Kribi is Cameroon's little coastal paradise: a relaxed fishing town on the Gulf of Guinea, with fine golden beaches lined with coconut palms, a warm sea and a row of 'paillotes', thatched huts by the water where you eat grilled fish with your feet almost in the sand. After the stifling bustle of Douala, arriving in Kribi is like taking a deep breath. It's Cameroonians' favourite escape and the best place in the country to relax by the sea.
Kribi also has a unique natural wonder. A few kilometres south, the Lobé Falls tumble out of the forest and pour straight into the Atlantic Ocean, something extremely rare anywhere in the world. You visit them by dugout canoe, going almost under the curtain of water where the river meets the waves. There's more to discover around Kribi: the wild beaches of Grand Batanga and Londji, the village of Ebodjé where sea turtles nest, the Bagyeli pygmy camps in the nearby forest and Campo Ma'an National Park.
This guide takes a practical look at Kribi: which beaches to choose, how and when to visit the Lobé Falls, how to get to Ebodjé and the turtles, where to eat the best fish, how to get around and where to stay. With two or three well-planned days, Kribi combines beach time with the spectacular nature of Cameroon's southern coast like few other places.
For centuries Kribi was home to the Batanga people and other fishing communities of the southern coast, who traded with the European merchants visiting the Gulf of Guinea. Under German rule (1884-1916) it was a colonial outpost and a port for exporting tropical produce, and traces of that era remain, such as the lighthouse and some buildings. The Bagyeli (pygmies), the region's ancestral hunter-gatherers, live in the forest inland. In the 21st century, the construction of a large deep-water port transformed the local economy. You can read more on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The estuary of the “River of Prawns”: the land of the Duala, vibrant economic Douala, the beaches of Kribi where a river falls into the sea, and the coastal rainforest of Campo Ma'an.
Read the history of Littoral and south coast →They depart from Duala, 126 km away. If you book from this link we earn a commission and you pay no more.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
People from Cameroon's southern coast have lived in the Kribi region since ancient times. Chief among them are the Batanga, Bantu-speaking fishermen who settled the shoreline and lived off the sea and the rivers flowing down from the forest. Alongside them, and from much earlier, the great forest of the interior was, and still is, the land of the Bagyeli (or Bakola). They are one of the Pygmy peoples of Central Africa: semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers with a deep knowledge of the forest, its animals and its plants.
This coast was part of the Gulf of Guinea, which Portuguese sailors explored from the 15th century onwards. Further north, they named the Wouri estuary the 'river of prawns', which is where the name Cameroon comes from. For centuries the Cameroonian coast was a place of trade between Africans and Europeans. They traded ivory, timber and palm oil, and in its darkest chapter, slaves: the slave trade affected the whole Gulf region.
Coastal peoples such as the Batanga worked as fishermen and middlemen in this trade, while the Bagyeli of the interior kept up their forest way of life. That mix of sea and forest, of fishermen and Pygmies, shaped the identity of the Kribi region long before the colonial powers arrived to fight over the territory in the 19th century.
When the German protectorate of Kamerun was proclaimed in 1884, the southern coast came under German control. Kribi grew into a colonial post and an export port. The Germans used it to ship out the region's tropical goods, such as rubber, ivory, precious woods and cocoa, and they set up an administration, trading houses and missions. Much of the town's historic layout dates from that time, as does the lighthouse, a reminder of its colonial maritime past.
Kribi was also a hub for the routes that ran into the forest and south towards what are now Equatorial Guinea and Gabon. During the First World War, Allied forces invaded German Kamerun (1914-1916), and this coast was one of the places where the campaign was fought. After the war the territory passed to French administration under a League of Nations mandate, like the rest of eastern Cameroon.
Under the French, and then within the Republic of Cameroon after independence in 1960, Kribi grew slowly as a small fishing port and more and more as a holiday spot. It had golden beaches, coconut palms and fresh fish, and the Lobé Falls were close by. Together these made it the favourite seaside resort of Cameroonians, a place to rest away from the bustle of Douala and Yaoundé.
Kribi's greatest natural treasure is the Lobé Falls, a few kilometres south of the town. After winding through the southern forest, the Lobé River tumbles down a series of cascades straight into the Atlantic Ocean. It is one of very few places in the world where a waterfall flows directly into the sea, a rare geographical feature that makes the site unique. Fresh water and salt water mix in a cloud of spray among the tropical greenery.
The Lobé Falls are spectacular, but they also carry strong spiritual and cultural meaning for the people of the region. They have long been a setting for rituals and ceremonies, and local communities see them as a sacred place full of meaning. If you travel upriver by dugout canoe, you reach Bagyeli Pygmy camps, so a visit brings together a natural wonder and a meeting with the people who live there.
Today the falls are Kribi's best-known attraction and one of the most famous natural sights in Cameroon. You visit them by dugout canoe, going almost under the curtain of water. The best time to go is the rainy season, when the water is at its highest. Together with the beaches, the falls have made Kribi a destination that mixes seaside rest with a nature found almost nowhere else.
For decades, Kribi was mainly two things: a quiet fishing village and Cameroon's best-loved seaside resort. Families came from Douala and Yaoundé to spend the weekend among the beaches, the coconut palms and the grilled fish. The economy ran on small-scale fishing and on modest but loyal domestic tourism, with the Lobé Falls as an extra draw.
The 21st century brought deep change. The Cameroonian government chose the Kribi area for a large deep-sea port, the Kribi Autonomous Port, which opened in the last decade. It can handle large container ships and is meant to become one of the main sea gateways for Cameroon and the wider Central African region. Energy and industrial projects followed, including terminals and plants linked to the country's resources.
This growth has given Kribi a double identity. It is still the relaxed resort of golden beaches and spectacular falls. But it is also a fast-growing logistics and industrial hub, with new infrastructure, new roads and a rising population. The challenge ahead is to balance the port boom with protecting what made Kribi Cameroon's favourite stretch of coast: the beaches, the forest, the Ebodjé turtles, the Bagyeli people and its quiet charm.
Kribi's great rarity is its geography. The Lobé Falls are one of very few places on Earth where a river falls straight into the ocean, and that alone is worth the trip. On top of that, the falls are sacred to local communities, who have long used them as a setting for rituals.
The coast south of Kribi, around the village of Ebodjé, is another exceptional spot. It is one of the few beaches in the world where several species of sea turtle nest. Of all the sea turtle species on the planet, a remarkable number come to lay their eggs on this strip of sand between November and April. This has led to community conservation and ecotourism projects.
The forest of the interior is home to the Bagyeli (or Bakola), a Pygmy people of hunter-gatherers. Their forest way of life is one of the oldest in Africa, and deforestation now threatens it. In stark contrast, a few kilometres from the fishermen's 'paillotes' stands Kribi's modern deep-sea port. The colonial lighthouse, the sacred falls, the turtles, the Pygmies and the cranes of one of Central Africa's newest ports all share the same landscape. That mix of relaxation, rare nature and breakneck development is what Kribi is today.
