Africa > Liberia > Robertsport
Robertsport is a small coastal town in Grand Cape Mount County, about 100 km northwest of Monrovia and only 16 km from the Sierra Leone border. It sits on a wide peninsula between Lake Piso and the Atlantic, in a landscape that is one of the most beautiful in Liberia — long empty beaches, palm-fringed lagoons, the wooded ridges of Cape Mount rising behind, and reliable surf breaks that have quietly turned Robertsport into West Africa's best-known surfing destination.
The town itself is small and unhurried — a few unpaved streets, a handful of guesthouses, a Vai-speaking fishing community, and the ruined nineteenth-century stone buildings of the original Americo-Liberian settlement. The most striking of these is the disused Tubman Center of African Culture, built in the 1960s as a museum and library and now a stark concrete shell looking out over the ocean. Above the town, Cape Mount rises 320 m above the sea — the most prominent landmark on this stretch of coast and an easy half-day walk to the summit.
The reason most travelers come, though, is the surf. Five distinct breaks line the cape — most famously the long, peeling left at Cottons Point, one of the best left-handers in Africa, working consistently from May through October. The Kwepunha Retreat surf camp put Robertsport on the international surfing map in the late 2000s, and a small but steady stream of surfers now passes through from Europe, South Africa and the United States. Boards can be rented locally.
For non-surfers, the appeal is the beach — kilometres of empty white sand with cool currents and warm air, Lake Piso for paddling and birdwatching, fresh fish at the small fish market in town, and a slower pace than anywhere else in coastal Liberia. The road from Monrovia is now mostly tarred and the trip takes around three hours — making Robertsport feasible as a weekend break for those based in the capital.