Lagos day trips
 

Next week I have a business trip to Lagos, but will have a full free day before my evening flight home.

I could stay in the hotel, but i'm fairly adventurous, so was hoping to explore a bit. I know Lagos isn't the quintessential tourist destination, so I need some advice:

- Where to go for the day? In town there doesn't seem to be a lot to see. Badagry Town looks interesting, but it's quite a distance from Lagos. The Lekki Conservation Centre also looks interesting, but again is a bit of a journey. I'm staying in a hotel up near the airport. Any good beach clubs?

- How to get around. I'm a little worried about security, and so i'm interested in hiring a driver with a car (and security guard?). I can't find much information on cars and drivers online....can anyone point me in the right direction (feel free to send me a message).

- Traffic. I understand that in the last few years the traffic in Lagos has improved - are the Google Map timings to be believed, or should I had a few hours onto every journey?

Thanks for any advice :)

No idea - I never seem to have any free time. A very long time ago, Tarkwa Bay was the place to go, but no idea how/if that still works with the land reclamation...

I just use Uber - so long as you can get a signal on your phone (network coverage is patchy/variable) then I find it works very well. Can't help in terms of drivers and guards, but if you're of that mind then I'd imagine your company/host company can sort you one out

It doesn't feel like it! Actually, sometimes it can be very good, but you need to plan on its being terrible, especially when heading to the airport. Certainly I wouldn't plan on doing Badagry for the day, and last month it took me 2.5 hours from Lekki to Ikeja (33km, Google Maps suggests 1 hour) at lunchtime...

I was just in Lagos yesterday. I'm guessing you're staying the Lekki area, as that's where most of the upper scale hotels are. The Lekki Conservation is interesting, there's a very tall canopy walk, an old tortoise and a tall tree house. It's a nice escape from Lagos. There's also the Nike Art Gallery, which is nice. Elegushi Beach (near the art gallery) has a run aground ship on the beach, which isn't something you see everyday.

If you're feeling really adventurous, get a driver/guard and have them take you to Makoko. It's a village (very very poor) on the mainland part of Lagos and consists of a bunch of homes built on stilts on the water and everyone get's around on canoes. That was one of my most unique experiences in Nigeria, but it's likely not doable without a guide/guard to help you negotiate/get around, etc.

I have contacts in Nigeria that arranged transportation and security for me. In Lagos, we used Bell Protocols. The guy that runs it, Fred, is awesome. I'm not sure on pricing or anything as I wasn't the one that paid, but he was great to have around. I'd feel fine using Uber to/from LOS, along with around Lekki and Victoria Island, but I wouldn't venture to Makoko without a guide/security.

Traffic is pretty bad. It took us over two hours last week to get from Victoria Island to LOS, but Macron was in town, so roads were closed and traffic was backed up. I'd budget about 90 minutes to get to the airport from Victoria Island/Lekki to be on the safe side.


I wouldn't head over to Badagry. Road conditions are poor and it's a pretty shanty border town, not to mention, it's about a 3 hour drive. Here's a list below of the places I visited (no particular order)...

Lagos/Victoria Island:
Nike Art Gallery
Lekki Conservation Center
Elegushi Beach (ship on the beach)
Balogun Market
National Museum Lagos (has the car Murtala Mohammad was assassinated in)

Mainland:
Makoko Floating Village

For food on VI, RSVP Lagos and Yellow Chilli are both great. The latter being much less expensive.

You're welcome to message me if you have any other questions!

Thanks for the responses guys :)

I hadn't even realised there was Uber there - I presume it's reliable and safe? It's hard as a first timer to gauge just how dangerous it is, as a lot of companies err on the side of caution in terms of advice for employees. There'll be two of us (guy and a girl).

OK, Badagry is off the list this time!

I'm staying up near the airport, so Lekki is the other end of town I guess. Do you have any contact details for Bell Protocol? I couldn't find their website :/

Thanks for that list :)

Better than taxis - new American/Canadian cars and good drivers.

In the spare time that I had, I ended up wandering around the center of Lagos island - not much to see there, but you do get a sense of the city. Most of the stares were that of amazement that a white person would wonder by themselves there. At the end I did have an incident where two guys tried to grab my phone as I was waiting for my uber. Unfortunately unlike on VI there are no cafes to wait in - so I wouldn't advise walking around there unless you know what you're doing.

FWIW VI is perfectly safe to wander around. Though there's not much to see, there are plenty of places to have a nice and relaxing lunch.

This was a neat little jazz-themed bookstore that's near VI.
Because it's rainy season, you probably won't want to visit any beaches. Otherwise, anything on Lekki is decent. Also, there are some nice beaches on the other side of the bay - you'd have to take a boat to go there.
PM me if you want some lunch spots.

How did the trip go? Curious as to what you were able to do.

The Atican beach was a great place to relax

Honestly, there are much better places in W. Africa that are much more interesting in terms of off-the-beaten path tourism. For tourism purposes, Lagos is worth a day at most.

Sorry for the delay in replying.

I ended up booking a hotel car for around £40 for the day with a driver. We drove straight to Lekki (IIRC around £4 entrance) which took around 90 minutes from near the airport. You have to join a tour, and there was a half hour or so wait. There's a small depressing cafe (bring your own snacks!), and a few information boards around the centre about the flora and fauna. The tour was more an employee leading a group of tourists (a few locals, a few expat families, a few Nigerians living in the UK visiting family) along the walkway than doing any active guiding.

The walk around the centre was FAR better than I had hoped for (as i'd done little research on what the conservation centre actually involved), with long sections over a swampy area filled with monkeys, before getting to Africa's longest suspended walkway through the rain forest (you have to pay a little extra to do this). To walk all the trails took around 45-60 minutes depending on your pace (the guide vanished after a while, so we were free to wander).

Other than monkeys, we didn't see a whole lot of other animals, but we were happy to just enjoy the walk and sights and smells of the forest.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...2012.30.27.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...2012.35.54.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...2012.45.13.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...2012.48.33.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...2013.47.05.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...2012.29.06.jpg

On the way back, we asked to stop by the beach (which looked very close to the main road). Bit of an error as the 300m section to the coast took around 20 minutes of dodging potholes, and the beach when we arrived was not the paradise we were hoping for! Anyway, we got a few photos and headed back to the hotel, via KFC for an very non-local lunch!

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...2014.12.35.jpg

We considered going into the city to have a look around as we had the car and driver for the whole day, but decided to play it safe and head back to the hotel, rather than risk getting stuck in rush hour traffic for the sake of an Instagram photo. Overall it was a great excursion, and much more enjoyable than sitting by the hotel pool waiting for a midnight flight.

I was a little worried about security before I went, with this being my first time in Western Africa. Now that I'm back, i'm pretty reassured that it's fairly safe - no armed guards necessary! I'm now planning a little trip to Benin for September - any advice for that?!

Thanks again for the input from you all!