The hook
One of the most forested countries on the planet, an almost entirely pristine wilderness of rainforest and rivers where communities descended from escaped slaves, the Maroons, have kept living African-rooted cultures deep in the jungle.
01Why it's worth it
Suriname is extraordinarily wild: forest covers the overwhelming majority of the country, most of it pristine and barely touched, making it one of the most heavily-forested and least-deforested nations on Earth, with the vast Central Suriname Nature Reserve protecting a huge swathe of untouched Amazonian rainforest as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. For travellers, this interior is the country's great draw: reached by small plane and dugout canoe, jungle lodges and river camps offer immersion in genuinely wild rainforest, with superb birdlife, monkeys, caimans, river swimming, and forest walks, in a wilderness far quieter and less-visited than the Amazon proper. Just as compelling is the human story: deep in the forest along the rivers live the Maroons, communities descended from enslaved Africans who escaped the coastal plantations centuries ago and built free societies in the jungle, preserving remarkably intact West African traditions, language, music, drumming, woodcarving, and social organisation, a living heritage found almost nowhere else in the Americas. Visiting a Maroon village and staying in the rainforest interior offers a rare combination of pristine nature and profound cultural depth, the essence of a trip to this unsung country.
02How to experience it
Take a fly-and-boat trip from Paramaribo to a jungle lodge or river camp for rainforest immersion, birdlife, and river life, and visit Maroon (and Indigenous) river villages respectfully to learn their remarkable culture. Go in the drier spells, come prepared for humid, remote travel, and choose community-linked, responsible operators.