Togo: Five Attractions and Natural Wonders

A narrow country with a deep spiritual tradition

Togo, a narrow strip of West African coast stretching inland to the northern savanna, holds one of the deepest and most visible living traditions of Vodun (voodoo) anywhere in the region — a spiritual practice, not the Hollywood-distorted caricature often associated with the word, that remains central to daily and religious life for a significant share of the population. Its landscape ranges from Gulf of Guinea beaches to fortified tower-house villages whose solid walls were built to keep invaders at bay.

The five below run from the coastal capital to the country's interior. The dry season (roughly November to March) is generally the easiest time to travel.

1. Lomé

Lomé, Togo's capital, sits directly on the Gulf of Guinea, its beachfront and lively central market giving visitors an easy first taste of West African coastal city life. With its palm-lined seafront, the city retains a notably laid-back character compared with some larger regional capitals.

2. The Akodessewa Fetish Market

The Akodessewa Fetish Market, on Lomé's outskirts, is considered the largest market of its kind in the world, supplying traditional healers and Vodun practitioners with animal parts, herbs, and ritual objects used in spiritual practice across West Africa. Guides on-site can explain the significance of the items and the practice itself, offering visitors a respectful window into a living religious tradition still widely practised today.

3. Koutammakou

Koutammakou, in Togo's northeast, is home to the Batammariba people, whose distinctive two-storey tower houses (takienta), with livestock below and granaries and sleeping quarters above, have solid walls that served as fortresses against invaders. Inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2004 as Koutammakou, the Land of the Batammariba, the region remains inhabited today much as it has been for generations, its architecture inseparable from the community's history of resistance and self-reliance.

4. Togoville

Togoville, a small town on Lake Togo, is a centre of Vodun practice, with shrines near the former royal palace, alongside a Catholic cathedral built in 1910, reflecting the coexistence of Vodun and Christian practice that characterises much of southern Togo's religious life. It was also here that the German explorer Gustav Nachtigal signed the 1884 treaty with Chief Mlapa III from which Germany claimed what became Togo.

5. Kpalimé and its waterfalls

Kpalimé, in Togo's western highlands near the Ghanaian border, sits amid cooler, greener terrain than the coast, known for coffee and cocoa plantations, hiking trails, and several waterfalls tucked into the surrounding hills — a refreshing highland contrast to Lomé's tropical coastal climate.

Togo suits a focused week: Lomé and its markets, a highland excursion to Kpalimé, and — for those with more time and a genuine interest in the country's less-visited interior — the tower-house villages of Koutammakou in the far north.