveliness. Keep an eye out for the native kirinting home, which is built of bamboo and is usually held by the island's impoverished farmers.

The Gambia's Central Bank is located in Banjul, the country's economic and administrative capital. The country's main sector is peanut processing, although the port of Banjul also exports beeswax, palm wood, palm oil, and skins and hides.

• Location: Gambia
• Timing: Open all day
• Famous for: beeswax, palm wood, palm oil, and skins and hides
• Entry Fee: Free
• Best Time To Visit: May-October.

The Albert Market is Banjul's activity center. It was named after Queen Victoria's husband, Prince Albert, in the mid-nineteenth century. Even back then, there was a lot of bargaining, bartering, and frantic shopping.

Even on its most dull day – which is never! – the market is fascinating!

Shoes, carved wood masks, houseware, electrical devices, amazing textiles, food, veggies, beauty supplies, garments, you name it, you'll find anything. Plan to spend a few hours seeing everything and practicing your negotiation abilities. Albert Market boasts a variety of street vendors and drink booths to pick from if you're searching for a unique culinary experience.

The Albert Market was named after Prince Albert Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Queen Victoria's husband. It's essentially a fragrant, energetic, and bustling market with a big assortment of vibrantly patterned textiles, carved wooden masks, and overflowing fresh food.

If visitors haven't brought their own, the first thing people do when they arrive at the market is buy empty plastic bottles, gourds, or jars to fill with the products they want to buy.

• Location: FC3H+GJC, Portuguese Town, Banjul, Gambia
• Timing: Open all day
• Famous for: textiles, carved wooden masks, and overflowing fresh food
• Entry Fee: Free
• Best Time To Visit: Year-round.

Just west of the Banjul ferry station, on Ma Cumba Jallow Street, just west of the Banjul ferry port, you'll find an untidy combination of deteriorating colonial houses and traditional Krio-style clapboard huts. This is Old Town, which has a striking resemblance to Freetown, Sierra Leone, thanks to the many Freetown family that migrated here in the early 1800s.

As you wander through this magnificent portion of the city, there is enough of history to enjoy. Walking on each street corner looks old and dilapidated but leaves many impressions for visitors. Small buildings, two to three stories high, with a courtyard below where taxis were parked. You can walk around and enter the markets to eat local food of Old Town.

The residents of this historic town are always kind and inviting to visitors, making it an ideal location in The Gambia. Old town has a tropical wet and dry climate, according to the Köppen climate classification (Aw). The city has a long dry season that lasts from November to May and a short wet season that lasts for the remaining five months.

• Location: Gambia
• Timing: Open all day
• Famous for: Ma Cumba Jallow Street
• Entry Fee: Free
• Best Time To Visit: April to October.

Bijilo Forest Park, often known as Monkey Park, is located 11 kilometers from Banjul in the coastal zone.

It's a modest reserve, but it's a source of pride for the residents of the area. On your route to the dunes, the pathways are well-maintained and take you through exceptionally beautiful vegetation, a gallery forest, grass, and low scrub.

The red colobus, vervet, and patas are the three primate species. Tourists are advised not to feed the monkeys since they may be rather naughty! The park's more than 100 kinds of birds, including osprey, bee-eaters, and francolins, will delight bird watchers. The consensus seemed to be that this is a delightful reserve that everyone will fall in love with.

The Gambia's Bijilo Forest Park is rich in birds and provides good possibilities for birding. There are around 133 bird species here, including hornbills, pheasants, cuckoos, sunbirds, starlings, weavers, waxbills, eagles, and hawks, among others.

• Location: C7H9+CCX, Serrekunda, Gambia
• Timing: Open all day
• Famous for: 100 kinds of birds, including osprey, bee-eaters, and francolins
• Entry Fee: US$ 2
• Best Time To Visit: Year-round.

The Brufut Beach resort and community are located between the Kombo South District and the Atlantic Ocean. The beach, which is only 23 kilometers from Banjul, boasts wonderful golden sand and plenty of seclusion. To get to the beach, you must descend the cliffs via winding routes that are rather steep in spots.

After you've arrived and claimed your claim, you'll witness fishermen and women battling with fish, mending nets, and waiting for the tide to turn. That is a wild but beautiful landscape. It's ideal for everything - sunbathing, water activities, beach walks, and cycling – since it's so uncrowded. Sannah-Mentering, a significant pilgrimage destination for Gambian Muslims seeking blessings, lies close.

Visit Brufut Beach if you want to relax and unwind in a peaceful resort and without the bustling town center. The scenery of the blue sea mixed with white sand and golden sunshine is a great thing for tourists who are passionate about sea travel. Surely when you set foot in the Gambia, you will not be able to miss this place.

• Location: Gambia
• Timing: Open all day
• Famous for: blue sea mixed with white sand and golden sunshine
• Entry Fee: Free
• Best Time To Visit: Year-round.

Janjangbureh, formerly known as Georgetown, is a former colonial administrative center on MacCarthy Island in the Gambia River. The historic Commissioner's Quarter may be found on a walk around town. Freed slaves used to live in this 200-year-old home.

The town has little tourist infrastructure, which makes it more or less appealing depending on the sort of vacation you're planning, but the majority of visitors come to Janjangbureh for the bird viewing. Spend a few days with the unusual birds of the area in a lodge or resort outside of the city center.

Bird species are abundant in Janjanbureh's forest, riverine, scrub savanna, and rice fields environments. You could see Abyssinian Rollers, African Crakes, and African Finfoots when bird watching. Anglers can find a variety of fish species in the tidal waters of the River Gambia thus far upstream. You might catch game species like West African Tigerfish, Threadfin Salmon, Tilapia, Freshwater Sole, and Elephant Fish if you bring the correct rod and equipment.

• Location: Gambia
• Timing: Open all day
• Famous for: Sports Fishing, River Cruises, Wildlife Spotting
• Entry Fee: Free
• Best Time To Visit: Summer and Fall.

The Wolof, Mandinka, Fula, and Jola tribes make up the majority of the population of this tranquil coastal community of roughly 7,000 people. Sanyang Village and Beach, which consists of Paradise, Osprey, and Pelican beaches, is often regarded as The Gambia's nicest beachfront.

It boasts a long stretch of secluded shore, surrounded by mangroves and lagoons, and was a popular destination long before the tourist route found its way there. For those who wish to get away from the throng, this is the place to go. The village's major source of income is fishing, and as a result, there is a magnificent fish market.

Sanyang Village and Beach is a great place to people watch and meet the locals. As an added benefit, there are several shady walks for wildlife excursions in the region.

Many believe it to be one of The Gambia's nicest beachfronts, and it appears to have survived much of the previous coastal erosion. The seashore is at its most desolate and barren south of the fish center, surrounded by interior lagoons rimmed by mangroves.

• Location: Gambia
• Timing: Open all day
• Famous for: nicest beachfronts
• Entry Fee: Free
• Best Time To Visit: Year-round, especially in summer.

This ancient edifice, which once housed the white-only Bathurst Club, now houses the National Museum of Gambia. Traditional Gambian life, Bathurst's colonial past, information on the Senegambia stone circle locations, music, and dancing are among the exhibits and displays on show.

Despite its tiny size, the museum is well-designed to showcase the rich culture of this amazing country. The gigantic Kankurang mask hanging in the main hall is impossible to miss. During rites of passage and coming of age, this potent ritual mask is worn.

National Museum of Gambia is a cultural museum in Banjul, Gambia. It houses historical papers and exhibitions relating to Gambia's history. June and October are the ideal months to visit while the weather is favorable and you visit every area of the country.

You may learn about the Gambia's cultural legacy, such as who the Super Eagles were and what a masquerade is, at the Gambia National Museum.

• Location: FC4F+7M6, Banjul, Gambia
• Timing: 7AM - 5PM, open all day except Sunday
• Famous for: historical papers and exhibitions
• Entry Fee: US$ 1
• Best Time To Visit: January to March.

Wassu Stone Circles, which are located in the Central River Region, are said to be the burial places of ancient monarchs and leaders. The stones and layouts, which date from 750 to 1000 AD, range in size from 4-6 meters in circle and contain ten to twenty stones apiece.

Many visitors and archaeologists have been perplexed by the origins and actual significance of the stones, which stand an average of six feet tall. Though the Wassu region has the highest number of stone circles, the country as a whole has hundreds of them. The stones were declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2006, and local mythology claims that anybody who damages them would be cursed, which may explain why they have remained untouched for so long.

Wassu Stone Circles is made up of 11 circles and the frontal stones that go with them. The tallest stones in the vicinity may be found at this location. The most recent excavations on these megalithic rings were placed during Evans and Ozanne's Anglo-Gambian expedition in 1964 and 1965.

• Location: M4RG+MQ9, Wassu, Gambia
• Timing: Open all day
• Famous for: the highest stones of the area
• Entry Fee: Free
• Best Time To Visit: Year-round.