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Palin's Travels
In Nigeria: The latest travel adventure from the bestselling author
The extraordinary new book from the bestselling author, a richly illustrated travel adventure across the African nation.
Illustrated throughout with colour photographs taken on the trip, and brimming with wry humour and fascinating insights, this is a vivid and varied portrait of a complex country.
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With his eightieth birthday looming, it crossed Michael Palin’s mind that now might be the time to hang up his boots, to lounge about at home, to take things easy. Then the opportunity to visit Africa’s most populous nation arose. A few weeks later, he was at Lagos airport, camera crew in town.
In the journal he kept during his trip he gives a vivid account of the towns and cities he visited, the landscapes he travelled through, and the people he from vibrant but chaotic Lagos, to seemingly deserted streets of Nigeria’s hyper-modern capital, Abuja, to the polluted oil fields of the Niger Delta. Michael Palin is welcomed as an honoured guest by a powerful emir and harangued by a passerby in Benin City. He hears the testimony of a kidnap victim of the terrorist group Boko Haram and experiences the collective spiritual ecstasy of one of Nigeria’s mega churches.
And throughout his trip, he experiences at first hand the contradictions of a country that has so much natural wealth and human talent and yet simultaneously grapples with corruption, religious strife and deep inequality.
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Praise for Michael
'I cannot remember the last time I read a book so immediately absorbing and affecting.' Bill Bryson, bestselling author of A Short History of Nearly Everything
‘Stirring’ Daily Telegraph
'Everybody's talking about it . . . A brilliant book.' Chris Evans, BBC Radio 2
‘Tremendous’ Guardian
'I absolutely loved I had to read it at one sitting.' Lorraine Kelly, ITV Lorraine
‘Magisterial’ The Times
‘[a] winning mix of genuine interest, good-humoured charm and that deceptively steely nose for humbug’ Wanderlust
‘ [An] absorbing and beautifully illustrated day-by-day account’ Daily Mirror
Illustrated throughout with colour photographs taken on the trip, and brimming with wry humour and fascinating insights, this is a vivid and varied portrait of a complex country.
---------
With his eightieth birthday looming, it crossed Michael Palin’s mind that now might be the time to hang up his boots, to lounge about at home, to take things easy. Then the opportunity to visit Africa’s most populous nation arose. A few weeks later, he was at Lagos airport, camera crew in town.
In the journal he kept during his trip he gives a vivid account of the towns and cities he visited, the landscapes he travelled through, and the people he from vibrant but chaotic Lagos, to seemingly deserted streets of Nigeria’s hyper-modern capital, Abuja, to the polluted oil fields of the Niger Delta. Michael Palin is welcomed as an honoured guest by a powerful emir and harangued by a passerby in Benin City. He hears the testimony of a kidnap victim of the terrorist group Boko Haram and experiences the collective spiritual ecstasy of one of Nigeria’s mega churches.
And throughout his trip, he experiences at first hand the contradictions of a country that has so much natural wealth and human talent and yet simultaneously grapples with corruption, religious strife and deep inequality.
_______
Praise for Michael
'I cannot remember the last time I read a book so immediately absorbing and affecting.' Bill Bryson, bestselling author of A Short History of Nearly Everything
‘Stirring’ Daily Telegraph
'Everybody's talking about it . . . A brilliant book.' Chris Evans, BBC Radio 2
‘Tremendous’ Guardian
'I absolutely loved I had to read it at one sitting.' Lorraine Kelly, ITV Lorraine
‘Magisterial’ The Times
‘[a] winning mix of genuine interest, good-humoured charm and that deceptively steely nose for humbug’ Wanderlust
‘ [An] absorbing and beautifully illustrated day-by-day account’ Daily Mirror
- GenresNonfictionTravel
148 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 28, 2026
About the author
Michael Palin
142 books1,226 followersSir Michael Edward Palin, KCMG, CBE, FRGS is an English comedian, actor, writer and television presenter best known for being one of the members of the comedy group Monty Python and for his travel documentaries.
Palin wrote most of his material with Terry Jones. Before Monty Python, they had worked on other shows such as The Ken Dodd Show, The Frost Report and Do Not Adjust Your Set. Palin appeared in some of the most famous Python sketches, including "The Dead Parrot", "The Lumberjack Song", "The Spanish Inquisition" and "Spam". Palin continued to work with Jones, co-writing Ripping Yarns. He has also appeared in several films directed by fellow Python Terry Gilliam and made notable appearances in other films such as A Fish Called Wanda, for which he won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. In a 2005 poll to find The Comedian's Comedian, he was voted the 30th favourite by fellow comedians and comedy insiders.
After Python, he began a new career as a travel writer. His journeys have taken him across the world, the North and South Poles, the Sahara desert, the Himalayas and most recently, Eastern Europe. In 2000 Palin became a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his services to television.
Palin wrote most of his material with Terry Jones. Before Monty Python, they had worked on other shows such as The Ken Dodd Show, The Frost Report and Do Not Adjust Your Set. Palin appeared in some of the most famous Python sketches, including "The Dead Parrot", "The Lumberjack Song", "The Spanish Inquisition" and "Spam". Palin continued to work with Jones, co-writing Ripping Yarns. He has also appeared in several films directed by fellow Python Terry Gilliam and made notable appearances in other films such as A Fish Called Wanda, for which he won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. In a 2005 poll to find The Comedian's Comedian, he was voted the 30th favourite by fellow comedians and comedy insiders.
After Python, he began a new career as a travel writer. His journeys have taken him across the world, the North and South Poles, the Sahara desert, the Himalayas and most recently, Eastern Europe. In 2000 Palin became a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his services to television.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
May 31, 2026
Coming a couple of years after the accompanying television documentary series, this is a welcome addition to Palin's travel writing, that allows fans to complete the set. Hitting 80 years old and visiting one country at a time, the book lacks the epic depth of earlier journeys like 80 Days Around the World, but the brisk pace is enjoyable, our host as charming as ever and the book beautifully produced. And Nigeria, as flawed and corrupt as it is, provides an interesting subject. As always, the wealthy and powerful corrupt what could be a jewel in the African continent.
June 1, 2026
I found Palin's account of his travels through Venezuela very illuminating, particularly since I read it shortly before Trump kidnapped its president and stole its oil. So, seeing this on the shelves in Waterstones and knowing Nigeria as another troubled country, I picked it up looking forward to another shower of insights into a place I'd never visited. I was not disappointed.
The text is readable and illustrated with wonderful photographs of Palin and the people and places that entertained him. Like Venezuela, Nigeria is another country cursed by colonialism and oil. The fact that some very disparate ethnic groups were compressed into a single country on the whim of the wife of a governor general is what lies perhaps at the heart of the endemic corruption. Benedict Anderson in his Imagined Communities highlights the strange process by which nations are formed - principally around formalised language - and the consequent process of identifying as a group with people we will never meet. In Nigeria the multiplicity of groups means loyalty and opportunity are owed not to the nation as a whole but to individual ethnic groups who expect favours when their groups are in power. Palin saw many examples of abandoned infrastructure projects and buildings, left half complete when the a change in power moved their sponsors out of government favour. There is also the danger in a country wracked with poverty and lawlessness where entrepreneurship and outright criminality are simple points on a spectrum of survival of the fittest.
Despite his advanced years (he had just turned 80 at the time of this trip) Palin has a sharp eye and a way with words to capture his sense of wonder at the people and the range of existences, from a floating slum to a verdant private polo club. Despite the efforts of individuals there is, in Africa's most populace country, a sense of discoordination - a failure to harness its people in a common endeavour that feels more like a nation in ventricular fibrillation than the beating heart of Africa that it could be.
The text is readable and illustrated with wonderful photographs of Palin and the people and places that entertained him. Like Venezuela, Nigeria is another country cursed by colonialism and oil. The fact that some very disparate ethnic groups were compressed into a single country on the whim of the wife of a governor general is what lies perhaps at the heart of the endemic corruption. Benedict Anderson in his Imagined Communities highlights the strange process by which nations are formed - principally around formalised language - and the consequent process of identifying as a group with people we will never meet. In Nigeria the multiplicity of groups means loyalty and opportunity are owed not to the nation as a whole but to individual ethnic groups who expect favours when their groups are in power. Palin saw many examples of abandoned infrastructure projects and buildings, left half complete when the a change in power moved their sponsors out of government favour. There is also the danger in a country wracked with poverty and lawlessness where entrepreneurship and outright criminality are simple points on a spectrum of survival of the fittest.
Despite his advanced years (he had just turned 80 at the time of this trip) Palin has a sharp eye and a way with words to capture his sense of wonder at the people and the range of existences, from a floating slum to a verdant private polo club. Despite the efforts of individuals there is, in Africa's most populace country, a sense of discoordination - a failure to harness its people in a common endeavour that feels more like a nation in ventricular fibrillation than the beating heart of Africa that it could be.
June 2, 2026
This was heartbreaking, and excellent. Everything I knew about Nigeria before reading this book came from the sitcom Bob ♥ Abishola, which is to say, I knew next to nothing. Of all the similarities to the U.S. I noticed while listening, the one that made me the saddest was the megachurch. Michael attended a service with 100,000 people-- and that was considered a smaller gathering. The church actually owns the entire city it sits in, and this is where I should probably stop commenting before I get myself in trouble.
The northern part of the country is controlled by Muslims, and they are serious about their horses, which are gorgeous, and their chicken gizzards, which are ubiquitous.
Favorite moment: Michael has a fast food meal of Lissachatina fulica (giant African land snail) that later piqued the curiosity of David Attenborough. I must admit, it got my attention, too. “I’ll have the 10 piece McSnail with sweet and sour sauce” is something I’ll probably never say at a drive thru.
Palin has never written a bad travel book, but this one resonated particularly strongly. Government corruption, the lack of a safety net driving poor people to do desperate things to feed their families, oil companies polluting with impunity, national landmarks being bulldozed so wealthy people can make more money… I guess greed looks similar on any continent.
The northern part of the country is controlled by Muslims, and they are serious about their horses, which are gorgeous, and their chicken gizzards, which are ubiquitous.
Favorite moment: Michael has a fast food meal of Lissachatina fulica (giant African land snail) that later piqued the curiosity of David Attenborough. I must admit, it got my attention, too. “I’ll have the 10 piece McSnail with sweet and sour sauce” is something I’ll probably never say at a drive thru.
Palin has never written a bad travel book, but this one resonated particularly strongly. Government corruption, the lack of a safety net driving poor people to do desperate things to feed their families, oil companies polluting with impunity, national landmarks being bulldozed so wealthy people can make more money… I guess greed looks similar on any continent.
June 10, 2026
A belated release for Palin’s book about his travels around Nigeria.
He’s speeding up his globe trotting in his old age - his Channel 5 travelogues have produced short books about North Korea, Iraq and Venezuela. The latter two plus this one form a sort of loose trilogy about how the oil industry affects a country.
He’s not slowing down - he’s off to the Philippines next - which probably means that my Christmas tradition of a Palin travel book will continue.
He’s speeding up his globe trotting in his old age - his Channel 5 travelogues have produced short books about North Korea, Iraq and Venezuela. The latter two plus this one form a sort of loose trilogy about how the oil industry affects a country.
He’s not slowing down - he’s off to the Philippines next - which probably means that my Christmas tradition of a Palin travel book will continue.
June 26, 2026
A three week trip to a country does not provide enough material for a book and though there is a lot of padding this book just barely runs to 80 pages of print. I don't think that this is going to be one of the books that Michael Palin is going to be proudest of. What there is is ok but there is quite a lot of describing travelling from one place to another. A learnt some things about Nigeria but not as much as I was expecting. All in all I am glad I didn't buy the book and paid to read it.
June 24, 2026
Brilliantly written. And funny. The RCCG pages cracked me up.
June 27, 2026
An excellent look at a very populous and very complex African country!
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews