Chiamaka Amaku refuses to be restricted by a inexperienced passport booklet

Since 2021, Chiamaka Amaku, a social media-loving journey influencer, has not spent greater than three consecutive months at her residence in Lagos, Nigeria, the place she’s primarily based. On a name on November 17, 2025, she was in Berlin, Germany, taking a break between work conferences and government MBA lessons whereas scrolling via flight choices for her subsequent journey.

“Lagos is my base, my dwelling, however I barely spend as much as three months at a stretch there,” stated Amaku. “And for those who don’t spend greater than three months in a spot, you’ll be able to’t actually say you reside there. I’ve realised that my life-style is virtually nomadic.”

The bus journey to Accra

All it took to set her off on this path was one impromptu bus journey to Accra, Ghana. In 2019, Amaku labored at a publishing home in Lagos. Some authors she was selling deliberate a e-book chat and panel in Accra; the corporate was paying for his or her lodge, so she volunteered, paid for a bus ticket and joined the journey. The journey took greater than 24 hours by highway, and by the point she arrived in Ghana—drained, frazzled, and already checking flight costs again to Lagos—one thing had shifted.

“Once I went to Ghana, I knew that the life I knew earlier than was by no means going to stay the identical,” stated Amaku. “That one traumatic journey opened my thoughts in a manner it by no means would have if I’d stayed dwelling; I knew I might chase this and journey much more.”

From that first journey, she started setting herself quiet challenges: yet one more nation, then one other, every vacation spot proof that journey was not reserved for richer, extra highly effective passports. She has now visited 28 nations in whole, although she insists the depend is 27 as a result of she solely handed via Dubai’s airport on a protracted layover and refuses to assert a spot she has not correctly explored. 

Her passport tells the actual story: stamps from West African highway journeys, Schengen hops that string ten nations right into a single itinerary, and journeys to locations like Lebanon, Qatar, Singapore and Turkey, the place she says she realized as a lot about group as she did about herself.

“I’ve realized about sharing and group from Asian nations like Lebanon and Singapore,” stated Amaku. “Folks there have this sense of togetherness; you are feeling how a lot they imagine in individuals, and it adjustments the way you see the world.”

How Amaku travels on a Nigerian passport

For a lot of Nigerians, the primary query about journey is just not the place to go, however tips on how to get there when your passport is without doubt one of the weakest on the earth. Amaku doesn’t soften that actuality; she leans into it, treating entry as an issue to be solved repeatedly relatively than a wall to show again from. She nonetheless travels on a Nigerian passport, however layers it with each benefit she will be able to discover: residency, visa technique, obsessive analysis and a piece life constructed round flexibility.

“Yearly, I spend 1000’s and 1000’s of {dollars} on visa functions,” stated Amaku. “I get some, I get denied for some, however the world is mine for exploration, so a visa denial is not going to cease me.”

Her first structural hack was a residency in Benin Republic, a standing she picked up after overhearing an informal dialog and deciding on the spot to pursue it.

That residency makes it simpler to use for visas to some francophone African nations, giving her extra easy entry to elements of West Africa and past. 

On prime of that, she has realized to maximise each visa she secures. A UK visa, for instance, has taken her not simply to England but additionally to Scotland, Montenegro, Albania, Jersey and even so far as Mexico, Turks and Caicos Islands, and the Bahamas, locations many Nigerians don’t realise are accessible with that single sticker of their passports.

“Folks don’t know the entry is that broad,” stated Amaku. “That’s why I nonetheless apply even after denials; I hate the documentation, however I like what the entry lets me do.”

Constructing this life required cash, earned slowly, then abruptly. Earlier than social media turned her full-time lane, she labored in publishing after which in company communications, working a small hair enterprise on the aspect and quietly gaining a repute for being good at social media. When the COVID-19 lockdown hit in 2020, the demand for on-line creators exploded, and so did her workload.

On the time, she was the top of company communications at a house automation firm, however referrals continued to pour in for her to deal with social media and content material for small manufacturers. By mid-lockdown, she was working three roles from her bed room in Lagos: main company communications, contracting as a social media supervisor and content material creator for a fintech, and managing social media for a trend enterprise, all whereas working her hair model.

“Sooner or later in 2020, I used to be incomes three salaries and residing at dwelling,” stated Amaku. “I wasn’t paying hire or spending on meals, so after the grind and the exhaustion, I seemed up and realised I had this monetary buffer—and that’s after I began travelling.”

These months constructed greater than financial savings; they constructed credibility. Each marketing campaign, each model suggestion, each profitable experiment with social content material made it simpler for future employers and purchasers to belief her, which, in flip, made it simpler to insist on distant or versatile work. Right now, she leads social media and advertising and marketing efforts for a Nigerian fintech unicorn in a largely distant function, with occasional in-person time in Lagos throughout event-heavy seasons.

“Advertising is usually on-line now,” stated Amaku. “I can press go on a marketing campaign right here in Germany, and it begins changing in Lagos; I don’t need to be there besides throughout occasion season.”

That flexibility is what lets her line up flights with lessons, work calls, and group journeys for the journey enterprise she co-founded in 2022 after a visit to Kigali, Rwanda. On that journey, she realised how neatly her strengths match with these of a college good friend: he beloved logistics and admin, from negotiating lodge reductions to finalising flight particulars, whereas she thrived at advertising and marketing and group constructing, retaining individuals engaged, knowledgeable and excited concerning the expertise. By the point their first journey ended, they’d a reputation, a model, an Instagram account, and a flyer for his or her subsequent vacation spot, Senegal.

“He instructed me, ‘I’m sensible at operations, and also you’re sensible at advertising and marketing—why don’t we convey our brilliance collectively and do that as a enterprise?’” stated Amaku. “Earlier than that dialog was over, I had created the Instagram account, named the enterprise, and designed the flyer for our subsequent group journey.”

Their journey company has since helped over 100 individuals journey, a lot of them leaving Nigeria for the primary time on curated journeys to Benin Republic, Togo, and different West African locations. Amaku designs these journeys to be each inexpensive and strategically helpful: a two-country Benin and Togo highway journey, which prices round ₦750,000 ($518.20) lately, can yield as much as eight passport stamps, practically two pages of journey historical past that make future visa functions stronger.

“For a first-time traveller, a Benin and Togo journey for 750k is without doubt one of the Most worthy issues you are able to do,” stated Amaku. “You come again with eight stamps—nearly two full pages of your passport—and that’s highly effective while you begin making use of for visas.”

She applies the identical step-by-step logic to her personal funds. Moderately than waking up in the future and paying for a six-country Europe journey in a single lump sum, she spreads the fee over months: flights booked 4 or 5 months forward, motels locked in nearer to departure, and different bills mapped out in phases. That is partly a response to how costly journey could be—a Lagos-to-Zanzibar flight can value round ₦1.2 million ($829.11), excluding lodging—and a option to make a demanding life-style sustainable.

“The best option to save for journey is to do it small,” stated Amaku. “By the point you’ve paid for the ticket in June, the lodge in September, and some different issues in between, you received’t even realise while you’ve pulled the entire journey collectively.”

‘Low-cost’ isn’t nearly when she pays, it’s additionally about how she searches. She makes use of flight aggregators to check routes and costs, runs searches via VPNs that make it appear like she’s reserving from different nations, and at all times checks reserving platforms in cell view as a result of she has realized that the identical lodge usually exhibits cheaper charges on a cellphone than on a laptop computer.

“I’ll put myself in Cotonou or Cameroon with a VPN to see if I can get a less expensive flight deal,” stated Amaku. “On reserving websites, I at all times use cell view as a result of it offers you a less expensive value than desktop—you’d be shocked how a lot distinction that makes.”

Then there are the instruments that maintain her protected and oriented when she is shifting consistently. For language limitations, she leans on Google Translate—tapping fast phrases backwards and forwards throughout counters, turnstiles, and ticket cubicles—and for navigation, she begins with Google Maps earlier than switching to country-specific apps as soon as she lands. In Switzerland, she depends on SBB Cellular to search out the suitable platforms and trains; in Berlin, she makes use of Deutsche Bahn’s app; in Italy, one more system she needed to study after getting repeatedly misplaced.

“Transferring round Europe is so arduous for those who’re not an area or somebody who lives right here,” stated Amaku. “You don’t simply hop right into a bus and say ‘cease me right here’ like in Lagos; it is advisable to know the stations, the platforms, the precise occasions, otherwise you’ll miss every little thing.”

To handle threat throughout borders, she buys journey medical insurance coverage via Security Wing, a supplier she prefers as a result of its insurance policies explicitly cowl medical emergencies, versus generic journey insurance coverage merchandise she’s seen. The selection is knowledgeable by tales like that of a consumer who developed a watch an infection in South Africa and needed to pay a $100 payment earlier than the supplier coated the remainder of the therapy—an expertise that taught Amaku to scrutinise what ‘protection’ actually means.

A shifting prepare with a classroom

Despite her fixed travels, Amaku nonetheless needs anchors. Lagos stays dwelling, the place she returns to after lengthy stretches on the highway, and recently, Barcelona, the place she is at the moment enrolled in a hybrid government MBA programme. 

“Each three months, I’m going in for per week to study in individual,” Amaku stated, “Then every little thing else—lessons, assignments—is on-line, which is one massive motive I’m in Europe so usually.”

The programme shapes her journey calendar in sensible and private methods. She usually builds a complete multi-country route round that one required week, scheduling work shoots, journey enterprise journeys, and private exploration on both aspect of her lessons. She admits, nonetheless, that she typically feels bored with the repeated journeys to Europe and longs for Asia, the place visas are tougher to stack, however the cultures really feel contemporary.

“Asia is my subsequent massive goal,” stated Amaku. “The one factor that’s stopping me is the truth that, in contrast to Europe, the place one Schengen visa can unlock ten nations in a single swoop, Asia usually wants separate visas for every nation; as soon as I’ve the additional cash for all these costly visas, that continent will likely be seeing me rather a lot.”

Her days on the highway usually are not balanced in any standard sense; they’re managed, one crucial activity at a time. Some days, “crucial” means sitting in an eight-hour class for her MBA; on others, it means spending 18 hours commuting between nations, or main a brainstorming name along with her advertising and marketing crew, or internet hosting a bunch of first-time travellers in a coastal Benin Republic city.

It helps that each strand of her life feeds into the others. Advertising pays for journey and permits it to remain versatile; the MBA deepens her enterprise expertise and networks; the journey company turns her experience and curiosity right into a product for different Nigerians who by no means thought journey was for them. She has watched {couples} who as soon as instructed her they may by no means afford to journey now plan honeymoons in East Africa after a primary highway journey along with her to Benin and Togo.

“The mission has at all times been to point out Nigerians that journey is feasible,” stated Amaku. “In three years of working this enterprise, I’ve seen over 100 individuals depart the nation for the primary time and are available again already planning the place to go subsequent.”

What worries her now is just not whether or not extra individuals will wish to journey, however whether or not the world will make it tougher for them to take action. She tracks immigration information nearly obsessively, monitoring every little thing from the UK’s new earnings thresholds for sponsored work routes to Qatar’s restrictions on solo Nigerian male guests, to Southeast Asian nations tightening entry guidelines for Nigerians. In her view, the borders of the “International North” are closing extra tightly with every year, and the one defence is data.

“Individuals are not curious sufficient when these journey coverage adjustments come out,” stated Amaku. “The primary query must be: what does this imply for me and the longer term I’m planning?”

This curiosity is what turned one underpaid publishing staffer into a lady who strings Europe collectively like a neighbourhood and treats airports as prolonged residing rooms. It’s what pushed her to take a seat via a depressing 24-hour bus experience to Ghana and what now sends her throughout continents to attend per week of lessons in Spain. And it’s what she hopes to cross on to each younger one that texts her to say they love her journey movies and want it may very well be them sometime.

For Amaku, being a self-described “digital nomad” is just not about by no means having a house; it’s about refusing to just accept {that a} inexperienced passport ought to determine how a lot of the world you get to see.