If I had to say one reason to visit Mauritania, I would say that few countries in the world feel as raw.

Until the middle of the 20th century, when the French were ruling the country, up to 90% of all Mauritanians were still carrying out a nomadic, pastoralist lifestyle.

That wasn’t a long time ago.

Today, many from that generation are still alive, so their tribal system and traditional life are completely visible, not only in remote Sahara towns such as Tidjikja, but even the most cosmopolitan people of Nouakchott will wear traditional clothes and have a haima deep into the desert as their second residence.

Backpacking around Mauritania, traveling like the locals do, is the best way to witness the unspoiled Mauritanian lifestyle. If you are lucky, you will travel in a local pick-up loaded with camels, or goats in the worst-case scenario, and taking a break in a Bedouin camp where you will be offered some zrig (fermented yogurt) is almost guaranteed.

In Tidjikja, I once met a Mauritanian who had lived and worked in the USA for almost 10 years. He decided to return to his homeland and, with all the money he saved, he bought tens of camels.

Like in the old times, this is the best business – he said. He was one of the richest men in town now.

And then there is the desert. Mauritania is nearly twice the size of France, yet less than 5 million people live spread across those extensive arid plains, mostly composed of breathtaking desert landscapes, yet to be explored by the average traveler.

Mauritania was on the way of becoming a mass tourism destination (relatively-speaking) but unfortunate events related to the conflict with the Sahel put an end to the industry.

However, Mauritania is still there, awaiting to be discovered by the rawest adventurers.

In this Mauritania travel guide you will find:

COVID-19 travel bans Visa Tours Get in Best time to visit Travel insurance Top experiences Useful books Cultural facts Food Is it safe Solo female travel Internet Money, budget & costs Accommodation How to move around More information

COVID-19 travel requirements for Mauritania

For entering Mauritania, you can either present a vaccination certificate or a negative PCR.

The PCR for leaving Mauritania isn’t mandatory anymore.

Travel Insurance for Mauritania with COVID-19 coverage

How to get a tourist visa for Mauritania

Today, practically all nationalities can get a visa on arrival in Mauritania, valid for 1 month.

The visa costs 55€ or 60USD, and it applies to both airports and land borders.

Some travelers have recently reported the immigration officer asking for a 20€ extra fee, claiming it was a necessary fee to pay for getting their passport back.

Obviously, this is a scam and, if you experience a similar issue, report it to the authorities right away.

How to sign up for a tour in Mauritania

Learn more here about our upcoming Mauritania Tours

How to travel to Mauritania

Traveling to Mauritania by plane

Nouakchott and Nouadhibou have the most transited international airports, and I chose Nouakchott because flights were cheaper.

I flew to Nouakchott via Dakar (Senegal) with Air Senegal, but you can find some direct flights from Europe, especially from France and the Canary Islands (Spain).

Alternatively, the airport of Atar – capital of the Adrar region, where most touristic sites are – has direct flights from Paris and some other French cities.

Traveling to Mauritania overland

Mauritania shares a border with:

Best time to visit Mauritania

Spread across some of the driest plains in the Sahara, Mauritania might easily be one of the hottest countries on Earth, along with Sudan and Saudi Arabia, with overwhelmingly killing summers.

Personally, I can’t stand the heat, so my advice is to definitely avoid coming in the summer months, the best season for backpacking in Mauritania being from November to March.

I was backpacking in Mauritania there in the month of February and, during the day, the sun was already pretty harsh, with temperatures averaging 30-35ºC.

Nights and early mornings were kind of chilly though (15ºC), so do bring some small clothes, especially if you are planning to ride the Iron Ore train.

Travel insurance for Mauritania

Top Experiences in Mauritania

Riding the Iron Ore train

Every single day of the year, a 2.5km long train departs from the remote Sahara town of Zouerat and travels 700km across the Sahara desert to the coastal city of Nouadhibou, transporting hundreds of tonnes of iron ore.

As hardcore as it sounds, travelers can get on top of the train and travel along the 18-hour journey.

This is one of the top reasons to visit Mauritania, and one of the best traveling experiences I have ever had.

Read here about the full experience.

Visiting the rawest Sahara villages

As I said in the introduction, Mauritania is a particularly raw country and visiting several villages deep in the Sahara feels like traveling back in time.

I strongly recommend Tidjikja.

Seeing the largest concentrations of camels ever

From Oman to Sudan, hanging out with camels has become a vital part of my travels across the Middle East, but I think the camel market that takes place in the city of Nouakchott has the largest concentration of camels I have ever witnessed.

Exploring the vastest Sahara

Mauritania is a far-flung land home to jaw-dropping desert scenarios that only a small bunch of travelers have had the chance to discover.

Useful books for planning your trip to in Mauritania

West Africa travel guide by Lonely Planet

The desert and the drum (Mbarfek Ould Beyrouk)

Facts about Mauritania, its culture, people and religion

Mauritania is where Maghreb meets Africa

Nestled between Morocco and Senegal, Mauritania is a chaotic mix of both Maghrebis and sub-Saharan Africans, visible not only in people’s facial features but also in their food and the daily life of many Mauritanians.

Generally speaking, Mauritanians classify their society into 3 main groups:

Hassaniya is the local language

Hassaniya, which is a variety of Maghrebi Arabic, is the main language in Mauritania, and in the Western Sahara as well.

Nevertheless, languages such Pulaar, Soninke and Wolof are also recognized as national languages, and they are spoken by black African Mauritanians, depending on their ethnicity.

It used to be a French colony, so French is the way to go, but English is not that useful

As a former French Colony (from the late 19th century to 1960), French is widely used in Mauritania, especially in Nouakchott and Nouadhibou.

Outside of these two cities, however, only highly educated people or people working in hospitality speak fluent French.

English, nevertheless, was hardly spoken by anyone – not even in touristic auberges – and that was a big downside for me, since my French is good enough to make myself understood but I can’t have deep conversations.

It’s a Muslim country

99.9% of the population in Mauritania are Sunni Muslims, most of them being highly devoted to Islam.

You also need to know that there is no freedom of religion and that atheism is punished with the death sentence.

Most people wear traditional clothes

What I loved about Mauritania is that everybody wears traditional clothes, even young people from the capital.

Typically, men wear a wide blue dress named daraa and cover their head with a turban named shesh, which basically means scarf in Arabic.

I did buy the full set in a local market in Nouakchott and didn’t pay more than 6€, but I had to bargain.

Women dress in a traditional colorful dress named melhafa.

Leblouh is still a big deal in Mauritania

Leblouh refers to the tradition of force-feeding girls when they are very young, typically in those places where obesity is directly related to beauty, so they can get married earlier.

This old practice has been used in many African countries but in Mauritania, it’s still a very big thing. A few young local men talked to me about this particular topic, saying it’s a widely used habit. You will quickly notice that most Mauritanian women are curvy.

Food in Mauritania

If I ever travel back to Mauritania, food won’t probably be the reason.

Mauritania is mostly composed of arid plains and it’s a traditionally nomadic society, so they never had either the ingredients or the motivation to have an elaborate cuisine.

Nonetheless, since Mauritania is sort of a cultural hub with people from Maghreb and sub-Saharan Africa, you can find some food variety, but you need to look for it.

One thing that surprised me about backpacking in Mauritania is that it can be difficult to find food, cooked food I mean.

In many towns and villages, there weren’t any restaurants, and even in a relatively sized-town like Tidjikja, there was only one, and the day I went there, they said I had to order 3 to 4 hours in advance. On the next day, I did go there early in the morning, but it never opened.

Don’t panic, however. Usually, most auberges have a daily dish.

Things you are likely to eat in your trip to Mauritania:

Macaroni – Regular, greasy pasta with vegetables and meat. That’s what they fed me most days.

Thieboudienne – That was my favorite. It’s a traditional Senegalese dish consisting of a brown, thin rice, fish and spices.

Moroccan cous-cous – I say Moroccan because that’s what they call it. Just regular cous-cous but nothing comparable to the ones you find in Tunisia or Morocco.

Camel meat – Many of the above dishes will often come with camel meat.

Tea culture in Mauritania

Tea is an essential part of Mauritanian life, and a symbol of hospitality.

They have it in a similar way to neighbouring Morocco but the ritual takes longer and they serve it with a lot of foam, like in the Western Sahara.

Their tea is good, heavily concentrated but they take so much time preparing it, averaging 20-25 minutes, if doing it right.

During the first few days of your Mauritania trip, it’s a pretty cool process to observe but then, when you bump into random people who want to invite you for tea, expect to waste 40 or 45 minutes of your time. Because of this, once I missed the sunset and got very upset.

Is it safe to travel to Mauritania?

If you look into the FCDO advice, you will see that all Mauritania is a big NO-GO zone.

Mauritania belongs to the Sahel, a region that spreads across Mauritania, Mali, Niger and Chad – among others – and one of the most turbulent regions on Earth, today home to rebel groups like Al Qaeda Maghreb (AQIM) and many other similar organizations.

The truth is that Mauritania has actually suffered from unfortunate incidents that ended with the premature tourism industry, but it’s also true that, thanks to an outstanding level of security, the situation in Mauritania has remained stable for many years.

Nowadays, Mauritania is a safe destination to travel.

There are some areas near the border with Mali and Algeria where security can be an issue but that’s too remote to go anyways.

Solo female travel in Mauritania

Mauritania is a patriarchal, conservative, Muslim country, so a woman’s experience will differ greatly from a man’s.

However, I haven’t met yet a female traveler who has been backpacking in Mauritania by herself, so I can’t give very specific information about it. If you have visited Mauritania as a solo woman and would like to tell us about your experience, kindly let me know.

Based on female experiences in other countries, nonetheless, here are a few observations:

Internet and connectivity in Mauritania

Generally, internet is pretty bad in Mauritania, both Wi-Fi and internet data, even in Nouakchott.

Outside of Nouakchott and Nouadhibou I never found Wi-Fi.

Internet data worked OK in Atar, Tidjikja and Zouerat.

In Ouadane and Terjit, it was nonexistent. Chinguetti was fine to send emails and simple browsing.

If you need to download anything, do it in your home country.

Get a VPN for traveling in Mauritania

You should always use a VPN when you travel, especially when you connect to public Wi-Fi networks.

Your connection will be much safer.

Moreover, you will be able to access content which is typically censored in Mauritania.

I recommend ExpressVPN – Extremely easy to use, fast and cheap.

Money, budget and costs

In Mauritania, they use the Mauritanian Ouguiya (MRU) and, approximately:

In 2018, Mauritania replaced their currency by introducing a new Ouguiya with the same value divided by 10.

The problem is that the vast majority of people still think in the old currency, and it’s so easy to get confused. Occasionally, it’s difficult to guess in which currency they are talking about, especially because sometimes it looks either too cheap or too expensive, but Mauritania is a very cheap country, so always go for the cheaper option

Credit cards and ATMs

You will hardly find a place where you can pay by card. Do always have cash.

Société Generale is the most popular bank among foreigners for withdrawing money. I think it’s the only one that accepts international credit cards. You can find quite a few branches in both Nouakchott and Nouadhibou.

Outside of these two main cities, ATMs are scarce, so remember to bring enough cash.

Exchanging money

There are several exchange offices in the city center (Capital area). Alternatively, I exchanged in many auberges at an acceptable rate.

How much does it cost to travel in Mauritania?

Prices of the most typical things:

Backpacking in Mauritania – Average daily budget

How to find accommodation in Mauritania

In Mauritania, there are many accommodation options but, outside of the main cities, they mostly consist of basic campsites and auberges. They also come with a large variety of nonsensical prices. Once I paid 20€ for a creepy hut and the next day I paid 4€ for a similar quality room.

In Nouakchott, if you are a budget traveler, I strongly recommend Triskell Hostel, run by Sebastien, a French man who has been living in Mauritania for a long time.

Moreover, in Nouakchott, you can find hotels suitable for any wallet.

Outside of Nouakchott, you will rarely find anything on the internet.

Below is a list of some of the places I stayed at:

How to move around Mauritania

Traveling around Mauritania with a rented vehicle

If I ever visit Mauritania again, I will rent a 4×4. Actually, one of the things I regret about visiting Mauritania is that I didn’t get deep into the desert. I mean, I did visit remote Sahara towns, but didn’t get far away from civilization and main roads.

You can easily rent a car in Nouakchott, or through your preferred guide/tour operator.

By the way, only experienced drivers should attempt exploring the depths of the Mauritanian Sahara.

Traveling around Mauritania by public transportation

Before traveling to Mauritania, I thought that moving between Sahara towns would be challenging but it turns out that all you need is a shit load of patience.

OMG, you can’t imagine how many hours I wasted waiting for a bus/car to leave.

Typically, local 4×4 pick-ups is the preferred way of transportation for moving between Sahara towns. They fit up to 8 people and leave once they are full, but when a town is too remote, it may take a few days to fill it up.

I actually wanted to go to Tichit from Tidjikja. Upon my arrival in Tidjikja, the first thing I did was try to arrange the local pick-up to take me there. The car wasn’t full yet, so I waited for one more day but nothing, they still didn’t have enough passengers:

Maybe tomorrow, or maybe not – they said.

In the hypothetical case I managed to get to Tichit, there could also be the possibility that I had to wait there for 3-4 extra days to come back to Tidjikja, which would imply spending more than a week in a very remote area with not much to do and where nobody spoke English, so I passed.

This is how I moved between towns:

More information for traveling in Mauritania

Travel guides to other countries in Africa

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By: Joan Torres
Title: Tips and how to travel to Mauritania in 2022
Sourced From: againstthecompass.com/en/travel-mauritania/
Published Date: Sun, 23 Oct 2022 04:19:00 +0000

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