About WakaAbuja

“Waka” means to walk, to travel, to go, in Nigerian Pidgin, and it’s the whole idea behind this site.

Most travel platforms are built for people flying out of London or New York. Try planning a trip from Abuja on one of them, and it shows fast visa advice for a passport that isn’t yours, flight comparisons that ignore your departure city, and budget tips priced in a currency you don’t use. WakaAbuja closes that gap: flights, hotels, and city guides for people traveling from Africa, written by people who’ve actually walked the streets they’re covering.

Our Story

I’m Israel Umar. In early 2024, I wanted a restaurant recommendation in Abuja I could trust and a hotel comparison that wasn’t built for someone else’s country. Neither existed, so I wrote up ten places in Wuse 2 myself.

The team’s bigger now, but the rule hasn’t changed: nobody writes about a place they haven’t stood in. Maya Whitfield, who runs the editorial side, holds contributors to it the same way. As she puts it, “Adeola wrote up a wine estate in Constantia, a tiny place, not on any major travel site. She’d walked the tasting room, taken her own photos, and talked to the people pouring the wine. If nobody on the team has stood in the place, we don’t publish it.”

The team’s grown contributors in Abuja and Cape Town now cover flights, hotels, attractions, and travel planning across Nigeria, South Africa, and all around the world they know firsthand. But it starts the same way it did with those ten restaurants: someone goes, sees it, and writes it down.

Where We’re Based

Abuja, Nigeria, with people on the ground in Cape Town too. No office to walk into yet; WhatsApp or email gets the fastest answer, usually within a day or two.

WhatsApp: wa.me/2348056453934
Email: ThewakaabujaHQ@gmail.com

Everything we publish also shows up here:
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We’re also on TripAdvisor, where you can cross-check our take against other travelers’.