The reading list
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The security map comes first
Three governments, three slightly different maps. Read all of them, note the dates, and plan to the strictest one your insurer will hold you to.
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Cameroon travel advice
The most granular of the maps, updated 9 February 2026. Against all travel to the North-West, to the South-West including Buea and Tiko, to most of the Far North, the Bakassi Peninsula and within 40km of the Nigeria, Chad and Central African Republic borders. Limbé is downgraded to all but essential. Travelling against this advice could invalidate your insurance.
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Travel Advisory: Cameroon, May 2026
The State Department advisory, renewed 15 May 2026 at Level 2 for the country with Level 4 Do Not Travel for the South-West, North-West and Far North and within 20km of three borders. Also blunt about the rest: violent crime and kidnapping for ransom are common, and even a minor health issue may need evacuation at your own expense.
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Cameroon travel advice and advisories
Updated 14 August 2026. Avoid all travel to the Far North, the North-West and the South-West and within 30km of the Nigeria, Chad and Central African Republic borders, and avoid non-essential travel to the North and Adamaoua regions. A useful cross-check, because it draws the northern lines differently from the UK.
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Safety and security
The detail behind the map. Names Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa, says attacks could reach Yaoundé and Douala, lists kidnapping for ransom in six regions including the East, and warns about armed robbery and unofficial taxis in the cities. Also warns that protests and unrest around the presidential election results can flare without warning.
Why those regions are closed
Two separate wars, one in the English-speaking west and one in the far north. Travel sites tend to mention neither.
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Cameroon
The short version of both conflicts. Armed separatists have fought for independence for the Anglophone North-West and South-West since late 2016, targeting civilians including teachers and aid workers, while security forces have killed civilians and tortured suspects. Boko Haram remains a persistent threat in the Far North.
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Cameroon 2025
The most recent annual account. Security forces killed at least 48 demonstrators around the October 2025 election, which Paul Biya, president for 43 years, was declared to have won. Conflict in the Anglophone regions and farmer-herder clashes in the North-West had internally displaced nearly one million people.
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NRC in Cameroon
Calls it one of the most neglected crises in the world and counts three at once: over 573,000 displaced in the Far North, over 648,000 in the North-West and South-West, and more than 353,000 refugees from the Central African Republic. The figures date from 2025.
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Anglophone Crisis
How suppressed protests in 2016 and 2017 became a guerrilla war over the former Southern Cameroons, and why the 2019 talks failed. Also records separatist raids into the neighbouring French-speaking Littoral and West regions.
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Cameroon
The Red Cross runs its Central Africa delegation from Yaoundé and works in exactly the three regions the advisories close: the Far North, North-West and South-West. A plain indication of where the armed violence is.
What remains open, and what does not
The south and centre are where a visitor can go. Check each place against the map above, because some famous names sit just on the wrong side of a line.
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Kribi
The coastal town in the South region, about 150km by road from Douala, known for its beaches and the Lobé Waterfalls where the river drops into the sea., and none of the three advisories closes the South region.
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Visit our sanctuary
A primate rescue sanctuary in the Mefou forest, off the N2 south of Yaoundé, run by a registered UK charity. Directions, the unpaved last few kilometres and a number to ring before you go, because it can close at short notice.
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Limbe Wildlife Centre
Thirty years of rehabilitating animals taken from the illegal wildlife trade, and open to visitors. Limbé is in the South-West, where the UK advises against all but essential travel, so check the map first.
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Mount Cameroon
The highest point in sub-Saharan western and central Africa, an active volcano last erupting in 2012, rising beside Buea in the South-West Region. Buea is named in the UK's against all travel zone and the region is Level 4 for the US, so read this as background rather than a plan.
The Dja and the forests
The rainforest is the strongest reason to come, and the part most under pressure.
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Dja Faunal Reserve
The independent assessment of the World Heritage site, inscribed in 1987. Its 2025 outlook, finalised in October 2025, is significant concern: a dam now operating, plantations and logging around the edges, and poaching still a major threat despite stronger patrols.
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Dja Faunal Reserve
Created in 1950, around 90% undisturbed, with western lowland gorillas, chimpanzees, forest elephants, over 107 mammals and more than 320 bird species. About 40,000 people live in it, Baka hunter-gatherers among them, which visitors should know before they arrive.
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Incentivizing conservation shows success against wildlife hunting in Cameroon
A study on the northern edge of the Dja, where hunters were paid in farming and fishing support to stop hunting. No chimpanzee or gorilla hunting was recorded in the two years after. A rare piece of measured good news, with the experts' caveats left in.
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WCS Cameroon
The government's main conservation partner in managing several national parks and reserves, with field reports from parks such as Mbam Djerem and Bouba Ndjida. Better than a tour brochure for knowing what is actually left in them.
Getting in: visa and yellow fever
Two things will stop you at the airport. Neither can be sorted on arrival.
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Entry requirements
British citizens need a visa in advance, applied for online, and cannot get one on arrival at Yaoundé, Douala or any land or sea border. Six months of passport validity and a yellow fever certificate are required. Overland and sea arrivals need a physical visa from an embassy.
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eVisa portal
The official e-visa application service, the one the UK and Canadian governments link to. The FCDO notes that some applicants have technical problems with it, so leave time.
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Country list: vaccination requirements and WHO recommendations
The WHO compilation, dated 2022 and revised January 2023. Cameroon requires proof of yellow fever vaccination for all travellers aged one or over, and WHO recommends the vaccine. Malaria risk is year-round across the whole country.
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Cameroon: traveler view
Confirms the yellow fever entry rule and recommends malaria prevention medicine for everyone. Also flags active cholera transmission in the Far North, one more reason that region is off the itinerary.
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Cameroon
The UK's clinical travel health service, and the page to take to your pre-travel appointment. The yellow fever vaccine is only given at registered centres and does not suit everyone, so book well ahead.
Background
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Cameroon
German colony, then divided between France and the United Kingdom until independence in 1960 and 1961, which is the root of the English-speaking west and the conflict there. Nearly 31 million people speak around 250 languages besides English and French.
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Presentation of Cameroon
The state's own description. French and English are the official languages, spoken by 70% and 30% of the population respectively, which tells you which one to brush up on outside the west. Some of the city population figures are long out of date.
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Cameroon country profile
No longer updated since March 2023, but still the clearest short political primer, including how the army's move west to fight separatists coincided with more Boko Haram attacks in the north.