Nigeria 3 Day Itinerary

Kano sits roughly a thousand kilometers north of Lagos, and Ibadan is a separate multi-hour trip again from there. No sane three-day plan visits all three, so this one stays in and around Lagos, where you can actually see something instead of spending the whole trip in transit.

Day 1: Lagos Island and the Mainland Crossing

  • Murtala Muhammed International sits about 20 miles from Victoria Island, and the drive can take anywhere from 45 minutes at 5am to well over two hours during the 7 to 10am or 4 to 8pm rush. Book a ride through Bolt rather than an unmarked airport tout, fares to Victoria Island run somewhere between 10,000 and 25,000 naira depending on time of day and surge, and there is no meter so agree the number before the car pulls off if you go with a street taxi instead.
  • Start at Lekki Conservation Centre, a genuine rainforest reserve rather than a manicured park. The gate fee runs about 5,000 naira with the canopy walkway, Africa’s longest, an extra 1,500 naira, and it is worth every bit of the surcharge for the swaying walk sixty feet above the forest floor.
  • Nike Art Gallery in Lekki is free to enter across its four packed floors of textiles, sculpture, and painting, though a donation or a small purchase from the gift shop is the polite move given how much space and time the founder’s collection occupies.
  • Lunch or dinner should mean suya from a roadside grill rather than a hotel restaurant version, the char and the yaji spice blend do not translate well to a kitchen far from the coals.
  • Traffic, known locally as go-slow, is not an exaggeration. Build in double the travel time Google Maps suggests for anything crossing between the island and the mainland.

Day 2: Markets, History, and the Lagoon

  • Balogun Market on the island is the real deal for fabric, beads, and sheer sensory overload, go with small bills, expect to haggle, and keep bags zipped and in front, it is dense and pickpocket risk is genuinely higher here than at the beach clubs.
  • The National Museum in Onikan is compact but holds the Benin Bronzes replicas and Nigeria’s independence-era artifacts worth an hour, more a grounding stop than a full afternoon.
  • Awolowo Road in Ikoyi is the better bet for a slower afternoon, boutiques, galleries, and sit-down eateries without the market crush.
  • Take a boat trip on Lagos Lagoon toward sunset rather than just viewing it from shore, several operators run short evening cruises out of Victoria Island and the skyline from the water is a different city entirely.
  • Dress code matters more than most first-time visitors expect: modest clothing is the norm outside beach clubs and expat bars, shoulders and knees covered reads as respectful rather than restrictive.

Day 3: Beaches or a Slower Pace Before Departure

  • Tarkwa Bay, reached only by boat from Victoria Island, is calmer and cleaner than the road-accessible beaches and worth the short crossing if your flight is not until evening.
  • Alternatively use the morning for Freedom Park on the island, a former colonial prison turned open-air cultural venue with music and food stalls, a good low-key final stop.
  • Reconfirm your departure transfer well ahead of an evening flight, airport-bound traffic in the late afternoon is some of the worst in the city.

Visa requirements:

Nigeria overhauled its entry system in 2025. The old visa-on-arrival stamp is gone; nearly all nationalities now need an e-Visa arranged in advance through the official Nigeria Immigration Service portal, not a third-party site. Costs vary by passport, roughly 100 pounds for UK citizens and around 160 dollars for US citizens, plus a separate biometrics fee collected on arrival, 50 dollars for African nationals and 170 dollars for everyone else. Approval typically takes one to two days, but do not treat that as a guarantee, apply at least a week out. A yellow fever vaccination certificate is checked at the border for arrivals over nine months old, carry the physical or digital card, not just a memory of having had the shot.

Transportation:

Bolt and Uber both operate in Lagos and are the safer, easier option over street taxis or the yellow danfo minibuses, which are cheap but crowded and a common pickpocket setting. Agree fares with any unmetered taxi before getting in. Within Victoria Island and Lekki, ride-hailing covers nearly everything; crossing to the mainland is where the timing gets unpredictable.

Things to know:

  • Carry a portable charger, Lagos’s grid has genuine reliability gaps and generators fill the gap at hotels but not on the street.
  • Bottled water only, and skip ice from anywhere you would not eat the tap water.
  • English gets you through most of Lagos, but a greeting in Yoruba lands well with vendors and drivers.
  • Malaria prophylaxis is worth discussing with a travel clinic before the trip, it is not a formal entry requirement the way yellow fever is, but the risk is real.