Our Guinea-Bissau holidays & tours
Our Guinea-Bissau holidays and Guinea-Bissau tours let you unlock the rituals, music and traditional island societies of West Africa just over the border from the big boy neighbour, Senegal. Tiny Guinea-Bissau features mangrove forests, manatees, isolated Felupe and Baiote villages and the beautiful Bijagos Islands where turtles and salt water hippos live alongside the matriarchal community living in Okinka Pampa village. Our holidays ensure that the benefit of tourism is felt by even the smallest communities; you’ll visit rice farmers, local markets, women’s cooperatives, and embark on forest walks with eco-guides. And by travelling in very small groups, our Guinea-Bissau trips keep your negative impact as low as possible.
Guinea Bissau tours
Discover one of Africa's least visited nations
From
£3295 to £3625
8 days
ex flights
West Africa Explorer, Guinea Bissau & Senegal
Historic towns, vibrant tribal culture & the Bijagos Islands
From
£4049 to £4249
14 days
ex flights
West Africa tour, Bissau to Cotonou
Voodoo heartlands, traditional storytellers and lush islands
From
£9899 to £10599
4 weeks
ex flights
Senegal & Guinea Bissau cultural holiday
Discover Senegal and Guinea Bissau on this 14 day group tour
From
£4615 to £4835
14 days
ex flights
West Africa 8 week expedition, Morocco to Benin
An Epic 56 day Sahara to Atlantic Journey Across West Africa
From
£17259 to £18155
8 weeks
ex flights
Western Sahara overland tour, Marrakech to Bissau
Travel from North Africa through the Sahara to the tropics
From
£9799 to £10299
4 weeks
ex flights
Contact Us
Call us for a chat about our holidays. We are happy to discuss your holiday and help in any way we can. No bots, queues or awful hold music.
01273 823 700
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Guinea-Bissau map & highlights
Guinea-Bissau is a difficult country to navigate independently, so joining a specialist small group trip is the best way to travel. There’s an airport in the capital Bissau, and flights in and out often arrive and depart in the early hours of the morning. All other travel is overland on poor roads. Most yours of Guinea-Bissau focus on its superb coastline, made up of lagoons and wide tidal estuaries flanked by mangrove swamps, so you’ll be boarding a boat, too, at some point. A flight over the Bijagos Islands on a private plane is a lovely addition on some itineraries.
Bijagos Archipelago
1. Bijagos Archipelago
This archipelago of 88 islands, 65km off the mainland, has fascinating wildlife and an isolated ethnic population, still governed by tribal chiefs and priestesses. Rare saltwater hippos are found on Orango Island and the archipelago is also one of the most important sea turtle nesting sites in Africa. About 20 islands are inhabited; Bubaque, the largest village of the archipelago, has a tiny museum of local culture.
Bissau
2. Bissau
Often considered the most ‘Mediterranean’ of West Africa’s capitals, Bissau is huge relative to the country’s size, and filled with decaying Portuguese colonial buildings. Highlights include Bissau Velho, the old city center, and nearby Fortaleza d’Amura, still used by the country's military. Venture into the barrios and you’ll hear Portuguese, the lingua franca Criolu and local languages being spoken.
Bolama Island
3. Bolama Island
An early Portuguese trading post, Bolama was the capital of Portuguese Guinea from 1871 to 1941, before it was moved to Bissau. Some local people still live here, but Bolama’s buildings have fallen into disrepair, and it has a ghost town feel. Originally laid out like a Roman citadel, today all that remains are empty avenues and squares, dry fountains, overgrown gardens and crumbling colonial mansions.
Manjaco ethnic group
4. Manjaco ethnic group
The Manjaco ethnic group live in tiny villages peppered through the forests of the Senegal border. Known for their ancestor worship, the Manjaco create sacred wooden sculptures from wooden poles, called pecab, that represent the spirits of their ancestors. Different generations have developed their own styles of sculpture, and with the permission of village elders, it’s possible to see this vibrant tribal artform.
Mask dances
5. Mask dances
Guinea-Bissau is home to vibrant traditions and unique culture, and many organised tours visit local ethnic groups to learn more about their lives and perhaps experience a traditional ceremony. The vaca bruto (wild bull) wooden mask, complete with real horns and leather ears, is used in dramatic dances celebrating the harvest in the Bijagos Archipelago.
Quinhamel
6. Quinhamel
A city to the west of the capital Bissau, Quinhamel is a good base for exploring the flooded mangrove forests near the coast, home to superb birdlife including pelicans, goliath herons and flamingos. It’s close to the isolated territory around the border with Senegal, where you can visit the villages of local Felupe and Baiotes people, who have a unique style of architecture.
Our Guinea Bissau holidays reviews
3.7
3Guinea Bissau holidays reviews
David Elsey11 Mar 2025
Being on the back of a motorcycle driven by a young man down jungle tracks.read more
Rick Parisi17 Jan 2024
West Africa is very different from the other parts of Africa that I have visited.
It was very interesting to see this completely different culture.read more
Michael Segal17 Nov 2019
It's almost impossible to pick one thing. The range and variety of experiences were fantastic. Perhaps the thing that will stick most vividly in my memory was
the time spent at the fishing village of Kayar.read more
