If there’s one girl that loves to travel and look the bomb.com while doing so, it’s definitely Kehinde Smith, Your Melanin Godmother. The beauty entrepreneur and influencer has been on a couple of trips recently to some of our favourite travel destinations in Africa, giving us all the FOMO feels we need to book that 2018 vacation trip ASAP!

After a trip to Marrakesh, with some of her friends, Kehinde took another trip to Zanzibar with her bestie, Kiitan who is also a beauty and fashion influencer.

As the CEO of My Extensionz and My Lash Extensionz, Kehinde is also on out Ideas, Influence and Income panel for our #SMWxBNStyle18 event at Social Media Week Lagos 2018, took some time out to speak to us about her most recent vacation.

Why Tanzania?

It was between Tanzania or Kenya. Kiitan & I actually made a poll on our Instagram accounts asking which country we should visit. Although the majority chose Kenya, we decided to go with Tanzania because it, for whatever reason, felt closer to home for us. The people, the beautiful chaos, the islands, the tradition, and of course the food.

Viewing one of our fellow blogger @SpiritedPursuit photos on her blog and on her Instagram account convinced me even more to choose Tanzania! More importantly, we wanted to visit somewhere in Africa to show and prove to others that places in Africa are beautiful destinations for a great holiday. Many people assume that the best holiday trips are anywhere but Africa because of the stereotypical things they see or hear in the media. I think its safe to say we’ve proven many of them wrong from this trip alone. Tanzania is beautiful!!

What influenced your style in Tanzania?

Normally when we travel, we would sort of create a mood board to give us an idea of what our fashion style should consist of. Our style of fashion all depends on each location we visit. For example; if we were going to go to the local market we wouldn’t carry a designer handbag like Chanel or Givenchy… we also wouldn’t rock a pair of stilettos either.

To capture a great photo and to blend in with the locals in our own fashionable way.. We usually like to dress according to the ambience of the place.

Sometimes we would even sew clothes with a local tailor so we can fit the vibes of our designated location. Unfortunately, we did not have much time to prep for this trip because it was very last minute (1 week notice). We did, however, pull what we could pull from our wardrobe and a few local Nigerian designers showroom to make it all work!

What documentation did you need & how did you sort accommodation & transport?

Documentation:
We needed a valid US passport & a yellow fever card. When Kiitan and I arrived in Tanzania we had no idea that we needed a visa. So we had to pay a whopping $50 for a 1-week transit visa.

Accommodation:
In regards to accommodation, we wanted to try and experience different parts of Tanzania, so we stayed in 5 different hotels & resorts during the 7 days of our trip.

Transportation:
Planning our transportation wasn’t hard at all.. Although we were stressed that we would be unable to find a full-time driver that we could trust.. It worked out perfectly fine for us at the end of the day because we simply asked one of the staffs at the first hotel we lodge in to find us a reliable driver. The driver just so happened to be his brother who ended up being extremely cool. We paid him $30/day.

Kiitan & I had an amazing time in Tanzania and we hope to visit many other countries and document our experience.

Thanks for sharing your experience with us, Kehinde!

See more amazing photos from their trip to Zanzibar below