Lagos International airport (Murtala Mohammed) is 22km (13mi) from Lagos. Taxis to the city are also available. The national carrier, Nigerian Airways, offers flights to a number of European destinies but it can be a bumpy ride. International carriers fly in and out of Lagos but due to political instability scheduled flights may sometimes be cancelled. The departure tax for international flights is US$35.

Sea services to Lagos, Port Harcourt and Calabar sail from London, Liverpool and other European ports. There are also boats from Oron (just inside the Nigerian border) to Limbe (just inside the Cameroon border) but it involves changing boats, running the gauntlet of suspicious custom officials and negotiating hostile relations between the two countries. Share taxis can take you by road to Benin, Cameroon, Chad and Niger. Most border crossings involve

Air travel within Nigeria is always a bit of a gamble, mainly because scheduled departure times appear to be entirely hypothetical and boarding involves an elbows-first, musical-chairs scramble for a seat on an aircraft that will always be over booked. The good news is that internal flights are incredibly cheap. Domestic flights do not leave from Murtala Mohammed airport but from the older airport 10km away. Private airlines are a viable alternative and are usually more organised and reliable than Nigerian Airways and offer relatively cheap fares.

Travelling by bus is the safest and most comfortable way to travel and lines connect all the main cities. Bus offices tend to cluster in the same area of the city. Bush taxis are the fastest and most comfortable way to get around but they're also the most dangerous. Nigerian drivers have little respect for speed limits and accidents are often fatal. There are trains running in Nigeria but they're not very comfortable and, as if to compensate for the bush taxis, travel at a snail's pace.