City Rating: Conakry
Population: 1,700,000
Date of visit: February 2019
Attractions & sights: 1/5
Nightlife: ?/5
Safety: 3/5
Infrastructure: 1/5
Low budget factor: 4/5
Total: 👍/5
The city in a nutshell:
Conakry is in many ways one of the worst cities I have ever visited. The capital of Guinea is like a gigantic garbage dump, there is rubbish everywhere, the streets are dirty and the infrastructure is very bad. Besides, there are hardly any sights in Conakry. A city that you can easily leave out.
Where to stay:
Kaloum is still the best place in town. Here are all the luxury hotels (except the Sheraton) and from here you can make a trip to the Iles de Los, an oasis only 30 minutes away from the hectic Conakry.
The Good:
There is little positive to report about Conakry. The best thing is that the city is very cheap. Furthermore, the archipelago offers a place of refuge outside the city.
The Bad & The Ugly:
There are 1.7 million people living in Conakry, so it’s a pretty big city. TripAdvisor, however, only lists twelve things you can do in Guinea’s capital. Three out of these twelve things are nightclubs, two are spas, one is playing snooker, one seems to be a restaurant, one is a cinema, and four of them seem to be real sights. That’s too little to make a city worth visiting.
The non-existent sights are one problem, the pollution of the city the other. The inhabitants throw every garbage on the street or into the sea, so that Conakry is extremely dirty.
In addition, there is the high level of corruption in the country. You see a lot of people in police or army uniforms, and believe me, these people are not your friends. It’s a good idea to avoid policemen and soldiers, because they like to take the opportunity to get a bribe from tourists. Conakry, by the way, is a city where it is forbidden to take pictures (unofficially). Therefore it is advisable either not to take photos or to do it very inconspicuously.
All in all, the capital of Guinea is not a nice city and there seems to be a lack of almost everything that should be there for a city worth seeing.
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