Discover Africa’s Hidden Gems – 5 Underrated Destinations You May Visit

Africa is a continent of endless wonder — but most travelers only hear about the big names: Cape Town, Marrakech, or Zanzibar. At AfricTourNews, we’re passionate about revealing the lesser-known treasures that offer just as much adventure, culture, and beauty — without the crowds.

Here are 5 underrated African destinations that deserve a spot on your bucket list:

• Souss-Massa, Morocco – Far from the bustle of Marrakech, this region is rich with wildlife, especially rare Northern Bald Ibises, and offers serene Atlantic beaches.

• Idanre Hills, Nigeria – A mysterious site with ancient steps, historic settlements, and panoramic views. This UNESCO World Heritage contender is a hiker's paradise.

• Kidepo Valley National Park, Uganda – Known as "Africa’s most remote park", it’s untouched, raw, and bursting with wildlife — including lions, elephants, and giraffes.

• Bazaruto Archipelago, Mozambique – Think Maldives... but African. Crystal-clear waters, vibrant coral reefs, and tranquil island life.

• Loango National Park, Gabon – Ever seen surfing hippos? This rare coastal park blends forest, beach, and savanna ecosystems in one magical place.
Africa’s magic lies not just in the iconic sights, but in the secrets waiting off the map.

Ghana's Chale Wote festival

In the heart of Accra’s historic Jamestown, each August, walls speak, streets pulse with rhythm, and every alley becomes a gallery. This is Chale Wote—Ghana’s boldest street art festival and one of Africa’s most vital platforms for experimental expression. But Chale Wote is more than a cultural event—it’s a movement. A reclamation of public space. A rewriting of who tells Africa’s stories, and how.

A Radical Celebration of Creative Freedom

Launched in 2011,Chale Wote began as an alternative art project—a chance to shift art from galleries to the streets. Over the years, it has grown into a multidisciplinary explosion of murals, music, dance, film, fashion, performance art, and indigenous spirituality. It now draws artists from across the continent and the diaspora, transforming Jamestown into a living, breathing stage for African futurism and ancestral memory.

At its core, Chale Wote is about ownership—of space, narrative, identity. In a postcolonial city still grappling with questions of access and erasure, the festival confronts the colonial gaze with unapologetic creative resistance. It asserts that the street is not just a thoroughfare but a site of memory, community, and possibility.

Language, Identity, and the Power of "Chale"

Even the festival’s name is a statement. “Chale” is Ghanaian pidgin for “friend” or “dude”—a casual, everyday greeting full of warmth and familiarity. “Wote” means “let’s go” in Ga, the language of the indigenous people of Jamestown. Together, Chale Wote is both invitation and action: Friend, let’s go.
This blend of street slang and local language isn’t just clever—it’s cultural code-switching, a way of rooting the festival in Ghanaian vernacular while speaking globally. Chale Wote doesn’t seek validation from the West. It creates its own canon.

Art in the Time of Disruption

Chale Wote thrives on disruption. It blurs the line between artist and audience, high art and street hustle, sacred ritual and radical protest. A masked dancer might share the street with a mobile sound system. A sacred libation ceremony may give way to an Afrofuturist fashion runway. You don’t attend Chale Wote to be entertained—you attend to be confronted, provoked, awakened.
Each year’s theme deepens this purpose. Past editions have explored themes like Spirit Robot, Wata Mata, and African Electronics—concepts that challenge linear histories and promote new, decolonized futures. In this sense, Chale Wote is less about performance than about ritual disruption—breaking open time and space to make room for new narratives.

The Politics of Place

Chale Wote is inseparable from Jamestown, one of Accra’s oldest and most marginalized neighborhoods. Once a colonial administrative center, today Jamestown carries the weight of underdevelopment, gentrification, and cultural neglect. By placing the festival in this contested space, organizers force a conversation about who gets to create, who gets to belong, and who gets to profit from the culture of the city.
The festival brings temporary visibility and economic opportunity to residents, but it also raises hard questions: How do we protect local culture from being consumed by the global gaze? Can an event that disrupts power structures avoid becoming co-opted by them?

A Blueprint for African Artistic Sovereignty

More than a decade on, Chale Wote has become a blueprint—not just for other festivals, but for an entire philosophy of cultural sovereignty. It’s a reminder that African art doesn’t need translation. That the continent’s creative power lies not in imitation but in self-invention.
In a world hungry for “Afro-cool,” Chale Wote offers something deeper: Afro-truth. Messy, magical, political, and plural. It resists being a spectacle and instead invites the world into a complex, living ecosystem of Black imagination.

Chale Wote isn’t just a festival—it’s an act of reclamation. It’s the street talking back. The ancestors dancing forward. The youth imagining beyond. For Ghana, and for the continent, it’s proof that the most revolutionary stage may be the street beneath our feet. 

In the heart of Accra’s historic Jamestown, each August, walls speak, streets pulse with rhythm, and every alley becomes a gallery. This is Chale Wote—Ghana’s boldest street art festival and one of Africa’s most vital platforms for experimental expression. But Chale Wote is more than a cultural event—it’s a movement. A reclamation of public space. A rewriting of who tells Africa’s stories, and how.

A Radical Celebration of Creative Freedom

Launched in 2011,Chale Wote began as an alternative art project—a chance to shift art from galleries to the streets. Over the years, it has grown into a multidisciplinary explosion of murals, music, dance, film, fashion, performance art, and indigenous spirituality. It now draws artists from across the continent and the diaspora, transforming Jamestown into a living, breathing stage for African futurism and ancestral memory.

At its core, Chale Wote is about ownership—of space, narrative, identity. In a postcolonial city still grappling with questions of access and erasure, the festival confronts the colonial gaze with unapologetic creative resistance. It asserts that the street is not just a thoroughfare but a site of memory, community, and possibility.

Language, Identity, and the Power of "Chale"

Even the festival’s name is a statement. “Chale” is Ghanaian pidgin for “friend” or “dude”—a casual, everyday greeting full of warmth and familiarity. “Wote” means “let’s go” in Ga, the language of the indigenous people of Jamestown. Together, Chale Wote is both invitation and action: Friend, let’s go.
This blend of street slang and local language isn’t just clever—it’s cultural code-switching, a way of rooting the festival in Ghanaian vernacular while speaking globally. Chale Wote doesn’t seek validation from the West. It creates its own canon.

Art in the Time of Disruption

Chale Wote thrives on disruption. It blurs the line between artist and audience, high art and street hustle, sacred ritual and radical protest. A masked dancer might share the street with a mobile sound system. A sacred libation ceremony may give way to an Afrofuturist fashion runway. You don’t attend Chale Wote to be entertained—you attend to be confronted, provoked, awakened.
Each year’s theme deepens this purpose. Past editions have explored themes like Spirit Robot, Wata Mata, and African Electronics—concepts that challenge linear histories and promote new, decolonized futures. In this sense, Chale Wote is less about performance than about ritual disruption—breaking open time and space to make room for new narratives.

The Politics of Place

Chale Wote is inseparable from Jamestown, one of Accra’s oldest and most marginalized neighborhoods. Once a colonial administrative center, today Jamestown carries the weight of underdevelopment, gentrification, and cultural neglect. By placing the festival in this contested space, organizers force a conversation about who gets to create, who gets to belong, and who gets to profit from the culture of the city.
The festival brings temporary visibility and economic opportunity to residents, but it also raises hard questions: How do we protect local culture from being consumed by the global gaze? Can an event that disrupts power structures avoid becoming co-opted by them?

A Blueprint for African Artistic Sovereignty

More than a decade on, Chale Wote has become a blueprint—not just for other festivals, but for an entire philosophy of cultural sovereignty. It’s a reminder that African art doesn’t need translation. That the continent’s creative power lies not in imitation but in self-invention.
In a world hungry for “Afro-cool,” Chale Wote offers something deeper: Afro-truth. Messy, magical, political, and plural. It resists being a spectacle and instead invites the world into a complex, living ecosystem of Black imagination.

Chale Wote isn’t just a festival—it’s an act of reclamation. It’s the street talking back. The ancestors dancing forward. The youth imagining beyond. For Ghana, and for the continent, it’s proof that the most revolutionary stage may be the street beneath our feet. 

In the heart of Accra’s historic Jamestown, each August, walls speak, streets pulse with rhythm, and every alley becomes a gallery. This is Chale Wote—Ghana’s boldest street art festival and one of Africa’s most vital platforms for experimental expression. But Chale Wote is more than a cultural event—it’s a movement. A reclamation of public space. A rewriting of who tells Africa’s stories, and how.

A Radical Celebration of Creative Freedom

Launched in 2011,Chale Wote began as an alternative art project—a chance to shift art from galleries to the streets. Over the years, it has grown into a multidisciplinary explosion of murals, music, dance, film, fashion, performance art, and indigenous spirituality. It now draws artists from across the continent and the diaspora, transforming Jamestown into a living, breathing stage for African futurism and ancestral memory.

At its core, Chale Wote is about ownership—of space, narrative, identity. In a postcolonial city still grappling with questions of access and erasure, the festival confronts the colonial gaze with unapologetic creative resistance. It asserts that the street is not just a thoroughfare but a site of memory, community, and possibility.

Language, Identity, and the Power of "Chale"

Even the festival’s name is a statement. “Chale” is Ghanaian pidgin for “friend” or “dude”—a casual, everyday greeting full of warmth and familiarity. “Wote” means “let’s go” in Ga, the language of the indigenous people of Jamestown. Together, Chale Wote is both invitation and action: Friend, let’s go.
This blend of street slang and local language isn’t just clever—it’s cultural code-switching, a way of rooting the festival in Ghanaian vernacular while speaking globally. Chale Wote doesn’t seek validation from the West. It creates its own canon.

Art in the Time of Disruption

Chale Wote thrives on disruption. It blurs the line between artist and audience, high art and street hustle, sacred ritual and radical protest. A masked dancer might share the street with a mobile sound system. A sacred libation ceremony may give way to an Afrofuturist fashion runway. You don’t attend Chale Wote to be entertained—you attend to be confronted, provoked, awakened.
Each year’s theme deepens this purpose. Past editions have explored themes like Spirit Robot, Wata Mata, and African Electronics—concepts that challenge linear histories and promote new, decolonized futures. In this sense, Chale Wote is less about performance than about ritual disruption—breaking open time and space to make room for new narratives.

The Politics of Place

Chale Wote is inseparable from Jamestown, one of Accra’s oldest and most marginalized neighborhoods. Once a colonial administrative center, today Jamestown carries the weight of underdevelopment, gentrification, and cultural neglect. By placing the festival in this contested space, organizers force a conversation about who gets to create, who gets to belong, and who gets to profit from the culture of the city.
The festival brings temporary visibility and economic opportunity to residents, but it also raises hard questions: How do we protect local culture from being consumed by the global gaze? Can an event that disrupts power structures avoid becoming co-opted by them?

A Blueprint for African Artistic Sovereignty

More than a decade on, Chale Wote has become a blueprint—not just for other festivals, but for an entire philosophy of cultural sovereignty. It’s a reminder that African art doesn’t need translation. That the continent’s creative power lies not in imitation but in self-invention.
In a world hungry for “Afro-cool,” Chale Wote offers something deeper: Afro-truth. Messy, magical, political, and plural. It resists being a spectacle and instead invites the world into a complex, living ecosystem of Black imagination.

Chale Wote isn’t just a festival—it’s an act of reclamation. It’s the street talking back. The ancestors dancing forward. The youth imagining beyond. For Ghana, and for the continent, it’s proof that the most revolutionary stage may be the street beneath our feet. 

Why Africa is the Future of Eco-Tourism--2

 A growing awareness and commitment to community-based tourism are taking root across the continent. Many initiatives are prioritizing local ownership, ensuring that tourism revenue directly benefits the people who are the custodians of these precious landscapes. This fosters a sense of responsibility and encourages the protection of natural resources for future generations. Imagine trekking through community-managed conservancies, guided by local experts whose knowledge is deeply intertwined with the land. This isn't just a vacation; it's a partnership.

Africa offers a unique blend of adventure and cultural immersion. Eco-tourism isn't just about observing wildlife from a distance. It's about engaging with diverse cultures, learning ancient traditions, and understanding the intricate relationship between people and nature. From staying in eco-lodges built with sustainable materials to participating in cultural exchanges, travelers can forge deeper connections and gain a richer understanding of the continent.

Finally, the urgency of conservation is deeply felt across Africa. With increasing pressures from climate change and habitat loss, there's a growing recognition that sustainable tourism is not just an option, but a necessity. This urgency is driving innovation in eco-friendly accommodations, responsible wildlife encounters, and conservation-focused travel experiences.

Africa isn't just a destination; it's a living, breathing ecosystem that demands our respect and offers unparalleled opportunities for mindful exploration. As the world increasingly seeks travel that aligns with ethical and environmental values, Africa, with its natural riches and growing commitment to sustainability, is undoubtedly the future of eco-tourism. It's time to look beyond the conventional and discover the profound beauty and vital importance of this extraordinary continent.

     

Cape Town Crowned World’s Best City for 2025 – Again

Cape Town has once again taken the global spotlight, being named the Best City in the World by Time Out for 2025. This marks the eighth consecutive year the South African city has earned top honors, a testament to its natural beauty, vibrant culture, and resident satisfaction.

The annual ranking, based on feedback from over 18,000 people worldwide, looked at 44 factors including food, nightlife, affordability, friendliness, and overall happiness. Cape Town scored exceptionally, with 97% of locals saying they’re happy living there and 82% praising its beauty.

From the breathtaking views of Table Mountain and golden beaches to a buzzing culinary scene and diverse culture, Cape Town continues to win hearts both locally and internationally. The city edged out major destinations like New York, London, and Bangkok to claim the top spot.

This latest accolade adds to Cape Town’s growing list of achievements, including being named Africa’s Leading City Destination multiple times. For travelers and digital nomads alike, Cape Town proves once more that it’s not just a place to visit—it’s a place to fall in love with.

Dive into Luxury: Experience Africa's First Underwater Hotel Room in Zanzibar

Imagine waking up to the gentle sway of the ocean, surrounded by the mesmerizing dance of colorful fish. In Zanzibar, Tanzania, this dream becomes a reality at The Manta Resort, home to Africa's first underwater hotel room.This unique retreat, engineered by the Swede Mikael Genberg, is a floating structure anchored in a "bluehole," a stunning coral reef teeming with marine life. The underwater room is a three-level marvel. Above the water, a hardwood deck features a lounge and bathroom. A rooftop terrace invites sun bathing and star gazing. Below sea level, the bedroom offers  360-degree views of the underwater spectacle.By day, sunlight illuminates the vibrant coral and diverse fish species. At night,underwate r spotlights attract nocturnal creatures like squid and octopus, creating a truly magical experience. The resort provides guests with kayaks, snorkeling gear, and boat trips to explore the surrounding area. A stay in this underwater room is more than a luxurious gateway. It's an immersion into a unique and breathtaking world 

Discovering Uganda’s Emerald Crater Lakes - Nature’s Hidden Masterpieces

If you’ve ever dreamed of a place that feels like it belongs in a fairytale, the emerald crater lakes of western Uganda might just be it. Nestled among the rolling hills and misty peaks near Fort Portal, these lakes are as peaceful as they are beautiful—quiet, untouched, and glowing in shades of deep green and blue.
Formed by ancient volcanic activity, the crater lakes—over fifty of them—dot the landscape in dramatic fashion. Each one is a little different. Some are tucked in steep, forested basins where monkeys swing in the trees and hornbills call overhead. Others are open and wide, surrounded by tea plantations and banana fields.
One of the most visited is Lake Nyinambuga, famously pictured on Uganda’s twenty thousand shilling note. It’s a great spot for kayaking, hiking, or just relaxing with a book and soaking in the view. But there are many others—like Lake Nkuruba, a small eco-reserve teeming with monkeys and perfect for nature lovers on a budget.
The beauty of the crater lakes isn’t just their color or calm. It’s how untouched they feel. You can hike from one to another in a day, guided by local trails and curious kids who’ll wave as you pass their villages. Most visitors base themselves in Fort Portal or stay at small eco-lodges that blend into the landscape.
So if you're looking to go beyond the usual tourist paths, skip the crowds, and feel like you’ve stepped into another world, put the emerald crater lakes of Uganda on your list. They’re not just a destination—they’re an experience.

 

Ovia Osese Festival in Ogori community, Kogi State

 

Ogori Community in Kogi State Nigeria initiates 103 Virgins girls Unto Womanhood at Ovia Osese Festival.

At the 2025 Ovia Osese Festival in Ogori-Mangogo, Kogi State, Nigeria, virgin girls were initiated into womanhood, marking their readiness for marriage and celebrating their discipline and purity. The festival took place on  Saturday,  May 3, 2025 and it's celebrated annually by Ogori community.

AfricTour News Flash !!!

AfricTourNews Flash!! Karibu! Bienvenue! Welcome! We're thrilled to launch AfricTourNews, your dedicated hub for all things travel and tourism across the magnificent continent of Africa. Whether you're a seasoned globetrotter, a curious armchair traveler, or a proud African eager to explore your own backyard, you've come to the right place. At AfricTourNews, we're passionate about showcasing the incredible diversity, breathtaking beauty, and vibrant cultures that make Africa a truly unparalleled destination. Forget the stereotypes – we're here to unveil the hidden gems, share inspiring stories, and provide you with the latest news and insights to fuel your African adventure. We're excited to have you as part of the AfricTourNews community. Follow us, share your own African travel experiences, and let's explore the beauty of Africa together! The AfricTourNews Team

Why Africa is The Future of Eco-Tourism

Forget crowded beaches and predictable city breaks. The future of travel, a future that treads lightly and leaves a positive footprint, lies in the vibrant heart of Africa. While the continent is often associated with its incredible wildlife, its potential as a leader in eco-tourism is a story waiting to be fully told. Ready for the story? Relax and read it on my next post