What it is
The region south of The Gambia, along the Casamance River. Ziguinchor is the main town. Cap Skirring, near the Guinea-Bissau border, has a long Atlantic beach and the region's airstrip. Inland are palm forest, rice paddies, and Diola villages with case à impluvium houses built round a central rainwater court.
Why go
It is the least French-colonial-feeling part of Senegal and the most agricultural. Village-run campements, many set up in the 1970s and 80s as one of Africa's earliest community tourism schemes, still operate. Boat trips run the creeks. Cap Skirring's beach is the real thing and rarely crowded.
When to go
November to May; the rains from July make secondary roads hard and close some camps. A separatist conflict has run at low intensity in the region since 1982, with major de-escalation and disarmament agreements in recent years, but government travel advice still singles out parts of the region, and landmine contamination remains in some rural border areas. Read your own government's current advisory, fly in rather than driving if it is cautious, and stay on established routes.
Most people stay 3-4 nights.