“I want to be wild because my life is so tame” – Noel Gallagher.

I thought I’d do a different post on Niger, as opposed to my usual textbook top 7 sights posts. So here I’ll share my top 17 memories from my time backpacking in Niamey. Niamey is the capital city of Niger, and you’ll likely head here after securing your Niger visa as it’s where the main international airport is! There are some great websites for planning itineraries for your trip online and you can find Africa on the Essential Nomad site. They also cover Europe of course, but my recent trip was to Africa Away and bang in the middle of that, I found myself inspired in Niger…

1.Getting The Niger Visa in Berlin

We’ll start at the start with this madness. My trip to Niger all started in Berlin, Germany!!! We stayed at the Hotel Wannsee not far from the Niger Embassy and went there alone at 8:55 a.m. on a Monday morning (11.11.2024 to be exact) to try and get the visa.

We were told to come back two weeks later if, and only if the visa was confirmed. Two weeks later, I phoned the Niger Embassy in Berlin and to our delight, the visas were ready. I backpacked from Olsztyn in Poland to Berlin in Germany TWICE to secure the Niger visa. The second time, Marek stayed in Poland to work. For sure this would be worth it.

The lady who sorted our visas was Aisha and she was very helpful. Read my post on how to get a Niger Visa in Berlin.

2.Passports Kept On Arrival

When our turn came round to finally land in Niamey, we didn’t know they keep your passports! We had a direct flight from Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso into Niamey in Niger. We landed on 26th December 2024!

Other tourists who had recently backpacked in Niger failed to mention this fact about the police keeping your passport. So here, I tell it like it is. This is a real travel blog by a real backpacker. On arrival, the Niger Police will keep your passport. This is a standard procedure and is nothing to worry about. The last previous time this had happened to me was when backpacking in North Korea in 2013. The immigration officers at Niamey Airport give you a slip with details on it, as well as DST written on the back. More on all that later…but the passport slip looks like this. When they give you this, you are told to go to the DST office in Niamey if you want your passport. DST means Direction of Surveillance of the Territory.

3.Sir Jonny and The Hotel Univers 3 Aeroport Luxe

After they kept our passports, we are finally through immigration and out in the Niger air. It’s dark already but I see the sign of “Sir Jonny” and our bus collects us and takes us straight to the excellent Hotel Univers 3 Aeroport Luxe from the airport. I had arranged this in advance and they knew I was a travel blogger and would be blogging about this trip.

It’s a warm welcome and I completely recommend staying At Hotel Univers 3 Aeroport Luxe, Niamey. We loved this hotel! This was the Second time I had been called a SIR. The first was when I backpacked through Adammia in 2015 and was given the title of Sir by Emperor Adam.

4.The First Beer, in Niger – Sorgho

I’m a poet but I know it. On arrival of course I wanted to try the local beer. So it was a BEER in NIGER. We tried both the local ones – Sorgho and Libs. Sorgho was actually the first one I had and in Niger we were only in 5 bars in the end, 3 of which were part of the hotel! I preferred Libs though – the national beer.

5.Doing the Danny Wiffen by accident

When I became aware we had not just one, but THREE swimming pools at our hotel, I was straight in for a swim and a dip. I was the only person in the pool all day, on Day 2!! In fact, Marek and I were the only two customers at the Poolside Bar and at the pool that day.

I did a few laps of the pool and when I looked back at the photos Marek had taken, spontaneously, it reminded me of Danny Wiffen. I was Danny Wiffen at Niger Away! Daniel Wiffen, born in England but grew up in Northern Ireland and is a multiple gold medal winning swimmer. In 2024, he secured Northern Ireland’s first Olympic gold medal since 1988!! What a superhero. Danny Wiffen Loyal!

I got my Northern Ireland flag out too so I could double do  the Danny Wiffen at Niger Away. If this isn’t glory days loyal, I don’t know what is!

5.DST, not DSL

The passports were being held at DST (Direction of Territory Surveillance / Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire – DST) , as opposed to DSL (Don’t Stop Living). Marek had been worrried about our passports and even about missing our flight out if we didn’t have our passports on us when we got to the airport so he did some digging. We were told on Day 1 that our passports would be taken to a place called DST. We called them and no reply. On Day 3 early morning, we went straight there. It was the weekend so it was closed, even though there were people working there! We asked if they had our passports and they had no idea. We were probably the only two European tourists in the country at the time. It was pretty wild and unique. We left empty handed but Marek was getting itchy feet while I chilled out on the beer at the hotel.

Then Marek kept nagging at the reception staff on Day 3 to locate our passports. They made 10, 15, 20 calls and got nowhere. I knew in my head that our passports would only be in one of two places –

1.Niamey International Airport.
2.DST

Then Marek met a lad called Illiassou, who headed straight to Direction of Territory Surveillance on his motorbike, inviting us to meet him there later. He was a great lad and true to his word. Marek knew he was some kind of angel. We had to get a late afternoon taxi back there to DST. We asked again, no reply, no answer. But Illiassou got his phone out and was getting us the answer. Top man. Illiassou is a strict Muslim who spoke really good English and fluent Chinese Mandarin as he had lived in China for 5 years. He was a diamond here. He went to the Mosque to pray while Marek and I waited opposite DST.

After praying, Illiassou came back, made another few calls and discovered our passports were not at DST at all – they were at the airport! But Marek wanted to be sure so we drove all the way back to the airport to check. There were no flights at all, we went through security into an empty airport and the peeler brung over both our passports. We were the only 2 tourists in the country!

6.Grande Mosquee

Niger is 99% Muslim and so we had to visit the Grand Mosquee. What was even easier was that it is right next door to the DST!

7.Catholic Cathedral and Chapel

We headed to a Christian Hat-trick here. We saw the main Cathedral, the small chapel and the outdoor church. We even met the priest here, an Italian Priest and the only white / Caucasian person we saw in our entire time in Niger!

8.Hippos Open Wide

At the National Zoo which is also the National Museum, and is known as Musée National Boubou Hama, we saw hippos open wide. They opened their bakes and ate some food.

9.My Smile As Real As A Hyena’s

A crazy reminder of my time in 2013 backpacking Ethiopia’s Holy City of Harar, because at the National Museum and Zoo, Musée National Boubou Hama there are both stuffed hyenas and a live caged hyena. If you’re unaware of the reminder, then let’s look again – in 2013 my smiles was a real as a hyena’s when I fed hyenas mouth to mouth at dusk in Harar!

10.National Football Stadium 🏟

In every country I visit, I try to visit the national football stadium, or at least some kind of football stadium, or at least have some kind of football experience. I did this in the first 100 countries I was in.

Here in Niamey, Niger we headed to Stade Général Seyni Kountché. It’s a huge 50,000 all seater. Niger have never qualified for the World Cup and have actually only qualified for 2 African Nations Cups, 2012 and 2013, a golden generation but they didn’t get out of the group stage either time. Scoring just one goal in 2012 and finishing bottom with 3 defeats. In 2013, they again finished bottom and got one draw, but didn’t score in the entire tournament.

11.Grand Marche and Craft Market

Main markets are a must in Africa. The Grand Marche here is massive. There’s an inside bit and then the streets nearby. Markets in Africa are nuts. Marek bought some souvenirs, I didn’t as I wanted to wait for the airport, which in the end was a bad idea!

12.The I Love Niamey Sign

This is becoming nuts doing these touristic signs now! The I Love Niamey one is at the main airport so we dayed and nighted it!

13.Airport Return

On day 3, we were suddenly back at the airport again. This was because Marek wanted to check, confirm and see with his own two eyes that both our passports were definitely being held at the airport. Even though there were no flights at all for the next 8 hours, we went all the way through airport security (on a day we weren’t flying) and the police officers went and got our passports. We were the ONLY two tourists in the country.

So of course they knew who we were. They were polite and honest – they told us the government are currently asking the police to keep all passports at the border / airport for security and safety. Marek breathed a sigh of relief – I wasn’t as worried as him – I knew our passports would be there and in safe hands.

14.Surviving A Hi-Jacking Darkness Madness

On the final night on our way to watch local band Kennedy Star, a gang attempted to hijack our taxi, along with Marek and I. A lad burst in through the door and sat beside me questioning me in busy traffic in the darkness. It was all over in a flash. When we had convinced him that we were not American spies, he finally got out. We are just European tourists after all. We were not here for any political motive.

15.Live Local Band: Kennedy Star at Caupa Bangou

On the final night, Augustine, the Junior Manager of the hotel invited us to watch local band Kennedy Star in a nightclub called Caupa Bangou. This was a great night – we met the singer and chilled out with beers after the madness of the attempted hijacking.

16.$11 Guinness

Our last, final and ultimate beer at Niger Away was a bottle of Guinness for $11 US Dollars! Nuts in itself!! This was because we got to the airport 3.5 hours before our flight and yet the check-in desk didn’t even open until 1 hour 50 minutes before the flight! The bar open before departures had Guinness in bottles for $11 US and they had no local beer!

17.The Leaving Delay

A potential post of its own – leaving Niger was nuts. We had 7 separate safety and security checks…

1.Getting into the airport.
2.Queueing to get our boarding passes.
3.Passport check and departure stamp.
4.Bag check through the scanners.
5.Bag check after Duty Free.
6.Another bag check before the gate.
7.A final boarding pass and passport check at the gate.

In part 2 I was given two exactly the same boarding passes – nuts! What was annoying was we had no time to do anything. We were at the airport 3.5 hours before the flight. We had our Guinness and by the time they had opened the check-in desk, the flight was in 1 hour 50 minutes. I wanted to have a final beer at the airport in the cool sports bar and buy some souvenirs (I have none from Niger) but we were ushered through quickly and watched – we couldn’t even take photos of that and then we were finally on the aeroplane a whole HOUR before it took off. Odd security but that is the Niger system. We were their only tourists for those 4 days. Finally, we flew out direct to Abidjan, Ivory Coast.

Here are some videos from my time backpacking in Niamey, Niger: