What do you think?
Rate this book
West Africa
West Africa has both cachet and soul. Home to African landscapes of our imaginations and inhabited by an astonishing diversity of traditional peoples, this is Africa as it once was. Anthony Ham, Lonely Planet Writer
"Getting you to the heart of a place"
Amazing experiences Inspirational images, destination highlights and author recommendations. Plan the perfect trip Planning features and top itineraries give you the freedom to create your ideal trip.Get off the beaten track Our authors uncover local secrets that will make your trip unique.Special Features MusicArts & CraftworkPeoples of West AfricaSafe travel We tell it like it is
Our job is to make amazing travel experiences happen. We visit the places we write about each and every edition. We never take freebies for positive coverage, so you can always rely on us to tell it like it is.
"Getting you to the heart of a place"
Amazing experiences Inspirational images, destination highlights and author recommendations. Plan the perfect trip Planning features and top itineraries give you the freedom to create your ideal trip.Get off the beaten track Our authors uncover local secrets that will make your trip unique.Special Features MusicArts & CraftworkPeoples of West AfricaSafe travel We tell it like it is
Our job is to make amazing travel experiences happen. We visit the places we write about each and every edition. We never take freebies for positive coverage, so you can always rely on us to tell it like it is.
- GenresTravelAfricaNonfiction
520 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 1988
91 people are currently reading
74 people want to read
About the author
Lonely Planet
3,675 books884 followersOUR STORY
A beat-up old car, a few dollars in the pocket and a sense of adventure. In 1972 that’s all Tony and Maureen Wheeler needed for the trip of a lifetime – across Europe and Asia overland to Australia. It took several months, and at the end – broke but inspired – they sat at their kitchen table writing and stapling together their first travel guide, Across Asia on the Cheap. Within a week they’d sold 1500 copies and Lonely Planet was born. One hundred million guidebooks later, Lonely Planet is the world’s leading travel guide publisher with content to almost every destination on the planet.
A beat-up old car, a few dollars in the pocket and a sense of adventure. In 1972 that’s all Tony and Maureen Wheeler needed for the trip of a lifetime – across Europe and Asia overland to Australia. It took several months, and at the end – broke but inspired – they sat at their kitchen table writing and stapling together their first travel guide, Across Asia on the Cheap. Within a week they’d sold 1500 copies and Lonely Planet was born. One hundred million guidebooks later, Lonely Planet is the world’s leading travel guide publisher with content to almost every destination on the planet.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
December 1, 2025
I'm Linda torn here. For the countries it explores thoroughly it's a well written guide as expected from Lonely Planet. Some countries (e.g. Mali) are not suitable for travel and they are shortly mentioned, but those sections still left a bit more to be desired. The guide is suitable for a first overall view over West Africa, but if I were to plan an actual journey to a West African country I would definitely read a few more travel guides in addition (sadly, there aren't many for this area...Maybe this one will have to do, if you don't plan on going to Ghana or Senegal ...)
December 31, 2013
I've only "thoroughly" explored this for Mali and Senegal, and for a guide book it's great. Things in every backwater that surely cannot have a thing to see or do, reliable and varied food suggestions, and sleeping on every budget. You really can do all your planning directly out of a Lonely Planet guide, which I knew already and really appreciate. Their 3-day, 1-week, 2-week, etc prioritized itineraries are spot on, and I taught myself basic getting-around Amharic out of the language guide for Ethiopia a few years ago.
What inspired me to write a review of this book, however, was when my partner and I were sitting around a table in the Siné-Saloum Delta in Senegal and he started reading the short country histories at the start of each chapter. In the span of an hour or two of reading and talking, he--someone who had never studied West Africa or read much about it, on is first visit to the region-- got a thorough introduction to the people, cultures, art, colonial histories, and recent wars of a large handful of individual countries, each given space and depth, respect in its turn. Impressed, I read the 150 pages of background materials in the front and back of the book, and will try to read the introductions to the rest of the West African countries (years studying and some time living in the region and I still know nothing about Togo except that Mali's football team should and can crush them). Overview-level but such a diverse choice of information to summarize, and a million book recommendations for further reading on everything (including photo books for art and a ton of literature I've never heard of, which proved very helpful in the African Lit section of a Dakar bookstore as I stared at a wall of West African authors and was overwhelmed by the newly accesessible francophone world opening up because of improving language skills and the plummeting sadness of the lack of good bookstores [that I've heard of] in Bamako, which is what 'imports' are for, I guess, thank you Senegal vacay!). My only complaint is the health section, where they chose to list off a terrifying array of tropical diseases at the expense of foregrounding the basic but vital actions one can take to avoid and treat most of them at once. I would have moved the health section to the front, as well, since travelers could easily miss it tucked in the back but you really should not attempt travel in West Africa without a solid understanding of the mechanisms of spread of water- and food-born illnesses and malaria.
Overall, it's just really well done, much more than a travel guide, this book enables you to be informed, culturally sensitive, and adventurous without being totally blind.
What inspired me to write a review of this book, however, was when my partner and I were sitting around a table in the Siné-Saloum Delta in Senegal and he started reading the short country histories at the start of each chapter. In the span of an hour or two of reading and talking, he--someone who had never studied West Africa or read much about it, on is first visit to the region-- got a thorough introduction to the people, cultures, art, colonial histories, and recent wars of a large handful of individual countries, each given space and depth, respect in its turn. Impressed, I read the 150 pages of background materials in the front and back of the book, and will try to read the introductions to the rest of the West African countries (years studying and some time living in the region and I still know nothing about Togo except that Mali's football team should and can crush them). Overview-level but such a diverse choice of information to summarize, and a million book recommendations for further reading on everything (including photo books for art and a ton of literature I've never heard of, which proved very helpful in the African Lit section of a Dakar bookstore as I stared at a wall of West African authors and was overwhelmed by the newly accesessible francophone world opening up because of improving language skills and the plummeting sadness of the lack of good bookstores [that I've heard of] in Bamako, which is what 'imports' are for, I guess, thank you Senegal vacay!). My only complaint is the health section, where they chose to list off a terrifying array of tropical diseases at the expense of foregrounding the basic but vital actions one can take to avoid and treat most of them at once. I would have moved the health section to the front, as well, since travelers could easily miss it tucked in the back but you really should not attempt travel in West Africa without a solid understanding of the mechanisms of spread of water- and food-born illnesses and malaria.
Overall, it's just really well done, much more than a travel guide, this book enables you to be informed, culturally sensitive, and adventurous without being totally blind.
December 21, 2007
Not very accurate as far as I could tell. The real reason I'm giving this such a bad rating is the nasty things they said about the country I lived in during the Peace Corps. They called Mauritania the place to avoid..the pits. Okay, so it is the pits and a place to avoid, but still there are positive things to say about it. Especially since they said good thing about Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Cote D'Ivoire, which are all war-torn hellholes.
July 1, 2011
This book is a useful resource for planning my trip to West Africa.
Having visited Ghana and Nigeria, I found the chapters on these countries to be fairly comprehensive. My only criticism was that some of the websites listed in the book were no longer active.
I still hope to take in Mali, Benin, Togo and Cameroon on future trips.
Having visited Ghana and Nigeria, I found the chapters on these countries to be fairly comprehensive. My only criticism was that some of the websites listed in the book were no longer active.
I still hope to take in Mali, Benin, Togo and Cameroon on future trips.
December 18, 2022
Lonely Planet West Africa ** Read and Referred to before Ghana, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, and Sao Tome e Principe trips in 2022
August 3, 2007
I think I got this one the year before a new edition came out. The Lonely Planet guides to less-traveled third-world locales (e.g. West Africa) can be sadly deficient once they reach 4 and 5 years old.
April 13, 2008
I usually get a lot from Lonely Planet guides. This one I found to be lacking. Some of the information was helpful, but I also found more dischord than usual between reality and Lonely Planet representation. That said, I only used the section of the book about Ghana.
December 4, 2010
Solid input for planning our trip to Ghana - Burkina Faso - Mali
May 12, 2020
The only West Africa tour book (DK does not have one)
September 11, 2024
Too out of date to be useful, particularly after Covid.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews