Gabon

Gabon has oil money and intact rainforest, a combination rare enough to be worth examining. Thirteen percent of the country is protected as national park - Lope, Loango, Ivindo - and the wildlife that fills those parks includes forest elephants, western lowland gorillas, mandrills and the spectacle of Loango's beach, where elephants and buffalo walk the sand at low tide and humpback whales breach offshore in season. Libreville is a city that has not had to try very hard and shows it, but the country beyond it is among the least disturbed in Africa.

Our guide is being written from the ground up, with the time this place deserves.

We are still gathering the notes that make a guide worth keeping: Loango beach wildlife timings, Lope gorilla tracking, Ivindo waterfall routes and the Libreville restaurants where the Central African coast's French-inflected cooking is done properly.