TOPIC – KEYNOTE

Love, Visas, and Entrepreneurship: How Immigration Restrictions Led Us to Build a Tour Company in Nigeria While Traveling the World – Chris and Adenike Joondeph | 60-minute Keynote

Chris and Adenike met in Lagos in 2021. It was Chris’s 110th country and Adenike had traveled to 5. Flash forward 5 years, they’re now married and run a company offering cultural group tours to Nigeria making the country accessible to foreigners. Chris has visited over 170 countries and Adenike recently surpassed 100 on her Nigerian passport.

This is a story of love, travel, and making the best of a very challenging immigration situation.

Chris and Adenike first met through Couchsurfing on a quick weekend trip to Lagos. What followed was a love story, a traditional Yoruba wedding with a with a dowry that required everything from kola nuts to a live goat, and a crash course in just how hard it is for an American and a Nigerian to simply live in the same country.

They applied for a spousal visa for Adenike to join Chris in the USA in June 2024 and they’re still waiting for an interview. Rather than live their lives apart, Chris and Adenike made the decision to call Lagos home and start a company bringing small groups of curious travelers into one of the most misunderstood countries on earth. They completed eight tours in their first year, with more on the way. Together they are selling Nigeria to a world and showing that there is more to this country than the headlines.

Between tours, they travel the world using their combined over 3M social media followers to generate enough income to cover their travels. Adenike has now visited over 100 countries on a Nigerian passport, a document that faces enormous restrictions just to even apply for a visa. What started as meeting up in third countries around the world due to US visa restrictions led to a nomadic lifestyle for both Adenike and Chris generating a ton of fascinating travel stories about cultural differences between African and Western travelers, precarious border situations, and visa and passport stories that will make your head spin.

This is a story about how two people separated by bureaucracy managed to build a life and living together across borders. How they took a country that is so often misunderstood in the media and welcomed over 100 people to visit by going beyond the headlines and showing people the real Nigeria that never gets covered in the media.

Key Takeaways:

  • What US immigration actually looks like for international couples, and how you build a life when there is no timeline
  • How Adenike traveled to 100+ countries on a Nigerian passport and what that means for anyone navigating a world that was not designed for them
  • Understand the unique cultural differences and perspectives between African and Western travelers and how one can laugh and joke about many of these misunderstandings in the travel world
  • How one couple is changing the way the world sees Nigeria, one tour group at a time
  • An open invitation to visit Nigeria, the one Chris and Adenike actually live in

BIO

Chris Joondeph, known as @Authentic_Traveling, is a travel content creator from the United States with a particular focus on food and culture. He is known for his fun, engaging videos that really make it feel like you’re traveling along with him.

When it comes to travel, Chris is all about getting the local experience in order to understand a place through the perspective of those living there. There is a reason so many people call him the “Millennial Anthony Bourdain”. For Chris, it’s not about visiting the most popular tourist sights, but rather finding the hidden gems and quirks that showcase destinations with a unique and positive perspective.

One theme throughout his work is cultural appreciation. Chris has a unique ability to pick up on the little details that make a culture tick and showcase them with a fresh perspective. In that respect his content is very different from other travel content creators as he puts new spin on travel content showcasing some of the simple everyday experiences that help him connect with his audience.

Chris’s travel journey started back in 2013 when he went on a solo backpacking trip through Central America from Panama to El Salvador. This showed him that it was really possible to just pack up a few things, jump on a plane, and figure everything out on the fly while getting totally immersed in the culture.

In 2021, Chris took his first trip to Nigeria where he met his now wife, Adenike Joondeph. The two married in 2024 and managed a long distance relationship while waiting for her visa to the United States. Eventually the time apart and travel got to be too much and Chris left his job to start a business venture with his wife bringing foreign tourists to Nigeria on culturally immersive group tours. The two host several group tours throughout the year. More information about these tours is available on their Instagram page: instagram.com/authentic_traveling_tours

As Chris has perfected his craft, his global audience has grown. He shows an alternative perspective about the places he visits in an educational, funny, and engaging format. You can see more of his content on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube or Facebook at @authentic_traveling.