The wooden capital at the edge of the Amazon

Paramaribo: Heritage & Landmarks Private Guided Walking Tour

The one dedicated city tour of Paramaribo on GetYourGuide: a private five-hour walk through the UNESCO-listed inner city with a local guide, taking in Fort Zeelandia, the Palm Garden, the markets and the Waterkant, with a meal along the way. It is priced per private group of up to three, so it works best when you can share the cost.

• Fort Zeelandia, the Palmentuin and the riverside
• Markets and colonial landmarks with a local guide
• Private group, meal included

Commewijne Coffee and Plantation Heritage Tour, All Inclusive

A relaxed six-hour introduction to the plantation district across the river. The day starts with breakfast, continues with the history of Commewijne and a visit to the Katwijk coffee plantation for a tasting, and ends with a local lunch. Small group, with free cancellation at the time of writing.

• Breakfast at a café before crossing to Commewijne
• Katwijk coffee plantation with tasting
• Local lunch included, small group

Suriname: Peperpot Nature Park Tour & River Sunset

A short afternoon outing to Peperpot, the old coffee and cocoa plantation that has become a nature park just across the river from the city. You walk among the plantation remains, look for monkeys and birds in the regrown forest and finish with sunset on the river. A new listing with a small group size — check the live price before you plan around it.

• Forest trail on an 18th-century plantation
• Wildlife spotting with a guide
• Sunset over the river, pickup available

3-Day Tour of the Suriname Interior, All Inclusive

The only multi-day trip into the Surinamese interior on GetYourGuide. Three days out of Paramaribo with transport, meals and accommodation included: river travel, a village stay, caiman spotting after dark and a try at piranha fishing. Read the day-by-day programme on the listing to see exactly where it goes.

• Transport, meals and accommodation included
• Night-time caiman spotting
• Piranha fishing and village life

Paramaribo Airport (PBM): Private Transfer to Paramaribo

A pre-booked private car between Johan Adolf Pengel International Airport at Zanderij and hotels in Paramaribo, in either direction. The airport is about an hour south of the city and many flights land late at night, so a driver waiting with your name is worth a lot. Priced per vehicle — compare with a local taxi or shared shuttle if you are on a budget.

• Air-conditioned private vehicle and driver
• Airport to hotel or hotel to airport
• Priced per vehicle (up to two passengers)

Paramaribo: Hands-on Aromatherapy Candle Making Workshop

A gentle ninety-minute workshop in the city in which you pour and scent your own candle to take home. It has nothing to do with sightseeing, which is exactly the point: a good filler for a rainy afternoon or the hot middle of the day.

• Make your own Suriname-inspired candle
• Small group in a tropical setting
• A souvenir you take home the same day

Kaieteur Falls: Scenic Flight and Guided Tour from Georgetown

Not in Suriname, but the classic add-on for anyone continuing west to Guyana: a small-aircraft flight from Georgetown to the airstrip beside Kaieteur Falls, a guided walk to several viewpoints and the flight back. Flights depend on the weather and on enough passengers.

• Small-aircraft flight over unbroken rainforest
• Guided walk to the viewpoints
• The region’s most famous waterfall

French Guiana: Day Trip to Cacao via the Comté River

For travellers heading east into French Guiana: a day on the Comté River to the village of Cacao and its well-known market. It starts near Cayenne, a long way from Paramaribo, so plan it as part of a French Guiana leg rather than as a day trip from Suriname.

• Boat trip on the Comté River
• The market of the Hmong village of Cacao
• Small group

Historic Inner City & Waterkant

The white wooden capital on the Suriname River

A Dutch colonial town built almost entirely of wood, inscribed by UNESCO in 2002. The riverside Waterkant, Independence Square with the Presidential Palace, and street after street of white houses with green shutters make the best free walk in the Guianas.

Fort Zeelandia

Where Paramaribo began

The small pentagonal brick fort on the river bend from which the city grew. Taken by a fleet from Zeeland in 1667, later a barracks and prison, and the scene of the December murders of 1982, it now houses the Surinaams Museum.

Keizerstraat Mosque & Synagogue

Two faiths, one garden wall

On Keizerstraat the Neveh Shalom synagogue and the city’s main mosque stand side by side, sharing a boundary. It is Paramaribo’s most photographed street corner and the shortest explanation of how the city sees itself.

Peperpot Nature Park

A plantation taken back by the forest

One of Suriname’s oldest plantations, a few kilometres across the river from the city. Coffee and cocoa gave way to secondary forest, and a flat trail now runs past the old buildings through trees full of squirrel monkeys and birds.

Frederiksdorp & Mariënburg

Sleep on a plantation, walk through a sugar factory

Frederiksdorp is a carefully restored 18th-century coffee and cocoa plantation on the Commewijne River, now a small heritage hotel. Across the water, the rusting sugar factory of Mariënburg tells the harder story of contract labour.

Brownsberg & Brokopondo

Rainforest plateau above a drowned forest

Brownsberg Nature Park is a 500-metre forested plateau about 130 km south of the city, with waterfalls, monkeys and a famous view over the Brokopondo Reservoir — a vast lake from which the trunks of a flooded forest still rise.