African Homecoming
“If you do not know where the rain began to beat you, then you cannot tell where you dried your body.”
“If you don’t know where you come from, then you cannot tell where you are going.”
—Igbo proverb
An African Homecoming—Immersive Culture-Centric Trips
Africa is the most diverse continent on the planet.
From forests, woodlands, savannahs, grasslands, deserts, metropolis, and wetlands.
&
Thousands of unique cultures and over 2000 spoken languages.
The many kingdoms of Egypt, the coastal Empire of Carthage, the trading juggernauts of Aksum, and the luxurious Empire of Mali. Africa is full of ancient history and wonder.
All trips are led by local tour insiders as part of our commitment to social impact and promoting micro-entrepreneurship. Check out our African Homecoming itineraries below:
African Homecoming Itineraries
Travel Back in Time and Traverse Africa's Great Civilizations.
Explore and traverse countries with over two hundred thousand years of history. Discover the origins of art, writing, and civilization itself.
These itineraries cover pre-colonial and post-colonial Africa. They are succinct and personal, exploring and uncovering history, stories, and landmarks that endure from before slavery, that formed from the impact of slavery, and that came about in its aftermath.
- Ancient Civilizations of the Nile - Kingdoms of Kush | Sudan
- Ancient Civilizations of the Nile - History, Dynasties, Religion and Writing | Egypt
- The City of Gondar | Ethiopia
- Lalibela | Ethiopia
- The Aksum Kingdom: Trade and Ancient Africa | Ethiopia
- The Great Enclosure of Great Zimbabwe | Zimbabwe
- The Fabled and Majestic City of Timbuktu | Mali
- City of Ile Ife | Nigeria
- The Kingdom of Benin - Benin City | Nigeria
- The Kingdom of Dahomey | the Republic of Benin
- Zanzibar | Tanzania


Sudan
Located between the Nile and Atbara rivers, the Island of Meroë is the heartland of the Kingdom of Kush, a major power in the ancient world from the 8th century BCE to the 4th century CE. Meroë became the principal residence of the rulers, and from the 3rd century BCE onwards, it was the site of most royal burials.
There are an estimated 350 pyramids in Sudan which is twice as many as in Egypt!

Egypt
The rich history of ancient Egypt involves power struggles, amazing feats of engineering, advances in writing and art, and more. Ancient Egypt in North Africa was one of the most powerful and influential civilizations in the region for over 3,000 years, from around 3100 B.C. to 30 B.C.
The first of the great pyramids was built at Saqqara in 2650 BC – more than 4,650 years ago!

Ethiopia
Prior to the establishment of Gondar, the capitals of Ethiopia moved seasonally, essentially a roving city until the founding and creation of the great city of Gondar. Gondar would grow into the first true Imperial Ethiopian capital.
Settlements remained in the same place for hundreds of years into the 18th century. Sustained by its local and long-distance trade, the city flourished as a major urban center until the second half of the nineteenth century.

Ethiopia
Explore 12 churches that were carved out of rock in the ancient Ethiopian highlands. In the 11th century, a new dynasty revived the fortunes of Ethiopia’s once-great Christian kingdom to create one of the most spectacular of all religious sites in Africa and in the World.
Sometimes called the “New Jerusalem,” Lalibela is composed of eleven monumental churches of great architectural diversity entirely carved into the rock. Listed as UNESCO’s World Heritage and often called “the eighth wonder of the world”, Lalibela was erected between the 12th and the 13th century by king Lalibela.

Ethiopia
In the first through sixth centuries (CE), East Africa had one of the greatest empires of its time, the kingdom of Aksum in Ethiopia. Considered as important as the empires in Rome, Persia, and China, the kingdom of Aksum arose in the Horn of Africa.
Situated in the highlands of northern Ethiopia, Aksum symbolizes the wealth and importance of the civilization of the ancient Aksumite kingdom, which lasted from the 1st to the 8th centuries AD. The kingdom was at the crossroads of the three continents: Africa, Arabia, and the Greco-Roman World, and was the most powerful state between the Eastern Roman Empire and Persia.

Zimbabwe
The Great Enclosure of Great Zimbabwe, the largest pre-colonial structure in the whole of Sub-Saharan Africa, was occupied from the 11th to 15th centuries and served as a royal residence, as well as a statement of majesty, power, wealth, and architectural genius.
Within the ruins of the site, archeologists have discovered pottery from China and Persia, as well as coins from the Middle East, revealing that the reach of the Kingdom of Zimbabwe was indeed far.

Mali
It’s hard to separate the city of Timbuktu and the famously-labeled richest person ever—Mansa Musa. Mansa Musa made Timbuktu an intellectual powerhouse and cultural oasis in the 14th century. This reputation would last for hundreds of years.
The heart of Timbuktu’s (Mali) intellectual life was its libraries. Between the 14th and 17th centuries, it acquired hundreds of thousands of books, mostly written by African authors working in the city. Its main university was once home to 25,000 students. The city was at the forefront of mathematics, medicine, and scholarship for centuries.

Nigeria
The name Ile Ife literally means place of dispersion. According to Yoruba tradition, Ife was founded by the deities Oduduwa and Obatala when they created the world. Obatala fashioned the first humans out of clay, while Oduduwa became the first divine king of the Yoruba people.
Ife is world famous for its art. Between 700 and 900 A.D., the city began to develop as a major artistic center. By the 12th century, Ife artists were creating bronze, stone, and terracotta sculptures, some of which are found today in museums in Nigeria, Europe, and North America.

Nigeria
The historical kingdom of Benin was established in the forested region of West Africa in the 1200s C.E. According to history, the Edo people of southern Nigeria founded Benin.
Present-day Benin City was the ancient capital of the Kingdom of Benin. The city was defined by its massive, impressive walls. The height of power for Benin’s monarchs began during this period.

The Republic of Benin
Dahomey contained a vast complex of royal palaces. The kingdom also had a unique and distinctive canon of art and architecture. The kingdom became a major regional power in the 1720s when it conquered the coastal kingdoms of Allada and Whydah.
With control over these key coastal cities, Dahomey became a major center in the Atlantic Slave Trade until 1852, when the British imposed a naval blockade to stop the trade. War with the French began in 1892, and the French took over the Kingdom of Dahomey in 1894.

Tanzania
Zanzibar is a confluence of world cultures—Arab, Indian, and European influences that have made their imprint on the semi-autonomous island. From the 9th century, Swahili merchants in Zanzibar operated as brokers for long-distance traders from both the hinterland and the Indian Ocean. Persian, Indian, and Arab traders frequented Zanzibar to acquire East African goods like gold, ivory, and ambergris and then shipped them overseas to Asia.
Zanzibar is known for using many different spices in its cuisine — it’s often called “Spice Island”
Impacting Local Communities | Workshops and Hands-on Experiences:
Immersive, hands-on workshops, lectures, seminars, and experiences.
We seek to understand, learn from, and support local communities through our workshops and activities led by local community experts and artisans. We strongly believe that personal experiences are much more memorable and supportive than mass tourism, which is usually superficial, impersonal, low quality, and trivializes experiences in a stereotypical fashion.
So why not create experiences that foster cross-cultural understanding and respect? Why not build memories that honor indigenous cultures, traditions, values, artistic expressions, and so much more?
Want to know how we impact local communities? Every single one of our Culture-Centric Itineraries engages with local workshops, artisans, and businesses. Check out:
- Tie-Dye and Batik Making
- Shea Butter Making
- Black Soap Making
- Weaving Classes
- Trailblazer Travelz, Taste of Place—The Ultimate Cuisine Experience


Explore Our Tie Dye and Batik Workshop
The class also covers every facet of the process of designing and making batiks, from selecting proper equipment and supplies, setting up a studio, and making preliminary drawings and sketches to preparing the wax, applying the wax to cloth, applying dyes, and setting color.

Shea Butter Making
Although the concept of fair trade and the impact of gender relations on shea production is worth doing thorough research on, we are cognizant of the importance of social impact and its effect on lives within local communities.
The UN Development Program (UNDP) estimates that an average of three (now 16 million) million African women work directly or indirectly with shea butter. The top shea nut–producing countries are Nigeria, Mali, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Benin, and Togo.

Black Soap Making
Though the recipes may differ from region to region, the core ingredients remain the same: shea tree bark, palm tree leaves, plantain skins or cocoa pods, and fats like palm oil, coconut oil, shea butter, cocoa butter, and palm kernel oil. The plants are sun-dried and roasted to produce ash, giving the soap its iconic dark color.

Weaving Workshop—Village Djilor
The significance of African textiles is abundant, depending on the region. African textiles give us insight into the social, religious, political, and economic complexities of many African communities whose sophisticated cultures we may otherwise remain ignorant about.
Today in Africa, printing, weaving, and dyeing textiles remain crafts that provide both income and an outlet for creativity for many artisans across the continent. There is a myriad of designers, workshops, and co-operatives who produce either handmade fabrics or minimum order lengths for special projects or retail/gift shops

Trailblazer Travelz, Taste of Place—The Ultimate Cuisine Experience
- Exclusive Tours
- Tastings
- Classes
- Hands-On Lessons
- Unforgettable Dining Experiences
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