Backpacking In Burkina Faso 🇧🇫: My Top 8 Sights in Ouagadougou

“Don’t you want me baby? Don’t you want me oooh?” – Mandy Smith.

What a city name this one really is. Ouagadougou – Wow! Pronounced phonetically in Northern Irish as “WAGA DOO GOO” so it is, so till spake. Long before I even backpacked this joint, it was a dot on my globe that fascinated me in name, on that Atlas as a kid. Sometimes, places don’t live up to their name though. I’m into the names and the sounds of cities even as an excuse to visit. These places inspired me just by the name, perhaps I’ll never know why…

• Gdynia
• Gdansk
• Bournemouth
• Poatina
• The Kong (Hong Kong)
• Frunze (Kekky, Bishy, Bishkek)
• Poddy (Podgorica)
• Mbabane
• Montevideo
• Chiayi City (“Shy Ye”)
• Kishinev / Chisinau

“I hang on every word” – Neil Finn.

Ouagadougo is up there with Timbuktu as a nuts one to visit by name. Get snap happy at the welcome sign…

Once you’ve booked your trip to Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso, get ready for the online keyboard wizards to berate you with their bullshit! You’ll be hit with fake news from extremists, ill-educated fakepacking governments and social media bedroom keyboard heroes. Burkina Faso is open, it’s friendly and it’s welcoming. And of course you can get a Burkina Faso visa and backpack it hardcore. Just ignore those who never left their bedroom laptop, like these gimps below…

The Burkina Faso visa takes time and effort of course but it will be worth it to visit this truly lovely, under-rated country which needs more tourists!

The amount of excrement I received online in the month leading up to backpacking Burky F away was nuts. There are a lot of online groups, mostly full of rich white “westerners” (I hate that word, but as a northerner, I’m just glad I’m not a westerner) who scaremonger loyal to fellow tourists wishing to backpack Africa Away. The same media-kissing left-wing extremists did the same for Niger, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran when I backpacked them. They pretended those countries are “closed”, “unwelcoming” and even “dangerous”. The same gimps even labelled North Korea (one of the SAFEST countries in the world) as dangerous. Laughable, just laughable.

The same extremists oddly didn’t advise against USA, which is the most dangerous and corrupt country on the planet – full of guns and serial killer glorification, or even my own wee Northern Ireland – the terrorist homeland at war that I grew up in is still not to be messed with. So get ready for all that fake negativity and be sure to ignore it loyal while you focus your backpack on its arrival into Ouaga! You’ll be buzzing when you land in Burky F!

“You’re the scum on Merseyside” – Me to online keyboard extremists.

Once you’ve got your online Burkina Faso visa, ignored the fake stories, get ready for the madness of Ouagadougou. The city that capitals Burky F, Burkina Faso 🇧🇫. This city houses a whopping 2,415,266 – so even the capital is way more massive than my entire country of Northern Ireland (1.8 million). Burkina Faso itself has a population of 24 million, most are Mossi (52%). This was country 230 on my nuts journey around the globe.

“Have you any dreams you’d like to sell?” – Fleetwood Mac.

Here are my personal top 8 sights, of course there are many more things to see and do in and around the capital.

1.Memorial To Thomas Sankara

Understanding history in countless African countries had be hard on the brain, time and time again. Things change fast in Africa when it comes to politics, stability and power. Thomas Sankara remains. This ain’t no Upper Volta, Higher Volts, Haute-Volta or Górna Wolta. Welcome to Burky F – Burkina Faso. Ouagadougou’s memorial shines in the morning sun.

“If this is peace, then what are we to class as war” – Omagh Resident, Northern Ireland (1998).

Thomas Sankara united a nation. He was a Burkinabe military officer, a Marxist revolutionary and a Pan-Africanist who became President of Burkina Faso from 1983, when he took over in a coup. He was part of the revolution and responsible for the name change away from Uppy V on the 4th of August 1984. Upper Volta had been and gone – welcome to Burkina Faso. Thomas Sankara’s dream. The sad news is, Thomas was assasinated in 1987.

On 5 August 1960, Upper Volta gained full independence from France. On 4 August 1984, Upper Volta changed its name to Burkina Faso. It was a dramatic time – many things changed within the country including the name, the government, the currency and the flag.

On 15 October 1987, Sankara and twelve other officials were killed in a coup d’état organized by his former colleague Blaise Compaoré. When accounting for this nuts overthrow, Compaoré claimed that Thomas Sankara jeopardized foreign relations with former colonial power France and neighbouring Ivory Coast, and accused his former comrade of plotting to assassinate opponents. The sadness was there and the tribute remains – Sankara’s family had to flee. Rest in Peace, Thomas Sankara.

2.Grand Mosquee

Burkina Faso is a majority Muslim country and it makes sense to at least visit one Mosque. We went to the front of the Grand Mosquee and another newer prominent Mosquee. On this trip, we didn’t go inside either. I usually don’t venture inside. Here’s the two we checked out.

3.Catholic Cathedral

A mix of religions is evident in Burkina Faso, with Catholicism/Christianity also clearly on view here. It was pre-Christmas, and the Cathedral blew my mind as it was very holy, very intricate and well built in a pleasant courtyard. As a Northern Irish Catholic, I went in to pray. It was calming. A world away from the extremists from the “UK” government. While solving knife crime in London and Bristol, I was praying with the locals in the peace of Burkina Faso.

The Ouagadougou Catholic Cathedral was built in the 1930s by apostolic vicar Joanny Thévenoud from the White Fathers, at the time of French West Africa. We took time to explore the area in and around it.

Behind the cathedral, near the carpark, is an altar dedicated to Mary, Ave Maria, with a statue of the Virgin in a carved stone arch. The front entrance arch is also highly impressive and commercialism hasn’t passed it by either with many items for sales in shops on the street nearby.

4.National Monument – Hall Of Martyrs

Just before dusk, Jules (our excellent driver and guide), Marek and I headed to check out the National Monument. The Monument was a grand project of the President of Burkina Faso since 1987, not glorifying just the revolution from which “their brothers” were killed, but also the revolution that brought him to power.

After organising the death of Thomas Sankara, Blaise Compaoré succeeded Thomas Sankara as the second president of Burkina Faso from 1987 to 2014, he fled the country after his reign ended. But this was a monument he ordered. We met a few people here and I posed with my AFC Bournemouth (Dango Outtara Loyal!) and nationalistic Northern Ireland flags. Glory days loyal.

It is currently (as of 2025) called Hall of Martyrs, but was formerly known as the Memorial to National Heroes.

5.National Football Stadium (Stade du 4 Août)

Being an AFC Bournemouth fan, my visit to Burkina Faso had a huge extra fascination – it is the home of our footballer Dango Outtara!! Dango is already becoming a club legend at the Cherries, with his 2023 last minute away winner in a 3-2 at Tottenham Hotspur, plus his last minuters v. Fulham and Ipswich Town away and a home goal v. Scummers in 2024 in a 3-1 win. Dango also had 2 goals disallowed in the brace of matches v. Newcastle United in 2024/2025. You can follow Dango on Social Media here –

Dango Outtara on Twitter (not X)
Dango Outtara on Instagram

I had asked at our hostel, La Casa about visiting the National Football Stadium (Stade du 4 Août) – but for some reason Fabio the owner at the hostel even gave us fake news – saying it was closed and shut. Bullshit. I checked on my app and there was a match that exact day – I knew it. So Jules dropped us off at the national stadium and we were able to watch the match for free through a side gate without even backpacking the hardcore stand. I flew my Northern Ireland flag proudly and my AFC Bournemouth mini flag.

The stadium has a capacity to hold 29,800 people. We watched Étoile Filante (de Ouagadougou) v. Majestic in the Burkina Faso Premier League. Both clubs play their home games at this stadium. Currently, Majestic sit 9th in the league, while Étoile Filante are 14th (out of 16).

By coincidence we also met an AFC Bournemouth fan down the pub while drinkpacking the bars of Ouagadougou! Thanks to Dango Outtara, Bournemouth are massive here!

An even more crazy coincidence was that in total I spent 7 days in Burkina Faso on two visits in December 2024 (5 days, then dipped into Benin away and back for 2 more days) and AFC Bournemouth were unbeaten in that period!! We beat Manchester United 3-0 away and I watched it live in the Maradona Bar, and we also drew 2-2 at Fulham away. Lucky Ouagadougou for the Cherries. Dango Loyal!

The national team had a match against Zanzibar just after our visit but we didn’t get to see it, however here’s a great photo from Stadiony.Net with the Burky F hardcore for the national team!

6.Burkina Faso Movie Stars Monument

Another curious monument that we backpacked was the Burkina Faso Movie Stars Monument. This was located centrally and not on my original backpacking list – it just looked rather peculiar so we got out and admired it in a busy area not far from the main market.

7.I Love Ouagadougou Sign

Okay this is me getting all cliched you know. But most big cities, and even random towns and villages are assembling these “I LOVE CITYNAME” monuments. I backpacked them in places like Sao Tome, Gdansk and even Niamey on the same December 2024 trip.

The Ouagadougou one has been shortened to I love Ouaga! It is a cool place to knock off one of your top backpacking sights at the same time as one of your top bars and restaurants! This is situated at the front entrance by the car park at the Restaurant Wakanda, which has cold beer on tap, good chicken (and many other meals) and football on the box. Dango Outtara should be proud.

8.Grand Marchee

Markets in Africa can just get manic – hoardes of sellers and this one is no exception. Marek and I were the only Caucasian white foreigners backpacking it – the same happened in the markets in Benin and Niger.

This was just a fast top eight from our brace of trips to Burkina Faso’s nuts capital Ouagadougou. We drove past the Bangr Weogo Park, but skippacked it. Apparently it’s a park where you can even encounter crocodiles, peacocks and squirrels. That park has been a protected area since 1936, and afterwards it has become a urban park. We also missed the museum and any jungle or forest tours – crocodile tours were offered but I’ve done all that many times, including stroking alive crocodiles in The Gambia at Kachikally and sleeping in a Crocodile Farm in Chobe, Botswana!

Our driver was Jules, an incredible local lad here in Ouagadougou. We encourage you to backpack the sights of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso and contact Jules for a tailored tour – mine of course included the football stadium and mini-bar crawl.

Thanks to Jules Bako for everything and also to Fabio (owner of La Casa Hostel) and Sadia (“pretty woman working in the bar”). Thanks also to Aan from China, a Newcastle United fan who helped organise our final lunch there at the epic Wakanda Bar in Ouagadougou!

Contact details for Jules Bako:

What’s App: +226 60 60 60 50
[email protected]

Here are a few more photos from a splendid time backpacking Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso. Stuff I didn’t include in my top 8 sights were a windmill, another football pitch where I played with the locals, shops and museums (we didn’t visit any).

Here are some videos from from time backpacking the sights of Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso: