“We are not born for departure, but we do learn to take it” – R.E.M.

In the last 20 years of backpacking the world, only TWO countries charged me for departure tax to be paid in cash at the airport when leaving…and the shitlist reads…

1.New Zealand🇳🇿.
2.Sierra Leone🇸🇱.

Of course they are not my countries, and you might wonder why I’m complaining on a 230-country deep travel blog about it. I mean, I love to travel. But…New Zealand and Sierra Leone – why not include the departure tax in the outward flight ticket? or on the visa? or tell everyone on arrival? or tell everyone when getting the visa that they will have to pay a departure tax when they finally leave that country? Both New Zealand (in 2007 and again in 2010) and Sierra Leone told me about this at the end of the trip…don’t blame my research – other countries don’t do it.

According to this link, New Zealand are still doing it!! Ouch!!

I had completely forgotten that Departure Tax was even a thing. It certainly was never asked of me in any countries after that, not even in bribes for leaving a country – apart from Togo in 2018 who stole 30 Euros off us illegally to leave. As a German striker was once called – Kuntz.

Then in 2023, I got a Sierra Leone visa online, I backpacked through Freetown and Lungi, had a trip to the chimpanzee place at Tacugama and toured the bars of the country whilst sleeping at the terrific Hotel Barmoi in Freetown, by the Atlantic Ocean.

Then I got stitched for 575 Leones Departure Tax at the airport. You HAVE to pay it, and you have to pay it in local currency in cash. There is no ATM so the only way to pay it for me was to swap US Dollars into the local currency just to pay this fine to let me out of the country. Remember, most of us need a visa and a visa approval letter to visit Sierra Leone in the first place. Yet there is absolutely no mention of the departure tax or leaving tax on the visa, or even on arrival. I actually found out about it by talking to a girl in a bar in Aberdeen.

But alas, I reluctantly paid it and left Sierra Leone. It really doesn’t inspire me to go back. It shows a lack of open-ness and honesty – why not just tell us that yours in the only country except New Zealand where we must pay a departure tax in cash at the airport to leave!!

Then when I was finally trying to leave, at the departure gate, a representative from the Sierra Leone 🇸🇱 tourist board spots me, knows I am a travel bloggers and asks me what things the country could change. This could be a long list…

Firstly, Departure Tax. Scrap that shit.

What a pathetic excuse, to pay departure tax, what is it even for? Somebody told me it was for “airport maintenance fees”. But every airport, and seaport has “maiontenance fees” and the others don’t charge for it! Maintenance of the biggest international airport in the country which makes both of Belfast’s airports look like Singapore Changi away.

Maintenance fees for an over-staffed airport where workers do nothing. A cafe with NO other customers than me that has a rude manager who takes my money then tells me where to sit.

Maintenance fees for an airport without Wi-Fi.

Maintenance fees for an airport whose only bars and cafés do not accept card payments. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Leone currency. But customers need an option. I wasted all my Leones on your departure tax anyway.

If you need to charge “departure tax”, make the visa dearer at the start or add the tax price to the flight out so we’ve already paid it.

Secondly, ATMs. Improve them.

Put money in them and allow foreign cards to access them. Let tourists and locals give you money this way, in cash and also in a fee to withdraw it. None of the ATMs in the country accepted either of my two bank cards (a UK bank card and a Polish bank card). Yet both cards work in Senegal, The Gambia, Guinea and Guinea-Bissau. I tried over 15 of them in Sierra Leone. I’m just lucky they didn’t swallow my bank cards. The only way to get money in Sierra Leone is to bring money in and exchange it.

Thirdly, Internet. Get it.

Apart from my excellent hotel, the Hotel Barmoi, internet in Sierra Leone was amongst the worst I’ve ever experienced. You cannot get Wi-Fi anywhere, not even the main airport or in the swankiest hotels in Freetown! Maybe it has changed since 2023.

Fourtly, The International Airport. Move it.

To get to the international airport in Sierra Leone you need at least one boat journey and a car/bus or taxi. The international airport is on an island. While this might sound magical to some of you – wow – landing on an island and then getting a boat. It’s not magical. I waited over an hour to get out of the airport and then another 2 hours for the boat. And then another 40 minutes to get a taxi. The airport should be near a city, preferably in Freetown or a coastal city.

On the way back to the airport I took a cheaper wooden boat from Freetown to Lungi, but I was the only tourist on it and the village where they drop you off just doesn’t feel safe or comfortable for tourists. I didn’t like it. And it’s rare for me to say that, especially since I’ve backpacked 230 countries, about 40 of them in Africa!

Anyway, those were my honest four suggestions I gave to the tourist board of Sierra Leone before leaving Lungi that day, maybe they will listen to tourists and act on them.

Mostly decent people though and the country offers a fine contrast between the good and bad of whackpacking the world.