Sierra Leone has endless hidden treasures and massive potential for tourism in the future. Some places that we went to were difficult to reach .

While the name ‘Sierra Leone’ only emerged in the mid-15 th century when Portuguese explorer Pedro de Sintra mapped the area, the country itself has been inhabited for at least 2,500 years, most notably by West African tribes like the Limba people who sought sanctuary in the dense tropical rainforest.Its geographic location and natural harbour adjacent to modern-day Freetown meant it soon became popular with ship crews who would stop here to shelter and replenish their stores, eventually becoming an important trans-Atlantic trading point for ivory and slaves in the 17 th and 18 th centuries. The notorious Bunce Island was the point from which slaves were transported to Europe and America.

TWENTY MILES UP THE SIERRA Leone River from Freetown is Bunce Island, the site of a former British slave trading castle. The castle operated from 1670 and 1808 and sent around 50,000 enslaved humans from the African Rice Coast to the Americas. Most of the slaves who went through Bunce Island were sent to South Carolina and Georgia, where knowledge of rice cultivation was in high demand.

The island was also the site of an often forgotten battle during the American Revolutionary War when the (colonial-allied) French attacked and damaged the castle in 1779. The castle had been damaged or destroyed in a number of other previous attacks by the French and pirates (including one by Black Bart), but was rebuilt after each attack.