Liberia’s hotels, motels and restaurants serve a variety of American, European, Asian, Chinese, Lebanese and African dishes, as well as the more predictable fare of hotel dining rooms. Here, as well as in the smaller towns of the north and east, the visitor should enjoy sampling some of the more unusual West African foods in ‘cookhouses’ which serve rice with traditional Liberian dishes.

National specialities:
• Goat soup is a national favourite.
• Cabbage cooked with bacon and pigs' feet.
• Palm nuts with shrimp in fish or chicken stock.
• Rice bread made with mashed bananas.

National drinks:
• Liberia produces a lot of its own brands of alcoholic drink, which are readily available – some of the beers are excellent.
• Ginger beer and palm wine are popular.
• Wines and imported beverages are also available.

Tipping: Tips are normally around 10%.

In Monrovia, nightlife is extensive with dozens of crowded nightclubs, discos and bars open until the early hours. Most of the nightlife centres on Gurley Street. Providence Island has a bandstand and an amphitheatre where performances of traditional African music and dance are staged.

Monrovia’s sidestreets are crowded with tailors selling brightly coloured tie-dyed and embroidered cloth which they will make up immediately into African or European styles. Monrovia offers the shopper elegant boutiques and shops as well as modern, air-conditioned supermarkets which compete with old-fashioned stores. Liberian handicrafts include carvings in sapwood, camwood, ebony and mahogany, stone items, soapstone carvings (such as fertility symbols from the Kissi), ritual masks, metal jewellery and figurines and reed dolls of the Loma.

Shopping hours: Mon-Sat 0800-1300 and 1500-1800.