Gabon Is Africa’s Next Must-visit Safari Destination

With their colossal bodies and ponderous feet, elephants have never struck me as masters of hide-and-seek. But in the salad-bowl jungle of Loango National Park, in western Gabon, they proved to be maddeningly good at it.

One sticky afternoon last September, I followed my guide, Dimitri Mavoungou, through the park’s tropical forest in search of the elephants that reside there. It was, supposedly, the tail end of Gabon’s principal dry season, but the sky hung over us like wet cement, and sporadic rain seeped through the canopy. Signs that we were hot on the trail of the creatures we had come to find were everywhere. We skirted logs splintered under the weight of heavy feet and spotted mud smudges on trees well above our heads. Giant footprints pockmarked the path, and a musky tang laced the air. Mavoungou paused to hover his hand over a brown lump of dung: it was still warm.

We slowed down, tiptoeing through an obstacle course of fallen trees and corkscrew liana vines. I recalled Mavoungou’s safety instructions. These forest elephants, he had explained, are far less accustomed to humans than their slightly taller cousins, the African bush elephants that roam the savannas across the continent. Forest elephants are critically endangered, and decades of poaching has left them skittish—sometimes dangerously so. “It’s important to walk slowly and listen,” he warned. “You need to see the animal before it sees you.” 

But in this dense jungle, that was easier said than done. Every rock resembled an elephant’s hindquarters, and every noise seemed plausibly pachyderm. The rain pattered like the fall of heavy feet; the wingbeats of black-casqued hornbills mimicked the sound of twigs snapping. And while I did my best to be as quiet as I could, African grey parrots and red-capped mangabey monkeys screeched from treetops, broadcasting our intrusion.

Suddenly, Mavoungou froze. Some 30 feet ahead, a dark silhouette materialized between the vines and tangled undergrowth. It was grabbing trunkfuls of leaves and scraping the soil with its long, slender tusks. A pale eye, sunken in mud-caked wrinkles, locked onto us for a moment before the creature melted into the thicket, leaving only a rustle in its wake.

The elephant’s peek-a-boo prowess wasn’t entirely surprising, given that Gabon has a lot of jungle to vanish into. Nearly 90 percent of this Colorado-size country, wedged between Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, and the Republic of the Congo on the continent’s Atlantic coast, is cloaked in rainforest. In 2002, then-president Omar Bongo announced plans for 13 national parks, with the aim of preserving 10 percent of the country’s land against illegal logging and poaching. Today Gabon’s jungles are a stronghold for forest elephants, along with mandrills, chimpanzees, gorillas, and endangered giant pangolins.

But despite these wild wonders, tourists are also rare. Trying to determine exactly how rare is something of a puzzle, since nobody seems to be keeping track. The most reliable estimate I could get from travel-industry sources was that 377,000 visitors arrived in 2019. Contrast that with Kenya, which saw more than 2 million that same year.

“Gabon’s tourism industry is still in its embryonic stage,” said Nicola Shepherd, founder of the Explorations Company, the tour operator that arranged my 10-day trip. Lodgings, even at the highest end, lean rustic. And while Chinese-funded infrastructure projects are slowly improving the notoriously bad roads, park-to-park travel still requires grueling drives (or helicopter charters, something Shepherd often recommends). “Gabon offers a truly wild experience, untouched by mass tourism,” she told me. “You need to have a pioneering spirit and revel in the thrill of visiting a country that’s still at the very beginning of its tourism journey.”

That new-frontier feel was exactly what had drawn me. Gabon promised something different: unvarnished, unfiltered, unpredictable. And it delivered, though not always in the ways I had envisioned. 

The day before that first elephant encounter, I had arrived in Libreville, Gabon’s coastal capital, where the plush beachfront Hôtel de la Sablière offered a welcome reprieve from a punishing red-eye. Early the next morning, my adventure began in earnest: a 30-minute flight to Port-Gentil, the country’s second-largest city, followed by a dusty, 3½-hour drive in a clattering 4 x 4. As the city shrank behind us, candy-colored bungalows gave way to roadside stalls peddling bruised plantains and dried fish. We passed fields smoldering from slash-and-burn farming and, later, jungle so dense that it seemed to swallow the road. By the time I arrived at Loango National Park, Libreville couldn’t have felt farther away.

At 600 square miles, Loango is a patchwork of savanna, lagoons, tropical rainforest, and beaches that seem to stretch to eternity. On the way to Akaka Forest Camp, about an hour upriver from the park entrance, the landscape unfurled into a sinewy system of rivers so dark and placid that they mirrored the surrounding jungle in Rorschach blots. Hippos slid under the water’s surface; a lone sitatunga antelope darted across the shore. Moustached monkeys danced between branches, and birds perched everywhere: enough hammerkops, eagles, and kingfishers to make an ornithologist’s head spin. “Africa’s last Eden,” American conservationist Mike Fay once called it, and the moniker felt apt.

I was there to meet a resident far more elusive, though: the western lowland gorilla, of which an estimated 1,500 call Loango home. Which is how the next morning I found myself knee-deep in a swamp, my shoes filling with what felt like lukewarm oatmeal. Ahead of me, Francois Motendi, a gorilla tracker from the Babongo tribe, hacked through the thorny brambles with his machete. A few steps behind, hopscotching over the half-solid ground, was New Jersey–born Martha Robbins, a primatologist from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. She has been studying apes in Gabon for two decades, and now advises the National Park Agency on balancing the demands of science and tourism.

As the swamp gave way to terra firma, Robbins explained that it had taken her team almost five years of daily visits to get a single gorilla group used to the presence of humans, through a tedious and costly process called habituation. Since 2016, a small trickle of visitors—no more than four per day—has been allowed to tag along, and a chunk of their $500-a-head permit fee helps keep the research center running. “There’s so much potential. Tourism could be a huge economic boost for Gabon,” Robbins said. “But what’s most important is that it’s done responsibly. When there’s money involved, a whole other realm of issues opens up. For me, the gorillas always come first.”

An hour into our trek, an apish grunt pierced the silence and a silverback emerged from a thicket. Aloof but unalarmed, it resumed snacking on uapaca fruits before dozing off on a log. Nearby, a mother cradled a newborn with eerie humanity. Her fingers gently traced her baby’s tiny body, and I observed the universal exhaustion of parenthood in her eyes. She, too, noticed us, proving that, in the most soul-stirring wildlife encounters, curiosity is mutual.

On the boat trip back to camp, Mavoungou suddenly cut the motor. “Look,” he whispered, pointing at a quivering stand of papyrus a few yards away. Behind it, an elephant was busy munching on stalks, but sped off into the jungle when it caught wind of our strange, human scent. A few bends downriver, another elephant, squashing through the swamp, watched us for a while until dashing into the water, its trunk rising like a snorkel.

Back at camp, I devoured a dinner that felt almost sinfully out of place in this remote wilderness: plenty of wine, cheesy brussels sprouts, and rich dauphinoise potatoes—a nod to Gabon’s French-colonial legacy. I drifted off to sleep in a jungle symphony of sonorous hippo grunts and singing cicadas.

I could hear the roar of the Atlantic pounding the coast from my veranda at Ndola Luxury Tented Camp, about an hour downstream from Akaka. Loango’s forests had dissolved into sprawling savanna, and Mavoungou and I set out to explore this part of the park by jeep. I kept half an eye out to see if I could spot the legendary “surfing” hippos that sometimes ride the oceanic swell: a sight so utterly bewitching that pictures of the phenomenon by National Geographic photographer Michael Nichols inspired President Bongo to create the national parks.

The animals, alas, stayed away, and what I did see was less inspiring: a confetti of plastic bottles littered the sand in every direction. Mavoungou, sensing my shock, explained how funding for beach cleanups had dried up when Loango’s largest lodge shuttered after a government dispute in 2007. These days, Ndola’s team only manages to sweep the sandy stretch where its guests gather for champagne sundowners. 

“Keeping the coast clean requires a big investment, but nobody wants to take responsibility,” he admitted. “It needs to change. If it stays dirty, tourists will stay away.”

We drove on for hours over bone-rattling sand tracks, past chittering swarms of rosy bee-eaters and herds of forest buffalo. From time to time, we saw elephants venture out on the plains to graze on the coco plums that thrive in the savanna’s sandy soil. We stopped for lunch at one of Ndola’s satellite properties, Louri Wilderness Camp, which had a wooden jetty out onto a lagoon. A placard warned guests of the dangers beneath the surface: hippos, Nile crocodiles, and bull sharks. Right below it, another sign offered a cheerful reminder: swim at your own risk. 

While part of me had wished for a glimpse of one of those underwater predators, a few days later I was praying to avoid them. I was in a plastic kayak on a placid lagoon in Pongara National Park, a forested spit of land about a 20-minute speedboat-hop from Libreville. 

Earlier that morning, my guide, Abdoul Koumangoye Moto, had pointed out hippo tracks in the sand around Pongara Lodge, where we were staying in beachfront cabins. If one of those beasts were to surface now, I figured, it would probably find the burly ranger more appetizing than me. Koumangoye Moto, meanwhile, paddled on with serene indifference, helpfully informing me that pythons and crocodiles were also among the lagoon’s potential hazards. To my relief, we didn’t spot any—though a squirrel leaping from a nearby tree did send my heart rate soaring.

With Pongara Lodge’s cozy wooden bungalows and lounger-lined beach as my base, I filled the next two days with jungle hikes and jeep safaris. Koumangoye Moto told me about the gorillas, elephants, and chimpanzees that inhabit Pongara’s riverine forests and savannas. Between November and March, he said, leatherback turtles crawl ashore to lay eggs. Actual sightings of these species, though, are harder to come by, so Koumangoye Moto filled the lulls with tales of Gabon’s many Indigenous communities, some members of which reside in the area.

He spoke of their belief in forest spirits and how iboga, a psychoactive shrub, could connect people with the spiritual world. I learned that blood-red sap from niove trees is a natural antiseptic and that sniffing crushed aframomum leaves can deliver a natural energy boost. At the start of one of our hikes, he lit up a stick dipped in resin from an okoume tree and explained that it would keep both mosquitoes and malicious spirits at bay. “Nature gives us everything we need,” he said, gesturing broadly around us. “Fish, fruit, even medicine.” Then his tone sharpened. “We’ve been protecting these lands long before the conservationists showed up. Now they tell us to preserve it, while it’s the Western corporations cutting our trees to ship as timber to Europe and America.” (Since 2000, Gabon has significantly reduced deforestation, according to the United Nations.)

Back at the lodge, I sat down with Christian Mbina, the Gabon-born CEO of Luxury Green Resorts, which runs all the properties I’d visited. Over coffee, with a soundtrack of birdsong pouring in from the jungle, Mbina laid out a vision for his country’s ecotourism industry, which has over recent decades been poised to break out, only to run into a series of setbacks. The latest, a coup d’état in 2023, put the brakes on growth. While the situation on the ground has stabilized, visitors have largely stayed away since. (The U.S. Department of State recommends that travelers “exercise increased caution” when visiting.) 

“Our economy is still dependent on oil and timber,” he said. “We need to use our natural resources in better ways.” Like Shepherd, who planned my trip, Mbina stressed the importance of setting the right expectations. “We can’t be compared to East African countries with their savannas and Big Fives, where you can see all the animals you want in an hour,” he said. “Gabon is not a zoo. If you see an animal, you have time to be alone with it; let it come into your mind and soul.”

The next morning, I found a parade of elephant tracks circling my bungalow. The prints were so fresh that I could almost hear the animals’ rustling retreat. It felt like a blessing, but also like a trunk-long nose-thumb from Mother Nature. In all her raw, intoxicating beauty, she doesn’t surrender her secrets on demand. And maybe that’s why visiting Gabon is such a thrill. Its landscapes don’t offer guarantees, but rather the tantalizing tease of possibility. 

Where to Stay

Akaka Forest Camp: Given its location deep inside the jungle of Loango National Park, this intimate camp feels almost impossibly opulent: the six safari-style tents come with proper king beds and have en suite bathrooms with hot showers, while its well-stocked bar and excellent food are just the ticket after a long day of hiking. Hippos and elephants often show up near the communal terrace.

Hôtel de la Sablière: With its palm-tree-lined pool, spacious suites, and generous French-accented breakfasts (the croissants, as big as your face, are perfectly flaky), this plush beachfront hotel is a perfect pit stop before heading into the jungle; Libreville’s international airport is just a 15-minute drive away.

Ndola Luxury Tented Camp; This Loango stalwart has eight wood-and-canvas suites with beaches, lagoons, mangroves, and endless savanna close at hand. And thanks to its proximity to some of Gabon’s best fishing spots, the kitchen’s signature jackfish carpaccio, served in the thatched-roof communal lounge, is as fresh as it gets.

Pongara Lodge: Popular with weekenders from Libreville, which is less than 90 minutes away by a combination boat and jeep transfer, this property overlooks one of the prettiest beaches on the Gabonese coast. The 11 bungalows are eclectic affairs, built from reclaimed wood and furnished with African art.

How to Book

Founded by Nicola Shepherd, who has deep experience in Africa, the Explorations Company is a tour operator that has been planning bespoke adventures for more than three decades. Shepherd and her local contacts help navigate everything from transportation to entry visas. Doing good is woven into the company’s DNA: part of the proceeds from each booking flows to affiliated charities, and itineraries are tailored to guests’ philanthropic and conservation interests.

A version of this story first appeared in the April 2025 issue of Travel + Leisure under the headline “In Search of Wonders.”