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Overview

Magnificent family vacation in Senegal
There is a magical place in Palmarin, Senegal. The unique architectural design houses only 13 rooms. Dreamers, gourmets, aesthetes, children, dreamers, people from all
walks of life come here and find a great framework in which they can let their dreams and desires come true.

When morning comes, wake up in the arms of a colossal baobab. Don’t worry: breakfast will be brought up, accompanied with a great African smile. Witness the reds and golds of the sunrise from the privacy of your balcony, peaceful and content. This is the start of a beautiful day.

We love Senegal. We love its people. We love their lifestyle. And we want you to love them too. At the Lodge, discover a vast – and uniquely African – landscape.

This is a magnificent vacation in Senegal, with (or without!) your kids. This lodge set up in an exceptional site of rare beauty gives you the opportunity to sleep in a baobab, as if a childhood dream was finally coming true. Or perhaps you prefer to live in a house built on stilts in the middle on a lagoon, or a room with walls made of dried earth. Truly, this is your chance for a rare family vacation in Senegal!

Make sure you contact our specialist for more information on this exceptional family vacation!

Itinerary

Day 1| Departure from Canada. International flight

Day 2| Dakar
Arrival at Dakar airport, where our correspondent is waiting to welcome you. Transfer to your lodgings. Dinner and overnight in a Dakar guesthouse.

Day 3| Dakar - Goree
Enjoy breakfast and then take a tour of the city of Dakar. Located on a grand harbor south of the Cap Vert Peninsula, Dakar is the westernmost point in Africa. Capital of Senegal since 1960, the architecture of the colonial times is still very much visible. Today, one million people now live in the great modern city of Dakar, where tradition lives on, side-by-side with modern western lifestyles. Visit Independence Place and the imposing Cathedral of the African Souvenir: built in 1929, this building is a curious blend of different styles, with two towers that look like minarets, a dome inspired by Byzantine styles, and a monumental façade.

Continue on to the pier for a visit of Goree Island. Classified as a UNESCO world heritage site, Goree successively passed through the hands of the Portuguese, Dutch, and French, and was a major port in the slave trade as early as the 17th century. Its past both tragic and sumptuous, this island will charm you with its faded colors, aging ochre, painted wood balconies, and small sandy streets leading to the ocean. Visit the island and the House of Slaves, where men, women, and children were huddled together, sorted, and imprisoned before a forced exile to the other side of the Atlantic. To this day, Goree is a moving reminder of a past filled with suffering that should serve as a lesson to the world, never to repeat such crimes against humanity. Lunch in Goree. Return to Dakar. Dinner and overnight in your charming guesthouse. (Please note that the House of Slaves is closed on Mondays).

Day 4| Dakar - Rose Lake - Saloum
After breakfast you head to Rose Lake. This lake was once on the edge of the sea, before the movement of the dunes isolated it inland in the 15th century. It now sits a few hundred meters from the ocean, surrounded by dunes and brush. A totally unique site, the lake turns pink when the sun hits it at the right angle. The pink shades turn darker as the sun sets, turning from pink to mauve and violet. Aside from its unique colors, its elevated also sets it apart from other lakes: at 300g/L, its salinity places it second in the world, behind the Dead Sea. In other words: everything floats here. This high salinity allows women from the surrounding area to remove the salt right from the bottom of the lake where it naturally accumulates, using special picks. A short walk will allow you to watch them in action. This salt extraction is a godsend for many families in the area. Note that this place serves as the finishing line for the world-famous Paris-Dakar Rally. Lunch in Niaga, before continuing on towards Saloum. Settle into your lodge. Dinner and overnight in the lodge.

Day 5| Niassam
Breakfast. Day of leisure, half-board.

Day 6| Niassam
Breakfast. Day of leisure, half-board.

Optional: Visit Joal Fadiouth = 28.00 €/person, payable on location.
Leave your hotel for Joal-Fadiouth, an ancient animist Serer village where the first president of the republic of Senegal was born. Visit the city and the port, one of Senegal’s largest, and continue on to Fadiouth, a village built on a mountain of shells. A wooden bridge links this town with Joal. The catholic cemetery and ancient granaries built on stilts right on the river are the pride of the village, which renounced its animist religion and adopted Christianity. Take a 90 min stroll around the area before returning to your hotel to enjoy lunch. You can also have breakfast in Joal for 12.00 €/person.

Day 7| Niassam
Breakfast. Day of leisure, half-board.
Enjoy a ride on a pirogue on the Saloum’s natural channels, following the river as it twists and turns around islands and beautiful mangroves. Classified as a World Biosphere Reserve, Saloum National Park houses many bird species. Enjoy an afternoon walk in the village and take the time to meet the local inhabitants.

Day 8| Niassam
Breakfast. Day of leisure, half-board.

Day 9| Niassam
Breakfast. Day of leisure, half-board.

Day 10| Niassam - Dakar - Airport
After breakfast, you will be taken to the airport according to your flight schedule. Someone will be there to assist you with check-in formalities.

Budget

**Rates published on this website are for information purposes only and are not legally binding (since departure dates are not given). Prices on this website are known to fluctuate frequently in relation to changes in currencies and hotel pricing. In order to obtain a definite quote, please click here.

Other fees

Lodging

Additional Information

The Library
The Lodge is a great place to learn more about Africa. The library has a great selection of African literature: African authors, travel diaries, and cultural studies. Of course, there are also plenty of novels, murder mysteries, comic books, and children’s books.

The Restaurant
As our clients often say: “ … and on top of it all, the food is great”. In such a remote location, how is it possible to provide quality cuisine? Simply by replacing quantity of ingredients by quality of ingredients!

We combine local flavor with fresh ingredients
Bissap flowers, monkey’s bread, fruit of the baobab and tamarind seeds are just a few of the exotic ingredients on the menu. A varied assortment of daily catches means you get to taste fresh fish, accompanied with cucumber or tomato sorbet, or simply grilled with an original sauce. You’ll love the village duck marinated in honey made from cashew fruit, as well as the spicy zebu. And to top it all off, delight your senses with a ginger sorbet, or its more traditional grapefruit-flavored cousin. In any case, bon appétit – or, as they say here: Andiparena!

The Pool
To go cool off in the water, you have many interesting options to choose from:
Take a dip in the pool while you sip a cocktail or watch over the kids. Or, if you’d rather go for a swim, the lagoon offers a lovely natural option. Those who are truly brave can walk for a half hour and go swimming in the ocean.

Surrounded by nature
At the Lodge, discover vast African landscapes. From the top of Shell Mountain, enjoy 360° views of untamed wilderness: the savanna, the thin blue line of the ocean, the silhouettes of the baobabs and palm trees, the lagoons, the changing colors of the sands, the small islands scattered on the horizon, and, of course, the countless birds all right there in front of you. Their joyful ruckus reminds our ears that we are in their territory, in a world of pure, untouched nature.

At night, the deep silence is broken from time to time by the squeaking jackals or the cry of a hyena passing nearby. We are thrust into this wild atmosphere and must follow its rules, discretely, without disturbing it, acknowledging a deep respect for the benevolent and eternal forces at play here.

First up in luxury: a terrace with a magnificent view!
Rest assured: your room has all you need to make sure you’re living the high life throughout your stay here. Your bathroom is equipped with a sink, a shower, and a toilet. Hot water buckets are available in the wintertime.

All rooms have double beds, and generally, with a child’s bed.
If you are traveling with more than one child please contact us for more information. We offer a variety of different rooms, some of which can accommodate a family with 2-3 children.

The fact that we use solar energy means that electricity is available 24 hours a day, even at night. This being said, our isolated location means we cannot offer air conditioning.


Health
As soon as you announce that you’re leaving for Africa, doctors and bureaucrats wave an impressive list of warnings, medication, and vaccines in front of you. Please keep in mind, however, that Africa is a big place, and that Niassam is one particularly safe little corner of this continent. Don’t ruin your trip with the nausea and unpleasant side effects associated with such medication. The yellow fever vaccine is not mandatory, and there is no risk of contracting this disease anywhere near our lodge. As for anti-malaria medication: from November to July, there are practically no mosquitoes. This means that sleeping under a mosquito net and using mosquito repellant is enough to protect you at this time of year. Of course, the choice is yours…

Should we bring gifts?
It is customary in Africa to bring gifts when visiting friends, family, a village chief, or other person of interest. However, handing out candy or crayons to children you meet in the bush destroys the potential for any authentic relationships between you and the local population, turning them into beggars, and you into an unwilling Santa Claus.

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Foundation Against Indifference Towards Children

By registering for this trip to Senegal, you are donating a sum of 100 $ (already included in the package price) to the Foundation Against Indifference Towards Children. Uniktour is proud to be affiliated with this foundation whose mission is to help children in situations of need, particularly those forced to work or beg. We want to bring their dignity back to these unfortunate slaves, to return them to their families whenever possible, to support them and to encourage education in Senegal. We also want to help older children learn how to read and help them get work. This support allows many young men and women gain their economic freedom.

Our short-term project is to support training at a woodworking shop, so that the 20 or so young men currently working there can learn in complete safety. By supplying them with adequate footwear, masks, and gloves, we can improve their working conditions by 100%. Also, we would like to offer these future woodworkers basic education adapted to their needs. Something is clearly missing, since none of them knows how to read or write.

The Foundation Against Indifference Towards children was established in 2009. This organization came to life after two Canadians were outraged to discover that slavery still exists in this day and age, and that it affects so many young people from Senegal. For more information, please visit their website: www.aide-enfance.org

Overview

Senegal is a country south of the Senegal River in western Africa that gained its independence in 1960. Senegal is bounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and shares borders with Mauritania to the north, Mali to the east, and Guinea and Guinea-Bissau to the south; internally it almost entirely surrounds Gambia, except the narrow Atlantic Ocean coastline. Senegal spreads over a land area of almost 197,000 sq km, and has an estimated population of about 13.7 million. The capital Dakar is one of the busiest cities in western Africa, and lies on the westernmost tip of the continent. With 1 million habitants, it is also the biggest city of the country with all official buildings, a well developed transportation system and international connections. The main language spoken in Senegal is French, due to the colonial legacy, but dozens of regional languages are still used as of today by the population.

Tourism

By registering for any trip to Senegal, an amount of $ 100, already included in your package, will be donated to the Foundation against indifference for Children's Aid. Uniktour is proud to be a partner of the foundation, which mission is to help children in difficult situations, especially working children, beggars and housemaids. We want to give back human dignity to these slaves of all kinds, reintegrate them into their families when possible and support them for enrollment in the official education system of the country. For teenagers, we want to make literacy and apprenticeships accessible, in order to offer economic independence to the sponsored young women and men.

Short term project: Support training in carpentry workshops for the twenty young boys who have already enrolled can learn safely. Providing appropriate footwear, masks and gloves will improve 100% of their working conditions. Also, it is necessary to provide basic classes of skills and knowledge appropriate for these future carpenters. Being illiterate, they lack a fundamental basis of their learning.

An association created by the efforts of two Canadians outraged that slavery still exists nowadays and affects young Senegalese, the Foundation against indifference for Children's Aid was established in 2009. For more information please visit: www.aide-enfance.org

Geography

Most of Senegal is flat and composed of gently steppe or savanna grassland; there is forest only in the southwest, in the Casamance region, a broad strip of land located between Gambia and Guinea-Bissau. To the north lies the small Lompoul desert with impressive sand dunes, the westernmost fringe of a much bigger African ensemble, the Sahel desert. Nearly everywhere the land is only slightly above sea level. In the southeast, however, foothills of Guinea's Fouta Djallon highlands reach elevations of 500 m. The coastline, some 480 km long, varies from wide, sandy beaches north of Cape Verde with some rocky areas to a maze of plain, marshy islands and meandering streams in the south, called bolongs. These salted estuaries are coated with mangrove and totally disappear when the tide goes up.

Culture

Senegal has the required assets for a blooming tourism industry. It is only a few hours away from major tourist markets. Besides that, this sunny country claims more than 3000 hours of sunshine yearly. All forms of tourism can be experienced in Senegal seaside resorts: leisure, aquatic sports, scuba diving, horseback riding, and desert excursions are reminiscent of the mythical meharees from the spice trade era. Among the sand dunes, find out traditional villages where time stands still as the aboriginal people, such as the Fulani, stick to their timeless rites and surreal landscapes changing with the sun cycle. Many natural reserves across the country offer a privileged look upon a fantastic diversified fauna and flora: ecotourism is a rising interest in Senegal and opportunities to witness the rituals of natural life abound in this beautiful country. The reefs and cays of the coastline are heaven for divers, holding out the promise of such extraordinary sightings of the underworld, and the quiet beaches of the Atlantic Ocean, as well as fishermen harbours, are perfect for a relaxing walk with the caressing trade winds. Dakar, the melting pot capital city dotted with many historical museums and cultural landmarks, is one of the busiest cruise ships port in Africa and boasts an exciting restaurant and club scene, as well as duty-free shops.
Despite various influences (Western influence due to a long French presence in West Africa, Middle Eastern influence following a tradition of multiple exchanges with North Africa and Arab countries), Senegal has its own brand of exotic music, food and customs that gives it the right dash of spice. From the largest cities of Dakar and Saint-Louis to the tiniest and most remote villages in the hinterland, authenticity is everywhere and colours, scents, crafts and traditional patterns seem to blend harmoniously to bring the visitor into an exotic daydream.

Climate

The local climate is tropical with well-defined dry and humid seasons that result from northeast winter winds and southwest summer winds. Dakar's annual rainfall of about 600 mm occurs between June and October when maximum temperatures average 27 °C; December to February minimum temperatures are about 17 °C. The dry season runs from December through to April with cool trade winds in coastal areas. Throughout the rest of the year, a hot monsoon wind blows from the south bringing the rainy season and hot, humid weather. Interior temperatures can be substantially higher than along the coast, and rainfall increases substantially farther south, exceeding 1,500 mm annually in some areas. The far interior of the country, particularly on the border of Mali, temperatures can reach as high as 45 °C in summer. The best period to travel to Senegal is northern hemisphere winter, when the climate is mild to warm and the touristic activities are more enjoyable.