Gorée

An 18 hectare island two kilometres off Dakar, held in turn by the Portuguese from 1444 and then the Dutch, French and British, trading slaves, beeswax, hides and grain. The House of Slaves, built between 1780 and 1784, has the Door of No Return facing the Atlantic, and it is one of the most visited places in West Africa. It is also contested by historians, and that is worth knowing before you go: research suggests no more than about 500 people a year were traded from Gorée, something like 4 or 5 percent of the West African total, and that most enslaved people on the island were domestic servants rather than cargo, with the building itself possibly a merchant’s house. What is not in question is what the island was part of. UNESCO listed it in 1978, one of the first twelve sites in the world. Car-free, reached by ferry.