Probably offering the greatest potential in the tourism industry, the beaches along the Freetown Peninsula are a sight to behold.
Beautiful and breathtaking, on a clear day they offer a clear representation of colours of the Sierra Leone flag. The green backdrop of mountains, coupled with the white sand at Number Two beach and clear blue water brings really does offer a ‘taste of paradise’. As tourism is still a developing industry in Sierra Leone, the beaches are not overwhelmed with visitors which means that most are still in pristine condition and on a weekday you could have an amazing beach entirely to yourself.
As the Freetown peninsula road is still not complete (expected 2011), we like to think of the Peninsula as divided into two halves, one half the perfect road and the other half for which you will need a four wheel drive vehicle. The route you take largely depends on which beach you want to visit. For any beach between Lumley and Number two, you’ll need a 4wd. This includes Goderich, Lakka, Hamilton, Baw Baw, Sussex and Number Two.
For Tombo, York, Bureh, Kent and Tokey the main road is perfect and if driving through the city you could use a normal saloon car – but if you want to use the hillside road bypass then you will still need a four wheel drive.
Another option for the highflyer is to visit these beaches with a speedboat. In fact, we recommend taking a boat trip round the peninsula if you can. The scenery is simply amazing.