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MyBreakingViews 10 Travel Hacks In Seeing The World

Today I will be sharing MyBreakingViews 10 travel hacks in seeing the world. Come on let’s get into it!

1. Study Exchange.

I can’t say this enough, do a study exchange if you are at uni/college of course. Yes those of you that are in those establishments should have lots of option to do a study exchange. Please do not make any excuses! Just go for it! I had a former friend that had the opportunity to travel abroad whilst at University; she didn’t take this up and now regrets it!

Study exchanges are the absolute best!! And if you ever need advice about going to do a study exchange programme drop me a line.

2. Create a bucket list

I always have a list of countries I would like to travel and as it’s said write your visions down and make it a reality. I recently wrote a post on the importance of visiting a new country every year. Check it out – Make It A Habit To Visit A New Country Yearly.

My bucket list includes me going to at least one country in every continent in the world. Yep, I have said I will do all this before I am 30.

3. Get to know these flight website deals.

There are so many to choose from;  PirateHolidays, Secret Escapes, Groupon, Onthebeach, Lastminute.com, Google Flights, Edream and Skyscanner . If I have to pick one, Skyscanner has to be my absolute fave they have recently input a multi-city section which allows you to do more than one city at once – but it only really works in your favour if you are quite open on the dates you want to travel.

If you can kill two birds with one stone and the countries are close by, go for it. I love going to a few places at a time. Just don’t be like my friend who travelled from America to Iceland to Spain. The weather changes required a heavy suitcase.  It’s difficult to pack for a number of weathers.

4. Do short breaks

Depending on where you live this may work out really well for you. I personally hate, staying in a country for longer than 5 days if I’m honest with you, I get exhausted and I can’t wait to get back to normality of life. Sad I know but I feel there is only so much you can do for a long period of time and if it’s not going back home (for me Nigeria) I don’t want to be there for too long. Living in the UK helps as you sometimes don’t even need 5 days and short flights mean you can travel during the weekends; if you have a 9-5 like me you will want to utilise the holidays you get.

5. Don’t be shy away from hostels

I’ve stayed in a number of hostels. They were very clean and accommodating. I had some horrible and amazing experiences. The thing with hostels is there is a terrible stigma that they are gross, which in actual fact they are very cheap and can be extremely nice. When travelling in South East Asia I stayed in actually really nice hotels/hostels.

The best websites I used when travelling was Hostels Worldwide.

6. Pack smart

I say this with caution. I originally was going to say pack light, which in essence I did when I was travelling Asia (my friends will lie and say otherwise) LOL .  I would say pack smart and only pack what you need. I see people packing things they don’t need a lot of the time and then realising they haven’t taken what they really need. Believe me it’s annoying although I am the biggest culprit in this. Pack for each day and night it’s so much easier that way and if you want to bring things back you have enough room.

7. Sign up to those flight deal newsletters.

I know those deals can become annoying. I was a big lover of Groupon until I realised that 8-10 emails a day was just not cutting it. I do get the occasional flight sales from Ryanair, EasyJet and Onthebeach just because I have booked with them before; they do tend to save me a great deal of money.

Sign up to MyBreakingViews for extra tips of course!

8. Give feedback when due hotels, flights & travels

I don’t know if you know this but this can help if you book with a large organisation like booking.com they work around the world and if you give feedback sometimes you may get discounts on your next hotel booking.

If you book with this link- MyBreakingViews Booking  you can get £15 pounds off your first hotel booking!!!!

Every bit helps.

9. Try and know someone in the country you’re visiting.

Do you have a country you would like to go and know someone who lives there? This is not easy for everyone I know, but for me doing my study exchange has given me friends that live around the world. I now have friends that I can stay with when I want to travel.

10. Don’t keep refreshing the website!

When your booking your travels just be sure not to keep refreshing (turning cookies off are a myth in my opinion). If they see someone is interested in buying flights/hotels they will bump up the prices, believe me I’ve seen it happen in less than 5 mins. When 4 of my friends and I booked to go Hong Kong my friends booked their flights before and within 5 mins the flights had increased by $50 Singaporean dollars about £25. I wasn’t impressed.

Do you have any hacks that you could share with me on travelling?

MBV

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Could Nigeria Be Home Permanently?

Nigeria  is a country estimated of around 167 million people. English being it’s official main language with other languages, Yoruba, Ibo and Hausa. Its main religious beliefs are Christianity, Islam and indigenous beliefs. It is known to be the most populous country in Africa. Nigeria is one-third larger than Texas and is situated on the Gulf of Guinea in West Africa. The government today is run by a multiparty government which has formally been transitioned from a military to civilian rule.

As I sit in Nigeria I have to say that there is always something incredibly amazing and exciting about going home. Every time I do go back I fall more in love with my parent’s country. My parents are originally from Nigeria and although I was born and raised in England, I still consider Nigeria a country that I can call home.

For me going home has become very personal to me, it goes as far as growing up in a very predominately white neighbourhood where as a young child I knew nothing to very little about either of my parent’s cultures (my mother being Igbo and my father being Yoruba). However, as I have got older I have wanted to gain more knowledge and insight on my parents culture so when I did start going to Nigeria I began to really appreciate the country and gain real excitement  about learning something new, culturally or historically.

 Nigeria as a country, has and is becoming very important to me even up to today.

In the last year, I have encountered a growing number of young people who are considering, or have now gone back to Nigeria to start a new life, and with the lack of opportunities that young people appear to be facing in the UK, the Motherland does seem less far reaching than it has done previously.

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Me In Nigeria-wearing Delta Igbo traditional clothing.

Since I lived in Singapore as a student I have always had interest in moving abroad and starting a new life where there is opportunities for me to take so when my friend sent me this video  ‘Nigeria: the “repats” who have returned. It got me questioning myself on whether I myself would move to Nigeria.

Indeed there seems to be a fresh era of people who want to challenge the stereotypical views of Nigeria which, have been portrayed by the media and for some of us our parents.

But believe me when I say more and more young people are now seeing Africa in a new light and want to challenge the perception of the country by starting industries, building land and improving Nigeria’s country infrastructure and growing economy.

young people are now seeing Africa in a new light…

Someone like me that studied International Politics at Kings College London, being able to go back to Nigeria and get into the political industry has been seen to be a struggle amongst my family and peers. Nigeria  is perceived to be a country that suffers from huge political corruptions. However, there appears to be a new government… The new President Muhammadu Buhari has shown his quest to kill the high levels of corruption that lies heavily in this country (others may disagree).

So would I personally move to Nigeria?

For me I know that it would be exciting I have had past friends and family that have or are currently doing NYC who had said that the locals had said that for us “repats” coming to Nigeria was an adventure. Whilst this stereotype may be true there is a keen interest for “repats” to promote a new image of Nigeria as an upwardly mobile population who have masses of opportunities.

The more the year goes by, I am seeing more migrants return back to Nigeria not only just to visit families and friends, but also to launch business and to start new lives. It is becoming more and more acceptable to see Nigeria as the land where the economy is vastly growing, which inevitably is eradicating the portrayal ‘poverty porn’ image and negative stories of Nigeria.

If I was going to move to Nigeria I would need to convince my Farther first and I think I have a long way getting around that, but it is definitely something that I would never rule out of my life.

I personally would like to think that moving anywhere was an adventure, but at the same time I think that moving to Nigeria is a huge decision that could provide huge benefits for anyone that is willing to grab it with both hands. Even if you do not move at least go home to visit.

I don’t know guys … Maybe it is time to go home.

Remember:  It’s ok if life knocks you down, it’s just not ok if you stay down!

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