Travel in Africa has never just been about movement, it has always been about meaning. In this episode of OT PODS, we trace Africa’s travel culture across time, power, and purpose. We begin in pre-colonial Africa, where travel was rooted in community, trade, learning, and connection. Fluid, borderless, and human. We confront the rupture of the slave trade era, where movement became forced, traumatic, and permanent, reshaping Africa’s relationship with travel itself. From there, we examine colonial and post-colonial systems that introduced borders, passports, visas, and unequal mobility — systems that still determine who moves freely and who must ask for permission. Using real-world examples, including Aliko Dangote’s experience of needing dozens of visas to move across Africa while foreign executives travel with ease, we unpack how travel has become a tool of power, control, and inequality. We then connect this to modern migration culture; Japa, brain drain, and travel as escape, where movement is often driven by survival rather than curiosity. Finally, we bring the conversation home to Nigeria, exploring internal travel struggles, visa humiliation, class divides, and the tension between travel as freedom versus travel as flex. Through the lens of AfCFTA and Pan-Africanism, we ask the hard questions: Can Africa truly integrate without free movement of its people? Has travel lost its original purpose, or is it simply evolving? This episode isn’t just about where Africans go. It’s about why, how, and at what cost. Orientation, as always, is the goal.
