Olayinka Oke has travelled to 23 of Nigeria’s 36 states, exploring her nomadic curiosities from humble beginnings before she began branching out of the country and, eventually, Africa.
Before Ghana, Malta, Sierra Leone, and Kenya, there were shorter trips across Nigeria. She would wait for a public holiday, take two extra leave days, book a hotel or Airbnb, and disappear for four days. Sometimes, it was a quick weekend stop in Ekiti, in southwestern Nigeria. Other times, Kano, in the far north.
At the time, international travel still felt distant for Oke.
But in 2017, she crossed Nigeria’s borders for Accra, Ghana, for the first time. That trip changed something.
“Even though Ghana is a lot similar to Nigeria, there was—I don’t know the word for it—but my eyes just opened to the fact that there’s actually a lot more to life than the country where you live,” said Oke.
Now, she saves a little over ₦500,000 ($368) every month into a travel fund to finance the frequent travel lifestyle she describes as requiring “meticulous planning.”
In March, she was in Kenya for the month, working remotely from different high‑brow parts of Nairobi and taking a side trip to Lamu, off Kenya’s coast. Later this year, she plans to visit several European countries and at least one Asian country, preferably Thailand, she said.
Oke, a chemical engineering graduate from Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH) in Ogbomosho, Oyo State, leads data management and governance at Nigeria LNG Limited (NLNG), one of the country’s biggest gas producers.
She said her urge to travel came from a restless dislike for routine and a desire to keep experiencing new places instead of staying in one environment long enough to get bored.
“There’s always the point of wanting to be in a saner clime,” Oke said. “Every time you run into a low‑quality problem in Nigeria, you tell yourself that, ‘if I were living outside Nigeria, this wouldn’t be a problem.’”
Her full‑time job is based in Nigeria, but over the last few years, she has steadily built a life that assumes she will live in at least three other countries every year, one month at a time.