Africa – Sao Tome & Principe: 8,000
Africa’s least visited country, though the UNWTO’s stats for Africa are a little sparse (the figure of 8,000 relates to 2010), this nation of two islands, 225km from Gabon, is oil and cocoa rich, but tourist arrivals are virtually non-existent.
One recent visitor was John Gimlette. “It’s easy to see how you might overlook it,” he wrote for Telegraph Travel. “When I first spotted it on a relief map of the Atlantic, it looked like two needles rising off the ocean floor, each with a tiny island perched on top. São Tomé is roughly the size of Anglesey, while Príncipe compares to the Isle of Wight. Separated by 99 miles of ocean, they are, in cartological terms, a pair of free-floating full-stops. Closer up, they’re harder to ignore. From the air, they look improbably dramatic. Having risen 3,000m (9,840ft) off the seabed, parts of them carry on rising another 2,000m (6,560ft). There’s nothing undulating about these mountains. They’re like great blue fangs, covered in a rich velvet of forest and cloud. One of these peaks – on Príncipe – is so sheer that, until recently, it was thought it had only ever been climbed twice in 31 million years. It’s ridiculous to describe anywhere as a Lost World now, but this one got seriously mislaid.”
Can I visit? Yes. Rainbow Tours offers itineraries rainbowtours.co.uk/country/sao-tome-principe-holidays
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Source link : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/galleries/least-visited-countries-in-the-world/
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Publish date : 2019-10-29 03:00:00
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