Bradt Suriname Guidebook
Suriname travel guide. Expert advice and travel tips on everything from Paramaribo hotels and highlights to Amazon expeditions and wildlife. Features suggested itineraries, tour operators, rainforests, beaches, turtle and whale watching, colonial history, architecture, cuisine, Peperpot, Commewijne Plantation Loop, Brownsberg and Laarwijk.
Edition: 3
Number of pages: 256
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Bradt Suriname Guide
The latest edition of the most detailed English-language guide to Suriname.
About this guide to Suriname
This updated Bradt Suriname Guidebook remains the most detailed English-language guidebook – and the only standalone guide from a major travel publisher – to this exciting and emerging ecotourism destination.
With an unrivalled nine-tenths of the thinly populated country comprising unspoilt rainforest, Suriname has much to offer wildlife enthusiasts, adventurous travellers and anyone who delights in non-mainstream destinations.
A true one-off, Suriname is geographically part of South America, but politically looks mainly towards the Caribbean and is inexorably tied, linguistically and historically, to the Netherlands, its former coloniser. Peaceful and stable, the country celebrated the 50th anniversary of its independence in 2025.
Its forested interior is swathed by pristine Amazonian rainforest, rich in wildlife – from monkeys to macaws, tapirs to sloths – and accessible only by air or by motorised dugout along the tropical waterways that incise it.
On the coast, the capital Paramaribo is a lively, culinarily rewarding, ethnically diverse city whose historic old quarter, lined with Dutch-Creole architectural gems, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Nearby beaches offer some of the world’s finest turtle-viewing sites, as well as superb aquatic and marine birdwatching, plus several impressive forest reserves.
The longer you stay, the deeper you can delve.
- Explore various sites, including Peperpot Nature Park, along the Commewijne Plantation Loop
- Marvel at 350 elaborate petroglyphs engraved into the walls of the Werehpai Caves, undiscovered by outsiders until 2004
- Or visit the ruins of Jodensavanne (‘Jewish Savannah’), Suriname’s second-most important settlement until the early 19th century, and now its most important and intriguing historical site
Written by prolific guidebook author Philip Briggs, the updated Bradt Suriname Guidebook offers detailed coverage of all accessible parks and reserves, gearing advice to visitors joining organised tours as well as those who prefer independent travel. It is also the first guidebook to provide a comprehensive section on the Upper Suriname River, an exciting and remote area serviced by around 20 small lodges.
Despite such riches, however, tourism to this safe and friendly country remains in its infancy, making it a fabulously rewarding travel destination for those who relish the truly wild and offbeat.
Contents
Introduction
PART ONE GENERAL INFORMATION
1 Background Information
2 Natural History
3 Practical Information
4 Health
PART TWO PARAMARIBO AND THE COASTAL BELT
5 Paramaribo
6 Commewijne
7 Marowijne
8 Saramacca, Coronie and Nickerie
9 Wanica and Para
PART THREE THE INTERIOR
10 Brokopondo
11 Upper Suriname
12 The Deep Interior
Appendices Language, Further Information
Index
About the author and updater
Philip Briggs (philipbriggs.com) cut his teeth with Bradt as the author of the first international guidebook to South Africa to be published after the release of Nelson Mandela. He has vast (perhaps unique) experience of researching pioneering guidebooks to countries that, like Suriname, are otherwise practically uncharted by the travel-publishing industry, having authored the first dedicated guidebooks to Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique, Ghana, Rwanda and Somaliland. The enthusiastic, informed style and adventurous spirit of his Bradt guides has won him many fans, and make him the ideal author of the first standalone English-language guidebook to Suriname.
Photographer, designer and artist Nancy Chuang (nancychuang.com; Instagram: @nancyc_huang) has travelled extensively around Latin America – although the Caribbean countries of South America had previously been elusive – and now she’s thrilled to encourage others to experience the unspoiled beauty and diverse cultures of Suriname. A lover of creaky old trains, a seeker of high-reward yet low-effort views, and a connoisseur of street foods, her fondest travel memories always involve the warmth and generosity of strangers.