Every year, once December is over, the same complaints start coming up. A hotel cancels a booking because someone else offered more money. A flight that was affordable a few weeks earlier suddenly costs twice as much. A “verified” short-let turns out not to exist after the payment has been made. A boat party changes venues without properly notifying guests.
December travel in Lagos, Accra, Nairobi or Cape Town is not because the cities are chaotic. The problem is concentration. Millions of people are traveling, returning home, visiting family, going on safari, attending events and making plans within roughly the same six-week period. Prices rise. Popular accommodation fills up. Flights become harder to find. And when demand is high, mistakes become much more expensive.
Planning early does not remove every problem, but it can change the experience considerably.
This post helps you answer the following questions: When should you book your flight? How much of a December price increase is reasonable, and when should you start asking questions? What visa or entry requirements actually apply to you? If something goes wrong with your booking, what protection do you have? And what can you do when a business takes your money and fails to provide what you paid for?
This post draws on data and reporting from Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa and Rwanda. But the same number does not mean the same thing in every market. A flight from Lagos, a safari in Kenya and a December stay in Cape Town operate under very different conditions, so the advice is organised around those differences rather than treating December travel across Africa as one single market.
There is also a difference in how much information is available for each destination. Lagos and Accra have been particularly well documented by journalists, researchers and industry sources, so some of the most detailed figures in this guide, including specific price changes, traveler complaints and public arguments over airfares, come from those markets. Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa and Rwanda have their own December patterns, and those are covered separately.
Whenever a figure applies specifically to one city or country, we identify it. A price that makes sense for Lagos should not automatically become your benchmark for Nairobi, just as a December travel pattern in Cape Town may have little to do with what happens in Accra.
The goal is: help you know what you are paying for, when to book, what to check, and what to do if something goes wrong.
What this guide covers
Why the season keeps getting bigger, and what that means for your wallet if you wait to book
Picking your December: what Lagos, Accra, Nairobi, Zanzibar, Cape Town and Kigali actually offer, so you choose the trip you actually want
Which kind of traveler you are, diaspora returnee, wedding guest, business traveler, domestic traveller or leisure visitor, and what changes for each
A realistic booking timeline, so you know exactly how late is too late
Visas and entry rules, including a tracker that follows this faster than any single blog post can
The weather risk almost nobody warns travelers about
What your trip will actually cost, with real numbers from the last two Decembers
How to tell a fair price rise from the kind of aggressive overcharging that made headlines in 2025
How to avoid the scams that specifically target incoming travelers
What protections actually exist if a business cancels or shortchanges you
Getting around once you land
What to budget for beyond flights and a room
New rules that could affect your trip without you knowing
A month-by-month checklist from September through January
A frequently asked questions section for the exact decisions travelers actually face
Why the season keeps getting more expensive to ignore
Start with why "I'll sort it out closer to the time" is the worst plan every single year.
In Lagos, the Lagos State Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture attributed $71.6 million in hospitality, tourism and entertainment economic activity to the 2024 December season alone. By 2025, it had grown again. A report by the research firm MO Africa Co, titled The Economics of Euphoria: Lagos' Detty December 2025, estimated that 3.6 million people took part over the 55 days between mid-November 2025 and 10 January 2026, more than 70 percent of them Gen Z or Millennial travellers, spending a combined ₦396.54 billion. Diaspora visitors, people living abroad who fly home for the season, accounted for 55 percent of that spending on their own. December travel now brings millions of people into the same markets at roughly the same time, all competing for a limited number of hotel rooms, short-lets, flights and restaurant tables.
With so many people arriving in Lagos at the same time, the pressure on accommodation, transport and other services is significant. The MO Africa report estimated that Lagos operated at about 238 percent of its designed human capacity during the season. The Permanent Secretary of the Lagos State Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture also told ThisDay that December arrivals into Lagos can reach about ten times the level of a typical tourism period. As demand continues to grow, accommodation, flights, restaurants and other services have less availability to work with. Businesses can raise prices when demand is high, and travellers who leave their bookings until late are often left with fewer options at higher prices.
If you are travelling to Ghana in December, it helps to know why so many people are travelling at the same time. The country recorded 141,186 international arrivals in December 2025, up 11.35 percent from 126,791 in December 2024, according to the 2025 Ghana Tourism Report. But across the full year, arrivals grew by only 1.4 percent, while tourism receipts fell from $4.83 billion in 2024 to $4.34 billion in 2025. December is Ghana's busiest month by a wide margin, but much of that activity comes from business travel and people returning home. That affects the kind of demand you will encounter when booking flights, accommodation and activities, which we cover in more detail below.
Picking your December: city by city
“Detty December” is often used to describe December travel across Africa, but Lagos, Accra, Nairobi, Zanzibar, Cape Town and Kigali are very different places to spend the season. Where you choose to go will affect your budget, what you pack and what you should expect once you get there.
Lagos, for diaspora reunion and nightlife
Lagos is the main destination for travellers looking for December nightlife, weddings, family gatherings and a packed calendar of events. If that is what you want from your trip, Lagos gives you plenty of options, but it is also a place where prices can change quickly as demand rises.
If your trip is centred somewhere else in Nigeria, do not assume that what you read about Lagos will apply to your destination. Nigeria's December calendar extends well beyond Lagos. The 2025 calendar, for example, included the Calabar Carnival, which ran from 30 November to 1 January in Cross River State, and the Shiloh gathering, a large religious programme held from 9 to 14 December in Ota, Ogun State. Both attract their own visitors and create separate patterns of demand for flights, accommodation and transport.
Accra, for a calmer, more professional December
Ghana has spent years building its December tourism season, starting with the 2019 Year of Return and continuing with the government’s “December in Ghana” campaign. If you are expecting something very similar to Lagos, the numbers suggest a broader mix of travellers. Ghana Tourism Authority research found that business travel accounts for 31 percent of inbound trips across the year, compared with 23 percent for visits to family and friends and 11 percent for leisure tourism. The typical visitor in the GTA's research is also highly educated and professionally established, with 79 percent holding tertiary qualifications and 69 percent described as executives or professional travellers.
None of this means Accra is quiet in December. It is Ghana's busiest month by a wide margin. It simply means that the people travelling to Ghana are not there only for concerts and nightlife. Business trips, family visits and other reasons for travelling are a significant part of the picture, and that can affect the kind of accommodation, transport and activities you may need to plan for.
Nairobi and the Kenyan coast, for a mixed local and safari crowd
Kenya's December travel season has a different mix of visitors, with a large share of demand coming from Kenyans themselves rather than international arrivals. Kenya's national parks and reserves recorded more than 300,000 visitors during the December 2025 festive season. Of those, 231,000 were Kenyan citizens and residents, compared with roughly 82,500 international tourists. Kenya has also run a “Jiachilie” promotional campaign aimed at encouraging Kenyans to travel within the country during December, including offers such as a free fourth night after a three-night stay.
If you are flying in from abroad for a coastal stay in Diani or Mombasa, or using Nairobi as a base for a safari, you will be sharing the December travel period with a large domestic market. That can affect availability, prices and how far ahead you need to book.
Zanzibar and Tanzania's safari circuit, for beach and safari as two separate trips
Tanzania's December travel season is split between two very different kinds of trips: the beaches and islands of Zanzibar and the safari destinations on the mainland. Both can be busy, but they involve different bookings, costs and planning decisions.
Zanzibar had a strong 2025. The island recorded 917,167 international arrivals over the full year, with 100,729 arriving in December alone. That was about 10 percent higher than the 91,611 international arrivals recorded in December 2024. For travellers looking for beaches, resorts, restaurants and island activities, December is therefore a period when demand is already high and popular accommodation can fill quickly.
The mainland has a different type of demand. Serengeti National Park recorded an estimated 75,000 to 100,000 visitors in December 2025, around 70,000 of them international visitors. A safari also involves more moving parts than a beach holiday. You may need to coordinate flights, transfers, park fees, accommodation, a safari operator and internal transport, depending on how you structure the trip.
This matters if you are planning to combine Zanzibar with a safari. They may appear on the same itinerary, but you should not treat them as one booking. Your Zanzibar accommodation and activities need to be planned separately from your mainland safari, and the cost of getting between the two also needs to be included in your budget.
If you want both, plan them as two parts of the same holiday rather than assuming that booking one automatically takes care of the other.
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Cape Town, for South Africa's own summer holiday
South Africa's December season works differently from the December travel patterns in Lagos or Accra. December falls during the Southern Hemisphere summer, when South Africans themselves are on their main annual holiday period. That means you are travelling during a peak domestic holiday season as well as an international travel period.
Cape Town International Airport handled 3.29 million international two-way passengers in 2025, a net increase of 687,000 compared with the 2019 pre-pandemic baseline. Industry figures described 2025 as the strongest year on record for the province.
There is another difference worth knowing if you are deciding between a hotel and a short-term rental. More visitors are choosing to stay with friends and family or in short-term rentals rather than hotels, so the two types of accommodation can have very different availability during the holiday period. We look at the short-let side, including the regulatory issues, later in the guide.
Kigali, for the easiest entry and a genuinely different pace
Rwanda does not have the same nightlife-driven December identity as Lagos or Accra, and its year is not built around one single peak month. What makes it worth considering is how open it is and how fast it is growing. The Rwanda Development Board reported 1.49 million visitor arrivals in 2025, up 9 percent on the year before, with tourism revenue up 6 percent to $685 million. If visa hassle is genuinely your biggest worry, Rwanda has allowed nationals of every country to obtain a visa on arrival since 1 January 2018, covered in full in the visas section below, which makes it one of the simplest of these six destinations to actually show up to without weeks of paperwork beforehand.
Considering somewhere else on the continent entirely
Lagos, Accra, Nairobi, Zanzibar, Cape Town and Kigali are only six destinations on a continent of 54 countries. December travel looks very different in places such as Marrakech, Dakar, Victoria Falls and Cairo, too.
If you are considering somewhere outside the destinations covered in detail here, Ria's Colony's Tourism at a Glance tool brings together tourism indicators from sources including the World Bank and UN Tourism, covering countries across Africa.
The data gives you a useful sense of the size of different tourism markets, but there is an important limitation: countries do not all report their figures for the same year. In the data currently available in the tool, Egypt has the highest recorded visitor arrivals at 13 million, based on 2019 data, and recorded $4.9 billion in tourism receipts, based on 2020 data. Nigeria, South Africa, Morocco, Kenya, Mozambique, Tunisia, Botswana, Rwanda and Tanzania also appear among the larger tourism markets, although the latest available year varies by country.
Egypt's tourism authorities have since reported considerably higher visitor numbers, with 2025 arrivals reaching roughly 17 to 19 million. So the 13 million figure in the tool should not be read as Egypt's current visitor total.
If you use the tool to compare destinations, pay attention to the year attached to each figure. It is useful for understanding the relative size of tourism markets, but it should not be treated as a same-year ranking of where the most tourists are going today.
Which kind of traveler you are
It helps to know what kind of trip you are taking because the things you need to book early, prepare for and budget for can be very different.
If you are travelling home to visit family, you are part of one of the largest and most widely covered December travel groups. The countries people travelled from also varied in 2025. Travellers from the United States accounted for 27 percent of international arrivals, overtaking the United Kingdom at 24 percent. The rest of Europe accounted for 18 percent, Canada 12 percent, other African countries 11 percent and all other origins 8 percent.
If you are flying from Houston or Atlanta, two major departure points for travellers on this route, the journey can take more than 20 hours once connections are included. That is worth considering when planning your first day. If you arrive after a long overnight journey, you may not want your first plan to be a major event. Give yourself some time to recover before filling your schedule.
If you are travelling for a wedding, do not leave your accommodation until the last minute simply because the wedding itself is already organised. December has the highest concentration of weddings in Nigeria, according to Susan Akporaiye, managing director of Topaz Travels and Tours, partly because families schedule them when relatives living abroad can attend. The president of the National Association of Tour Operators also said inbound travel packages in Nigeria sold out completely in December 2025, while weddings were taking place back to back across Lagos.
If twenty people from your family have been invited to the same wedding, nearby hotels can fill up quickly. Find out where the wedding party is staying and book your room early rather than assuming something will still be available a few weeks before the event.
If you are travelling for business, the December conversation can make this group easy to overlook. Ghana Tourism Authority research found that business travel accounted for 31 percent of inbound trips to Ghana across the year, ahead of individual leisure categories. BusinessDay also reported on UK-based Nigerian professionals using the December period to explore investments and business opportunities while they are back in the country.
If work is part of your trip, choose your accommodation with that in mind. Check whether you have reliable Wi-Fi, a suitable place to take calls, easy transport to your meetings and enough quiet time to work. During a busy December, those details can matter more than having the most popular hotel or neighbourhood.
If you are travelling within your own country, you are part of a large domestic travel market that can be just as important as international tourism. Kenya is a good example. More than 300,000 people visited the country's national parks and reserves during the December 2025 festive season, including 231,000 Kenyan citizens and residents.
Domestic travellers may have more flexibility than someone flying in from overseas, particularly when it comes to changing plans or taking advantage of local offers. But you are still competing for the same hotel rooms, domestic flights and transport during the busiest weeks of the year. Do not assume that travelling within your own country means you can leave everything until the last minute.
If you are travelling for leisure or a safari, particularly in Kenya, Tanzania or South Africa, your trip is shaped by a different set of factors. December is part of South Africa's summer holiday period. Kenya and Tanzania can experience wetter conditions during this time, although weather varies by location and year. Check the conditions for your specific destination and travel dates rather than assuming that the whole region will be wet or dry.
If you are booking through an international tour operator, ask for confirmation that your accommodation, transfers, internal flights and park permits are actually confirmed rather than provisionally held. It is much easier to resolve a missing booking before you leave home than after you arrive.
When to actually book
Several travel guides for Lagos and Accra give roughly the same advice: start booking three to nine months before your trip. One guide published this September puts it simply: the best accommodation can sell out by October, while airfares often start rising in November.
So if you are reading this in September or October, you are still in good time to make your main bookings. If it is already November, you may have fewer choices and higher prices, but there are still options.
Flight prices give us some idea of what waiting can cost. ASAPtickets, a travel agency that publishes general guidance on international airfare rather than Lagos-specific research, says fares can rise by about 25 percent in the final month before a holiday. It also found that booking during the final week before departure can cost up to 59 percent more than booking during its recommended period. The agency suggests looking at international flights three to five months before departure. For a December trip, that means roughly July through September.
These figures should be treated as a guide, not as a rule that applies to every flight. Prices depend on the route, airline, travel dates and how many seats are left. But the general advice is straightforward: the closer you get to December, the fewer affordable options you may have.
Domestic flights within Nigeria can become even more expensive during the festive period. In December 2025, senators publicly raised concerns about domestic airfares. Senator Abdulfatai Buhari said flights from Abuja to Lagos were being sold for between ₦400,000 and ₦650,000. Senator Onyekachi separately reported a one-way Abuja to Enugu ticket costing as much as ₦500,000 on one airline. One Air Peace passenger also said they paid ₦499,998 for a Lagos to Owerri flight, a journey that normally takes less than an hour, describing the fare as “pure wickedness.”
Air Peace chairman Allen Onyema disputed the idea that fares were generally as high as ₦400,000 to ₦500,000, saying passengers who booked early could still find lower prices and pointing to the airline's operating costs.
You do not need to settle that argument to make a booking decision. If you know you will need to fly between Nigerian cities around Christmas, book that domestic flight early as well. Do not wait until after your international flight is sorted.
The 2026 event calendar is another reason to plan carefully. December events now begin appearing from November and can continue into January, although the busiest period is usually around Christmas and New Year. As of September 2026, current listings include Flytime Fest in Lagos from 22 to 25 December, Detty Rave in Accra on 27 December, and AfroFuture in Accra from 28 to 30 December.
Event dates can change, and some listings may still be provisional. If a particular concert or festival is the main reason for your trip, check the date directly with the organiser before booking flights around it. It is better to confirm the event first than to book an expensive flight and find out later that the date has changed.
Kenya can work a little differently for domestic travellers. The Jiachilie campaign, for example, has offered local promotions such as a free fourth night after a three-night stay. If you live in Kenya, have flexible dates and are travelling within the country, it may be worth checking for these offers before booking several months in advance. That advice does not necessarily apply if you are flying into Kenya from abroad, since international flights and fixed travel dates give you less room to wait.
Visas and getting into the country
None of the planning above matters if you cannot enter the country. Entry requirements also vary widely across Africa, and they can change with little notice.
Ghana has made several changes to its entry rules in recent years. Since 2022, the country has eased entry for some visitors during the December and January homecoming period. Separate reporting also says Ghana introduced visa-free entry for African passport holders from 1 January 2025, expanding access beyond the roughly 26 African countries that had previously been covered. In April 2026, the government announced another change: from 25 May 2026, African nationals can apply online for a Ghanaian e-visa free of charge. Check the current rule for your passport before booking, because entry requirements can change.
Rwanda allows nationals of every country to obtain a visa on arrival. The visa is free for citizens of African Union, Commonwealth and La Francophonie countries for stays of up to 30 days. East African Community citizens can stay for up to six months without paying a visa fee, while citizens of some other countries are eligible for stays of up to 90 days without a fee. Travellers who do not qualify for a free visa can still get one on arrival, at a cost of $50 for a single-entry visa or $70 for multiple entry.
If your trip includes Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda, you can also look at the East Africa Tourist Visa. It costs $100 and allows multiple entries into all three countries for 90 days.
Kenya no longer uses a traditional visa for most visitors. Travellers generally need to apply for an Electronic Travel Authorization before arrival. Other countries, including Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia, Morocco, Mozambique, Seychelles and Cabo Verde, have also introduced their own online travel authorisation or registration systems. The requirements are different in each country, including the fees, who is exempt and how long the approval remains valid.
Ria's Colony's African ETA Tracker brings these requirements together for all 54 African countries and is updated as new rules are confirmed. If you are using any online guide to check entry requirements, including this one, use it as a starting point. Before you pay for a non-refundable flight, confirm the current requirements through the destination country's official immigration or visa portal. Your passport, nationality, travel dates and purpose of travel can all affect what you need.
The weather risk almost nobody warns travelers about
Once your visa is sorted, there is another December travel issue to keep in mind: harmattan haze. Between roughly November and March, dry winds carrying dust from the Sahara can reduce visibility at airports across West Africa, including Lagos, Abuja, Kano and Kaduna. Nigeria's aviation regulator has warned in previous years that severe haze can cause flight delays, diversions and cancellations.
The severity of the harmattan varies from year to year. Several Nigerian news outlets described the 2025 to 2026 season as unusually mild, with some reporting that the haze was barely noticeable. Even so, Air Peace attributed flight delays in January 2026 to reduced visibility caused by the harmattan.
You cannot know in September exactly what the weather will be like in December. Even in a mild year, a few days of poor visibility can still affect flights. If you are travelling during this period, avoid planning your trip so tightly that one delayed flight causes you to miss a wedding, concert, safari, connection or other important booking. This is especially important during the last two weeks of December, when travel is already busy. If there is one flight you absolutely cannot miss, leave enough time between it and whatever comes next.
Airport traffic can also add to your travel time, even when the weather is clear. The president of the National Association of Tour Operators told ThisDay that congestion at Lagos airports, partly caused by the large number of people returning to Nigeria during the season, was a major problem in 2025.
If you are being picked up from an airport in the second half of December, especially in Lagos, allow more time than a normal journey would take. Do not plan your pickup or next appointment based only on the travel time shown on Google Maps.
What your trip will actually cost
The cost of a December trip can vary widely depending on where you are going, when you book and how you choose to travel. The last two December seasons give us some real figures to work with.
Flights can make a major difference to your budget. Travel Noire reported that a round-trip economy flight from Houston to Lagos usually costs around $1,400 to $2,000 for much of the year. For travel between 26 December and 2 January, however, fares of around $4,300 have been seen. That is more than twice the usual price.
Flights from Washington Dulles to Accra during the same period have averaged around $3,500, also more than twice the average fare at other times of the year. Domestic flights within Nigeria can become expensive too. During the same December period, members of the Nigerian Senate publicly cited fares of ₦400,000 to ₦700,000 for some domestic routes that would normally cost much less.
Once you arrive in Lagos, accommodation, transport, food and activities can add up quickly. A detailed estimate published by the Nigerian Tribune put the cost of a 10-day mid-range Lagos trip, excluding flights, at about ₦1,020,000 to ₦1,750,000. That estimate included shared accommodation, several events, local transport and eating out. At the exchange rate used in the article, that was roughly $700 to $1,200.
A more expensive 10-day trip, with private or upscale accommodation, more events, private transport and higher-end restaurants, was estimated at around ₦4,700,000 to ₦12,000,000 or more. The article converted that to roughly $3,200 to $8,000-plus using the exchange rate at the time.
Exchange rates change, so the naira figures are more useful when planning a trip to Nigeria. The dollar amounts are only rough conversions based on the rates used in the original estimates.
Accommodation can also become much more expensive during December. The same Nigerian Tribune breakdown noted that short-let apartments costing around ₦120,000 to ₦250,000 per night in a normal month can double or even triple during the busiest December weeks.
These figures are examples rather than fixed December prices. Someone staying with family will spend very differently from someone booking a hotel. Someone attending two events will also have a very different budget from someone going out every night. Use these figures as a starting point, then price your own flights, accommodation, transport and activities before deciding how much you need.
Outside Lagos and Accra, detailed public breakdowns are harder to find. If you are travelling to Nairobi, Zanzibar, Cape Town or Kigali, you may need to price more of the trip yourself.
For safari and beach holidays booked through a tour operator, ask for the full cost before paying. Find out whether the price includes park fees, transfers, internal flights, guides, meals and other charges. A low advertised price may not be the final amount you actually pay.
Telling a fair price rise from an actual rip-off
December 2025 gave travellers in Lagos several clear examples of how sharply prices can rise during the festive period.
Across Ikoyi, Victoria Island and Lekki Phase 1, short-let prices rose significantly. BusinessDay reported that some visitors abandoned their apartments after seeing the prices they were being charged, while screenshots shared online showed some one-bedroom apartments in Lekki Phase 1 listed for as much as ₦700,000 per night.
The higher prices were not limited to accommodation. A widely discussed opinion piece in ThisDay gave several examples from the same period. A hairdressing service that normally cost ₦70,000 was reportedly quoted at ₦200,000 to some diaspora clients. Ride-hailing journeys that would normally cost around ₦6,000 to ₦7,000 reached roughly twice that amount during periods of surge pricing. One two-week short-let was reportedly priced at almost ₦3 million, an amount comparable to a year's rent for some properties in the same city.
There were similar reports around events and hotels. Travel Noire cited a social media post showing a boat party rental that had cost ₦90,000 in 2023 being listed for more than ₦200,000 in 2025. The same account reported hotel rooms that had previously cost ₦144,000 being listed above ₦220,000. These were individual examples rather than a formal survey of prices across Lagos, so they should not be treated as standard market rates. They do, however, show the kind of price increases some travellers were encountering during the season.
Tourism industry representatives also raised concerns about how far prices were rising. Prince Femi Fadina, national president of the Association of Tourism Practitioners of Nigeria, warned that continued increases could damage the December tourism business if the underlying problems were not addressed.
At the same time, a higher December price does not automatically mean that a business is overcharging. Hotels, restaurants, short-lets and other services can legitimately charge more when demand is much higher and their costs increase. The question for a traveller is what you are actually getting for the higher price.
This became particularly clear with short-lets in Lagos in 2025. BusinessDay reported that some visitors moved from short-lets to hotels after complaints about prices and service. Hotels offered things such as regular cleaning, breakfast, reception staff and a clear point of contact, which some travellers found worth paying for.
Cowrywise's 2025 season report also provides figures for the accommodation sector. It reported ₦94.73 billion in revenue for traditional hotels and ₦23.67 billion for apartment-style hotels during the period covered by its report, based on 1,100 rooms. These figures give some indication of how much money was being spent on accommodation during the season, although they do not provide a general price for every hotel or short-let in Lagos.
For your own trip, the safest approach is to check exactly what you are paying for before making a booking. Ask for the full price in writing, including cleaning fees, service charges, deposits and any other additional costs.
Also compare several properties rather than judging a price against what the same apartment cost during a quieter month. December prices will usually be higher. But if one property is charging two or three times what similar properties nearby are charging without offering anything different, you have a reason to keep looking.
You should also remember that you are not limited to one type of accommodation. If a short-let is unusually expensive, compare it with hotels in the same area. If the hotel prices are also too high, look at another neighbourhood or adjust your dates where possible. The goal is not to find a December price that looks like a normal-month price. It is to know what you are paying for and whether the price makes sense compared with your other options.
Avoiding scams that specifically target travelers
Price gouging is annoying. Outright fraud is worse, and it specifically targets people who are booking a property or service from a different country, unable to view it in person before they pay.
In one documented case from the run-up to the 2025 season, a diaspora family was defrauded of ₦1.3 million by a fake short-let agent operating through Instagram in Ikoyi, Lagos. This was not a case of trusting photos from a distance, the family actually visited the residence in person to verify it before paying, and were further reassured when someone posing as a housekeeper at the property confirmed that the agent managed the place. Only after they transferred the money did the agent delete the account and disappear entirely. That detail matters: even an in-person visit is not a complete guardrail if the people you meet on site are part of the scheme. Nigerian police and security commentators responded with consistent advice afterward: verify property ownership through the actual title holder or a licensed agency rather than through anyone you meet at the property alone, pay only through a trusted platform or a verified management firm rather than a direct personal bank transfer, and treat any pressure to move fast or pay through an untraceable channel as a warning sign rather than normal urgency.
A separate, well-documented story from Travel Noire's reporting shows that even a fully legitimate booking is not automatically safe from being pulled out from under you. Traveler Giovonna Bennett had booked a hotel back in March for the December season. In November, with the trip a month away, her reservation was cancelled outright, and she later saw the same room priced at more than $4,000 a night for the festival period, up from the under $600 she had paid, which led her to believe the cancellation was connected to the much higher seasonal rate. This is exactly why a written confirmation matters, covered in more detail in the next section, and why booking through a platform with its own cancellation protections is generally safer than a booking made entirely over direct message.
Before you send money to anyone for accommodation you have not seen in person, a few checks cost you nothing: search the property or host's name alongside the word "scam" or "review," ask for a video call showing the actual space rather than relying on photos alone, and be especially cautious of any listing priced noticeably below everything else nearby during peak season, since an unrealistically good deal is one of the oldest signs that something is wrong.
What protections actually exist if a business lets you down
If a hotel, short-let or other business cancels a booking after you have already paid, do not assume there is nothing you can do. In Lagos, government agencies have specifically warned businesses against cancelling confirmed bookings during the December period.
In December 2025, Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu warned hotels, restaurants and event venues against cancelling confirmed bookings in order to accept a higher-paying customer who arrived later. He said he had met with about 250 hotel, club and restaurant operators to discuss the issue. He also said customers with deposit receipts or other written proof of a confirmed booking could report businesses that failed to honour their commitments to the state government.
The Lagos State Consumer Protection Agency has also warned hotels and short-let operators about blanket no-refund policies. The agency said it receives complaints from guests during festive periods and warned that it would increase monitoring and take action against businesses that violate consumer protection rules.
There are a few simple things you can do before a problem happens. Read the cancellation and refund terms before paying. Make sure you know whether your deposit is refundable, what happens if the business cancels and whether there are any additional charges. If you are booking a short-let, check that the property actually exists and that the photos and details match the place being advertised. Where possible, use a reputable booking platform or verify the property directly.
Keep your booking confirmation and every payment record. Save the price you agreed to, your check-in and check-out dates, the cancellation terms and any messages confirming the reservation. If you paid a deposit, keep the receipt.
This becomes important if the business later cancels your booking, refuses to refund your money or tries to charge you a different price after you have paid. Your confirmation, receipts and messages give you evidence of what was agreed. Depending on how you paid, you may be able to raise the matter with the business, dispute the payment through your bank or card provider, or report the business to the relevant consumer protection authority.
Do not rely only on a phone call or a verbal promise. If an important part of the booking is agreed over the phone, ask the business to confirm it in writing.
Getting around once you land
December traffic can affect almost every part of a trip, especially in Lagos. In 2025, the president of Nigeria's National Association of Tour Operators identified congestion around Lagos airports as one of the major problems during the festive period, as large numbers of people arrived in the city at the same time.
The government also took steps to reduce traffic. Lagos State postponed a planned eight-month rehabilitation of the Lekki-Ajah corridor, while the federal government temporarily opened a 47-kilometre section of the Lagos-Calabar coastal highway during the festive period.
For your own trip, allow more time for journeys than you would at other times of the year. An airport transfer that normally takes an hour can take much longer during the December rush. The same applies to getting to a restaurant, concert, wedding or other event. Do not plan around the exact journey time shown by a map app on a normal day.
If your hotel or short-let is arranging an airport pickup, confirm how the driver will contact you if your flight is delayed. This is particularly useful during harmattan season, when poor visibility can affect flight times.
For restaurant reservations, check how long the restaurant will hold your table if you are running late. If you are attending an event, allow extra time for traffic instead of planning to arrive just before the start time. December traffic affects everyone using the same roads, so a delay can happen even when you have left early.
What else to budget for beyond flights and a room
Rooms and flights are only part of what this season actually costs. In the MO Africa breakdown of 2025 Lagos spending, food and dining took 12.91 percent of total spend and entertainment and nightlife took 32.67 percent, meaning a large share of December money changes hands entirely outside the hotel room. The businesses that serve this demand fill up just as fast as accommodation does.
Akunna Nwala Akano, founder of the salon chain Kuku's Hair, told CNN her team began taking December reservations in August, was fully booked through 31 December, and saw daily client load rise from 15 to as many as 25, before closing entirely from 1 to 17 January to recover. Her experience illustrates why travellers who need a specific salon or spa appointment should book it well before December rather than assuming they can find an opening that week. Restaurants see the same pattern.
A restaurant that managed the December 2024 peak told OkayAfrica it saw a sharp rise in group reservations and walk-ins, particularly around a special cocktail offer, meaning the popular spots you have seen recommended online will be just as hard to get into without a reservation as a hotel room.
Build a rough allowance into your budget for these extras beyond your headline flight and accommodation costs, salon appointments, restaurant reservations at popular spots, a boat or beach day, event tickets, since treating the season as just "a flight and a room" tends to produce the most common kind of budget overrun.
New rules that could affect your trip without you knowing
Some rules can affect where you are able to stay and whether you need to book certain activities in advance. It is worth checking them before your trip, especially if you are using a short-let or visiting a busy national park.
Cape Town is one example. The city's existing Rates Policy says that a property used for short-term accommodation for more than 50 percent of its annual room nights can be charged commercial accommodation rates instead of residential rates. This rule is already in place.
The city is also considering a new Short-Term Letting By-law. The draft proposal was open for public comment from 5 August to 5 October 2026. If adopted, it would require short-term rental properties to register with the city and display a registration number. Any changes to property rates based on the new registration system would not take effect until mid-2027.
For a visitor coming to Cape Town in December 2026, the proposed by-law does not mean you need to register a property yourself or that every short-let will suddenly have a new charge. The main thing to know is that the rules for short-term rentals are changing, so check the listing carefully and make sure the property is legitimate before paying.
Kruger National Park introduced another type of restriction during the 2025 festive season. The park introduced daily limits for day visitors and required them to book their entry online in advance. Visitors staying overnight inside the park were not included in the daily day-visitor limit.
If you are planning a day trip to Kruger during a busy holiday period, check the park's current booking rules and reserve your entry before you travel. Do not assume that you can arrive at the gate and buy entry on the day.
The same applies to other destinations and activities. Rules can change between one year and the next, particularly during busy travel periods. Before you travel, check the official website of the city, park or attraction you are visiting for the current requirements.
A booking checklist, month by month
Now, in September. Decide which of the six markets, or another destination entirely, actually matches the trip you want. Start comparing flight prices and set a price alert if your airline allows it. Confirm what visa or entry authorisation your passport actually needs for your destination.
Early October. Book your international flight if you have not already. This is roughly the edge of the three-to-five-month ideal window travel industry data points to, and prices begin climbing steadily from here.
Mid-October. Book your accommodation. Travel guides on Lagos and Accra put this as roughly when the best options start selling out. If you need salon, spa or restaurant reservations for specific dates, start making those now too, not in December.
Through November. Book any domestic flights or transfers you will need once you land, since these often move even more sharply in price than international routes. Reconfirm any event you are building your trip around, since line-ups and dates can still shift this close to the season. If you have not sorted your visa or ETA yet, do it now rather than in the final weeks.
First two weeks of December. Reconfirm every booking in writing, accommodation, restaurant reservations, any tours or transfers. Pack with the harmattan risk in mind if you are flying into West Africa, and build slack into any tight connections. Keep digital copies of every confirmation and payment receipt in one place you can access from your phone.
During your trip. Keep your booking confirmations and payment records on hand in case anything is disputed. Give yourself more time than a map app suggests for any transfer during peak hours, especially around the airport.
January. If a business handled you well, especially in a season this stretched, a review genuinely helps them and helps the next traveler who reads it before booking the same place.
Frequently asked questions
When should I actually book my flight?
Three to five months before you travel is a reasonable planning guideline for the best combination of availability and price, based on general airfare patterns rather than a fixed rule. For December travel, that means booking by September at the latest gives you the best odds; by November, expect to be paying noticeably more, and the final week before departure can cost up to 59 percent more than booking in the right window.
Is it safe to book a short-let apartment instead of a hotel?
It can be, but verify before you pay. A documented ₦1.3 million fraud case in Ikoyi in the run-up to the 2025 season involved a fake agent operating entirely through Instagram, and the family lost the money the moment they wired it. Verify property ownership, pay only through a trusted platform or a verified management firm, and be wary of any listing that pressures you to pay quickly through an untraceable transfer.
Should I expect prices to be higher than normal?
Yes, significantly. International and domestic flights have both been documented at more than double their normal price during the peak two weeks. Accommodation, especially short-lets, can also double or triple. The question worth asking is not whether the price is higher than normal, it almost always is, but whether it is higher than what other comparable options are charging that same week.
What if my confirmed booking gets cancelled or the price changes after I've paid?
Keep a written confirmation and payment record for everything. In Lagos specifically, the state government has publicly asked travelers to report broken bookings directly, and the Lagos State Consumer Protection Agency has warned businesses against no-refund policies that surprise guests after the fact. Outside Lagos, the same principle applies even without a dedicated reporting channel: a clear paper trail is what gives you leverage, whether with the business directly or through a card dispute.
Do I need a visa everywhere I might go?
It depends entirely on your passport and destination, and the rules have been changing quickly across the continent. Rwanda offers visa on arrival to every nationality since 2018. Ghana opened visa-free entry to all African passport holders from 1 January 2025, and announced a further reform in April 2026 offering African nationals a free online e-visa from 25 May 2026. Kenya now requires an Electronic Travel Authorization applied for in advance. Always confirm your specific requirement on the destination country's own portal, or a continuously updated resource like our own African ETA Tracker, before booking a non-refundable flight.
Is harmattan going to disrupt my trip?
Possibly, possibly not, and you genuinely cannot know in advance which. Several Nigerian outlets described the 2025 into 2026 season as unusually mild, yet flight delays attributed to harmattan still happened in mid-January 2026. Build slack into any tight connections or must-not-miss flights in the back half of December rather than assuming either a clear run or a bad one.
Should I bring extra cash, or rely on cards?
This guide does not have verified data specific enough to give you a firm number, but the pricing and fraud patterns above point toward the same habit either way: whatever payment method you use, get a written total before you pay, and avoid direct bank transfers to anyone you have not verified independently.
Is it worth going somewhere less well-known than Lagos or Accra this December?
Possibly, and the trade-off is genuinely about how much a well-documented experience is worth to you. The markets with the most detailed public data, Lagos and Accra specifically, are also the most expensive and the most heavily booked. Kigali's ease of entry and Rwanda's growth numbers, or a country further down Ria's Colony's Tourism at a Glance list, may offer a calmer trip for a traveler willing to do a bit more of their own research rather than relying on well-trodden guides.
In conclusion...
December travel looks different from one destination to another.
In Lagos, a large number of people return from abroad at the same time, while nightlife, weddings and other events create additional demand for flights, accommodation and transport. Ghana also has a busy December period, but business travel and visits to family and friends make up a significant share of travel to the country. In Kenya, domestic travellers make up a large part of December tourism, including visits to national parks and the coast. Cape Town is in the middle of South Africa's summer holiday period, so you are travelling alongside South Africans taking their own annual holidays. Rwanda has visa-on-arrival arrangements for nationals of every country, although the fee and length of stay depend on your nationality.
Your planning should match the destination you have chosen. Check the entry requirements for your passport before booking. Compare flight and accommodation prices rather than assuming the first price you see is the normal December rate. If you are booking a short-let, hotel, safari or tour, get the full price and cancellation terms in writing. Keep your booking confirmations and payment records.
Leave enough time between flights, airport transfers and important events, especially during the last two weeks of December. If your trip depends on a particular concert, wedding, safari or other event, confirm the date before booking your flight around it.
If you are planning a December trip, September is a good time to start making those decisions. Flights and accommodation are already available, and you have more time to compare your options before the busiest weeks arrive.
