Timbuktu

Timbuktu is ranked first on the list of tourist destinations in Mali. Timbuktu marked the end of many a Berber trader's and Bedouin caravan man's arduous journey across the great Sahara's shifting sand dunes.

It is a historical and still-inhabited city in Mali, West Africa, located 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of the Niger River on the southern edge of the Sahara Desert. The town serves as the capital of the Timbuktu Region, one of Mali's eight administrative regions. According to the 2009 census, it had a population of 54,453. Even the name conjured up images of dusty bazaars where spices and sabers and strange folk trinkets rattled and scented the air, evoking mystery and magic and the feel of far-flung exoticism.

Timbuktu is no longer the perplexing, perplexing enigma that it once was, but there are traces of the past.Discover them between the crisscrossing grids of sand-caked streets, in the muddy walls of the Sankore Mosque, or beneath the spiked rises of the Djingareiber.

• Best places to visit: The Quirimbas Archipelago, The Bazaruto Archipelago & Vilanculos, Benguerra, Maputo
• Location: Tombouctou Region, Mali