Who would have thought the best trip that would captivate your love so much would be the unplanned trip to a destination you hardly searched about? Do you happen to have any idea what that feels like? In the words of a renowned American rapper, “…things don’t happen to you, they happen for you.” Yes, even the unplanned things. Ever enjoyed an unplanned trip so much? Well, here is Abdul's story.
Abdul is an enthusiastic and adventurous traveller who loves to create enthralling and eye-sticking content everywhere he travels to. From Europe to the Middle East, to Africa, here is a little insight into how he does it and how the Nigerian came to fall so much in love with Madagascar.
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TABLE OF CONTENT
How I began travelling | Skip to detail
Travelling and content creation | Skip to detail
My usual itinerary | Skip to detail
My homeland, Nigeria | Skip to detail
Word of encouragement | Skip to detail
MAY YOU KNOW: Madagascar is the one country I visited and felt like "...there is nothing missing about this place. I loved everything about Madagascar. I mean everything..."
1. How did you come to love travelling?
I can’t give a very specific time to when I started out. Since I was a kid I always loved to travel. I am a very curious person, naturally. My dad used to travel a lot and whenever he says he’s going somewhere I keep wondering to myself ‘How does this place look; what are the people like..’ you know. Those kinds
of thoughts. And these little things just made me want to travel the world and see other places. Even so much so that in my holidays at school, I travel to another school. Oh, I love to travel. The little time I get, I don’t miss the chance. Especially when I was a kid and my parents wanted to go anywhere, they better pack me too. So at 1
4 that was when I left Nigeria for the first time. I joined my parents to Cameroon. We visited my mother’s relatives. From there I just kept traveling.
2. Content creation; when did you start creating travel content? Cause your IG is an entire web on it’s own.
May you know, I didn’t start out thinking of content creation you know. It was an idea borne in me by my friends. So they are always like: “Abdul, you travel a lot why don’t you just create content…mean, you travel a lot anyway. So I decided to start when I visited Tanzania.”
Fancy listening the Podcast version of the article? Check it out below - Part 1
3. Of all the African countries you’ve travelled, which would you most likely visit again?
So far, I have visited five African countries: Cameroon, Niger, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Madagascar. But I must say I love each one of these for very special reasons.
However, of my top three list, I think I will put Madagascar on the first spot. See, I love Madagascar because when I went there I literally loved everything about that place. Know how you can visit a place and there is just that one thing that you did not like so much about that place? I didn’t have that feeling in Madagascar. I found nothing missing in Madagascar.
I loved everything about Madagascar, I mean everything: the food, the people, the wildlife, the landscape etc. When I was to go there I had a visa for 30-days but I had a 15-day tour curated. So when it was almost expired, I was so sad I would leave Madagascar so I said “…NO! I will have to extend it to the entire 30-day duration. Madagascar is so far the longest vacation I ever had. The people are so welcoming that when I was there, it felt at home you know. I didn’t feel like a stranger in Madagascar. So I would say “…Madagascar is the best country ever.”
The funny thing is, I never planned to go to Madagascar the time I did. It was my visa that failed me for the other country I was to travel to with my friends, so we ended up choosing to have the vacation in Madagascar because my resident visa was less than six months and I wasn't due to travel to the previous country. So I had no preconceived ideas of what to expect. Lo and behold, the country gracefully checked all the boxes for me. Maybe unplanned trip are usually the best.
4. With this much love for one African country, which others would you like to visit in the future?
My top list for Africa, huh? I would love to visit Namibia as number one, do Egypt, Morocco, Benin - I saw a lot of beautiful things about Benin online and even though it’s just bordering my country Nigeria, I had no idea it was that beautiful. But then of course I would love to visit all of the African countries because I have a vision to visit all the countries in the world.
Fancy listening the Podcast version of the article? Check it out below - Part 2
5. What does your usual itinerary look like?
Before I travel to any country I do a little research about the country you know - except for Madagascar of course. I usually want to know what makes this country unique. And from my IG you can tell I am very much a nature lover. So first, I look out for the landscape and nature composition of the country. Interestingly, that is the major thing I look out for. Culinary reputation sometimes too.
6. Given that you travel a lot, how do you find cheap flights?
Honestly, I am not the right person to ask this. I must say: even I am still a student to that course. Sometimes, when I am lucky I find cheap flights. Either than that I just take the offer available. I still have to do my research on how to find cheap flights.
7. Tell me a little about Nigeria, your homeland!
I remember I used to tell one of my friends that 'Nigeria is one of the most underrated countries in the world in terms of travel and tourism. So many cultures, each rich in itself and so diverse but not much publicity is given to selling these beauties of these cultures to the world because of the widespread media propaganda and over exaggeration on safety issues. I mean every country has security issues but that of Nigeria is over hyped . I must say that some areas of Nigeria are utterly unsafe but guess every nation has a place or two like that. But what I always advice travelers who are picky on safety is that they get a local to move along with them.
Nigeria like Madagascar is so big a nation to tour such that in one visit, you can not curate an itinerary to cover the entire country. You must choose whether to explore the east, west, north or south at every go. The cultures and country is so diverse that it is difficult to describe. I tried covering Nigeria in one tour the last time I visited and trust me I failed. I had to do one section and leave the rest for my next visit
Place I'm from, people are not really into travel. One, because they can hardly afford it. So it's not an everyday thought. But one thing I tell people that would love to travel is that "...travelling does not mean flights and high end luxury. You can just go somewhere close to your home on a very low budget. Start there and the rest will come in due time."
Another reason too is that people are mostly family oriented so they'd rather stay at home with family. But when you travel the experiences you enrich yourself with when can help you become a better family person. Especially the young men and women my age. We can say its expensive because we have no idea what an eye-opener travelling is. To me, the cure to close-mindedness is travel.
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