The Worst Country in the World to Visit? Why I Dislike Suriname
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What’s the worst country in the world to visit?
This is a highly subjective question, and everyone will have different answers. But countries with a lot of crime and little to do will feature highly in these lists, whereas you’re about as likely to find a winning lottery ticket as you are someone whose least-favourite country is Italy or Japan.
And it’s the crime and lack of interesting activities that helped plunge Suriname to the bottom of my list of visited countries. That combined with almost no positive experiences.
In this post I will be sharing why I think Suriname is so bad (in my opinion, you of course may feel differently), and what made it notably worse than any other country I’ve been to.
I want this blog to be all about keeping travel real. None of the one-sided, positives-only travel content that so many creators are guilty of.
Travel is amazing, but the beautiful beaches and magnificent mountains you see on Instagram are only half the story. Few people share the missed flights, robberies, horror bus journeys, endless scam attempts, nasty illnesses and other lowlights, which are just as much a part of travel as the good things.
Other “Bad” Countries at Least Had Redeeming Qualities
Suriname was my 71st country visited (technically 72nd as I flew in, spent a day there, and travelled to Georgetown in Guyana before coming back to explore properly).
Every country before then which I considered to be amongst my worst visited had redeeming qualities which still left me with fond memories, even if they weren’t places I loved overall.
Kuwait was baking hot (going to the Middle East in August is never a great idea). It was also crazy expensive and one of the most boring countries I’ve ever visited. So boring in fact that seeing the world’s largest chandelier was unironically one of the better things to do. Kuwait Towers are the only cool part, but you can see them in 5 minutes, then you’re done.
However, Kuwait is also very safe and home to very warm and welcoming people. My host Aladdin invited me to join him and his friends to swim in the sea at night which was a memorable experience.
Serbia was another country I didn’t enjoy. It was freezing cold and rained half the time. I planned to go to a Partizan Belgrade game (football for those wondering) on the Sunday, however it was postponed due to a frozen pitch and played the following day in front of a tiny crowd in arctic conditions.
I never warmed to Serbian people overall, although I did meet a friendly hostel owner in Nis who was delighted to hear I was a Southampton fan as our owner is Serbian. Also, the food was great. Balkan cuisine is some of the most underrated globally. The historical sites in Nis were also interesting.
I’d also gone during the wrong season, which means it would be harsh to judge Serbia based on my own poor planning.
Then there’s Kosovo. If Kuwait isn’t the most boring country I’ve been to, then Kosovo certainly is. Pristina is one of the least interesting cities I’ve visited.
However, there’s a cool bear sanctuary nearby, it’s one of the cheapest countries in the world, and I’ll never forget what happened seconds after I got off the bus from Nis and stepped foot on Kosovan soil for the first time.
I saw a shop with Kosovo and Albania flags outside, and took a picture due to my interest in the close ties between both countries. The shop owner came rushing out and gave me a free bottle of water with a big smile on his face, which he followed up with a friendly “welcome to Kosovo”.
I was almost robbed in Ecuador, but there were many cool things to see and do there, so I can’t call it the worst country in the world, despite it being the location of my worst ever travel experience.
The Philippines and Brazil were two of my most underwhelming countries when comparing expectations to reality. The former was mostly uninteresting, and we were stranded in the middle of the sea during a nightmare boat trip. However Bohol was great fun and we loved seeing the awesome tarsiers.
Brazil wasn’t safe, it rained for most of our two-month trip there, and many places like Florianopolis and Sao Paulo were disappointing. However Brazil still had great food, the fun Christmas towns of Gramado and Canela, and Rio de Janeiro was enjoyable.
I can continue naming countries I didn’t love, that still had many positives alongside the negatives. Belize, Honduras, Uruguay, Romania, China, France… Even Guyana was fun for a couple of days.
But the one country I took zero enjoyment from was Suriname. Some nice colonial buildings, but nothing more impressive than what I’ve seen before. And there are similarities across the border in Guyana.
Getting off to a Promising Start
After an exhausting triple flight from Asuncion (Paraguay), to Sao Paulo (Brazil), to Belem (Brazil), to Paramaribo (Suriname), I arrived in the early hours of the morning. Far too early to safely explore, so I needed to stay in the airport for around 3-4 hours until daylight.
To my horror, as passengers from our flight began to leave, the security lady started shutting all the doors to the building. She seemed to be shutting the airport down until the next flights which would come later during the day.
Everything was closed in the airport. I couldn’t get food or currency, and the ATM wouldn’t accept my foreign bank card.
The kind security lady not only let me sleep in the abandoned airport, she also offered to exchange 50 euros I had for Surinamese dollars.
Unfortunately, she went away and when she returned, she said she didn’t have enough. However she gave me some money to catch the bus into Paramaribo, around a 45-minute drive away.
Thanks to her, I was able to get the bus after sunrise and safely made it out the airport. My first interaction with a local in Suriname had been a very positive one.
Unfortunately, this goodwill barely lasted an hour…
Why Suriname Became the Worst Country I’ve Been to
From the airport, I took the crowded bus into Paramaribo, and started walking towards my hostel.
Barely an hour after saying goodbye to the kind lady at the airport, and I had my first of four nasty incidents in just as many days here.
The First Scam
I had no local currency, and saw a place that looked like an exchange shop across the road, so I headed straight towards it.
Some guys approached me outside and introduced themselves as money exchangers. I would never normally swap with shady dudes on the street, but after a series of unfortunate events led to almost no sleep in 48 hours (just a couple of hours on a metal airport bench), my decision-making skills were severely impaired, and I agreed to swap US$100 with these guys.
One took me round the corner, and gave me currency at the agreed rate. However as I counted it, he would take back every pile of ten notes which seemed odd.
He tried this twice, and both times I restarted counting.
But on the third time I decided just to watch him, and thought I could see everything he was doing, to make sure there were no shady tricks going on.
I thought I had him fully in my eyeline, and had carefully watched him, so I walked away with the money and went into a nearby shop where I counted the money again.
It was then I realised, I’d been scammed.
Despite thinking I watched his every move, he pulled off some sleight of hand and suddenly I was US$30 worse off.
I went back to confront him (probably a stupid idea), but in the couple of minutes I’d been away, he’d disappeared. I had no choice but to head to my accommodation on a low point.
The first day in Suriname, which had started so well, had already been ruined.
Chased by a Crazed Local
After returning from a 3-day Guyana trip, I finally had a proper chance to explore Paramaribo. I went to visit the Central Market on the Waterkant, which was an interesting place to see what locals got up to in their everyday life.
Upon leaving, I caught the attention of a lady outside who was holding a half-empty bottle of vodka.
This lady seemed crazed, and under the influence of a lot more than just vodka.
As a white guy, I stand out as a clear and obvious foreigner in Suriname. Most locals don’t care, but this lady did, and she started to follow me.
As I picked up pace, so did she. She would shout at me in Dutch, which unfortunately I don’t understand, but I don’t think she was saying “welcome to Suriname, I hope you have a lovely time”.
Fortunately, a heavily-intoxicated woman who must have been around 50 at least, isn’t the greatest danger I had ever faced. A fast walk was enough to put some distance between us.
However, after 5 minutes of being followed and shouted at, I decided to end this unpleasant experience by running off, knowing she wouldn’t catch me.
I decided to lay low in a shop for a few minutes, before heading back to the main road where I’d lost her. Thinking she had gone, I continued walking towards my target destination, Fort Zeelandia.
However, there was an unpleasant surprise waiting for me. I hadn’t noticed, but my dear friend was back and she spotted me again, meaning it was time for another slow-motion chase down the street.
After a couple of minutes, we turned a corner. She shouted something, and a local man started shouting at me too. She must have told him that I was some sort of villain in this encounter.
Either way, with the man now here, I really wasn’t enjoying this whole experience and decided to end it before it could get worse.
I sprinted down the road with sweat dripping off me with each step in humid Paramaribo, and finally lost the lady for good.
After a few minutes of hiding, I resumed my journey, taking the long route to ensure we wouldn’t see each other a third time.
I was lucky that my opponent on this occasion had been programmed to the lowest difficulty setting, and without other locals getting involved, I was always going to outrun her. But on another occasion, that could’ve been a young man with big muscles, similar to the guy who scammed me. And that story may not have ended so well…
The Second Scam
After a few nights at Paramaribo’s famous Twenty4 Hostel, which is where most foreign travellers to the country stay, it was time to take the bus to the Albina border which I would cross whilst travelling to Cayenne.
However, there was still time for two more unpleasant incidents, not including heated arguments with a nasty guest in the hostel the previous night, the first time I’ve had such a situation in probably 150+ hostel stays over the years.
The receptionist at the hostel told me the bus was at 8am. So I got to the station almost an hour early to find tickets in good time.
After a while, I hadn’t found the bus with “Albina” on the front, which is what I was looking for.
At first, I thought this was because I came too early, but as time went on, I started to worry I’d missed something.
Eventually a man approaches me and says he’s selling tickets to Albina.
He looked dodgy, but I had no other leads, and at just £3 (US$4), I bought a “ticket” off him, unconvinced it was real…
Sure enough, the bus eventually arrived and the giant driver with a stature similar to Hagrid was not too pleased when I told him I’d already paid for the bus.
As expected, the ticket I bought was fake, and I had to pay a second time. At least on this occasion, the bus was legitimate.
Moral of the story: keep your cool and don’t rush into a panic buy if your gut instinct tells you that something is wrong. Had I just waited until 8am when the bus was due, this one could easily have been avoided.
A Potential Kidnapping?
Before the real bus arrived, a man asked if I was going to Albina. I said yes, and he said I could get in his bus as it was going there.
However, there were some massive red flags here.
This guy’s bus was unmarked unlike the others, and it didn’t have the destination name in the front.
Also, no one else was on there.
I’ve heard stories about the Paramaribo to Albina route. Past travellers have been kidnapped and robbed off all their possessions before being left stranded in the jungle. And there was a lot to be suspicious about here.
I quickly went round the corner and slipped away from this guy unscathed. But I was lucky enough to have done my research and picked up years of travel experience before coming here. I may have been scammed, but at least I wasn’t kidnapped.
Thoughts After Leaving
The first scam had cancelled out my positive first impressions of Suriname. The lack of interesting things to see and do didn’t do much to impress me, and the other incidents ensured I went away with negative views of this place.
Unlike the likes of Kuwait, Serbia and Kosovo, I couldn’t find any real positives to take from Suriname.
It was hot and humid. The country is unnecessarily expensive (although still much more affordable than neighbouring Guyana and French Guiana), and the people weren’t exactly the easiest to warm to.
It did at least have a couple of decent budget accommodation options in Paramaribo.
There were minor issues too. One man shouted at me for walking down the wrong road on my way to my first accommodation. I hadn’t noticed the “road closed” sign, and he had a less-than-polite way of letting me know.
In another situation, a man walked past me and threw a glass bottle at the ground, smashing it open in broad daylight for no apparent reason.
The little incidents added up to paint an overall negative picture of the country, where the lady at the airport and some of the hostel staff were the only plus points from an otherwise miserable place.
Is Suriname Dangerous? Or Was I Just Unlucky?
Suriname is a dangerous country these days. It was previously known for being much safer than notorious crime hotspot Georgetown in next-door Guyana.
However, economic struggles have seen the country become much poorer, with people increasingly turning to crime, as a local who I met through Couchsurfing told me.
Conversely, Guyana discovered oil which has given it a massive economic boost. It’s still not very safe, but it’s at least heading in the right direction, unlike Suriname.
If you are a white foreigner, you will almost certainly stand out in Suriname. The majority of the population has a Caribbean-style appearance, with a fair few Chinese people working in shops, and sizeable Indian and Indonesian populations.
Whilst most people won’t cause any problems, the few that will can easily identify you as a target.
I would recommend being vary wary if you do visit this country. It’s not a beginner travel destination, and is one of the trickiest countries to navigate in South America, with steadily increasing crime and a serious lack of tourist infrastructure.
One plus side is that English is fairly widely spoken, which surprised me since Suriname was a Dutch colony for hundreds of years. It did however have a small spell of British rule which led to the English language spreading across the population. Something which is still prevalent today.
Would I Give Suriname a Second Chance?
Yes, but it’s certainly not high up my list. There are two reasons why I would give it a second chance.
Firstly, I have a side quest on my journey to visit every country in the world. Whilst visiting each country is my main goal, I also try and watch at least one top level football match in each nation I go to. Unfortunately, Suriname was between seasons when I arrived, meaning I have to go back to achieve this goal in the future.
Secondly, Suriname prides itself on being the greenest country in the world, with 93% of its surfaces covered by rainforest (the Amazon no less).
Whilst the likes of Brazil, Colombia, Peru and Bolivia have much more established Amazon tourist industries, Suriname offers a more offbeat chance to see the world’s most famous rainforest.
Having a good experience there would allow me to rethink my opinions on this country, and perhaps turn around one day and say I was too harsh on it.
After all, I didn’t like Chile the first time around. I couldn’t enjoy Atacama Desert as injury ensured I couldn’t do activities, Santiago is an awful city, and Easter Island was amazing but didn’t really feel like proper Chile.
On the second occasion, I absolutely loved both Atacama and Torres del Paine in Chilean Patagonia. Chile went from one of my least-favourite South American countries to one of my favourites.
Maybe Suriname could do the same?
If you do decide to go, check out Tripadvisor’s list of things to do in Suriname.
Would you consider a Suriname trip? And what are your thoughts if you have already been? Let me know in the comments below.
