Lompoul Village, Senegal

A perfect place for family excursions and romantic getaway for couples.

Lompoul is a cute little village halfway between Dakar and St. Louis. What is currently contributing to the magic of this place is certainly the small piece of strange sand dunes in the middle of the forested area: Lompoul Desert, probably a piece of desert misplaced there for an unknown reason since it is more like to the landscapes of Sahara and Mauritania than of the surrounding area of Senegal.

You don’t expect to see sand dunes in the middle of the forested landscape right? Who would ever thing to see the forest, the desert and the beach all in a same day? According to the Senegal Tourism Statistics and Safety, Lompoul Village (village de Lompoul in French) offers in fact, lovely escapes into a desert oasis complete with tents, typical Senegalese food, camel rides and nightly music shows under the starry sky. Since Lompoul is a safe place and off the beaten path, beside being a perfect location for family excursions, it is also a romantic getaway for couples.

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Whether you are travelling from Dakar or St. Louis, any of the private transport will leave you at the main road in Lompoul, from where you need a 4 wheel vehicle to reach the desert area. Due to the difficulty in driving on the sandy paths, all desert camps in lompoul offer free of charge drivers to escort their clients to the campsite. While travelling by your own car, you have to leave the vehicle out to the dunes area.

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In our case, we were coming by taxi from the capital Dakar and we were up to the Camp Du Desert Tents.

After we have been left by our private taxi driver, we waited an hour so before the lodge guys came. Since we both have a very big passion for photography, waiting was not a big deal, we killed our time easily. But if that is not your case, there are a couple of options there though. You can meanwhile visit the market, the “kind of school” and some shops around. I also heard that there is a musician’s house that you can visit.

Keep something for the children to give; we had taken tons and tons of colour pencils from Italy.

The cheapest way to reach the town is a public transportation, the closest city with a main bus station is Kebemer, from where you can catch a local taxi to reach the main road of Lompoul.

Read also: Getting around Senegal by local busses.

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One more option that we can suggest is instead of stopping at the main road, you can ask the driver to drop you at Lompoul su Mer. Yes, only a few miles from the desert, there is a beach where you can visit a small but picturesque fishing market and community.

Your hotel can pick you up there. Take advantage of seeing the Lompoul village now because I’m sure it will soon become a too prised tourist destination of Senegal. Such a small town that encapsulates many aspects, one different from each other: desert, beach, forest and more, will lose then, from one day to another, its earthiness.

I hope this evolution can somehow, maintain the path of ecology, to welcome therefore a solid eco-tourism in Lompoul village.