Ouidah is a small, rural town located in the French-speaking country of Benin Republic. Benin Republic shares land borders with Nigeria in the west. In 2018, I stumbled upon what I refer to as The Ouidah Lakehouse while looking at different accommodation options in Benin. I was immediately fascinated by the beautiful cabin with its views and I knew I had to visit. Within three months, I organized a girls` trip and we had the best time of our lives in 2018 during our weekend there.

After that initial trip to the Ouidah Lakehouse in 2018, I kept in touch with one of the owners, Jose. Every now and then he sent me pictures of the updates that were being made to the lake house and I promised to visit as soon as possible. The renovation of the interior to create a master suite upstairs complete with a tub overlooking the lake sealed my decision to revisit.

After concluding plans for a revisit, I put out an open call in my Ouidah 2020: Wellness Weekend post. Within a few weeks, I had my perfect travel group of six ready and we were on our way to Ouidah. The road trip from Lagos took around eight hours including a stop at a local supermarket to purchase basic food items.

On arrival at the lake house, everyone whipped out their phones to share pictures and videos of the gorgeous space. We settled into our different rooms to unpack after toasting to a fun stay. We had dinner on the patio overlooking the lake, played some games then retired early to help us rest from the road trip.

The next morning, while the boys kayaked on the calm water, I took a few minutes to myself to relax on the hammock and take in the beautiful surroundings. I admired the extra building that was added to the compound to accommodate six more guests but couldn’t do a house tour because it was occupied at that moment.

We had breakfast on the patio again before going for our individual sixty minutes of massage sessions. I could feel the Lagos tension knots fade at the touch of our masseuse. We all dozed off after our sessions. We had dinner when we woke, played some games, and settled in for a marathon movie night with the aid of our projector.

We spent the most part of the next day taking pictures, discussing various subjects, and playing more games. By midafternoon, we had our relaxing sip and paint session then headed to the beach opposite the house. The best part of the beach at evening is the cool water and sand, we spent time splashing, chasing the waves, walking the length of the beach, interacting with the locals in our stilted French, and relaxing in the abandoned canoes. We returned to the lake house when it got dark to spend the night packing for our return trip the next day and watching movies into the early morning.

The Ouidah Lakehouse has easily become one of my favorite places to visit because it is close to Lagos and the total cost doesn’t leave a hole in my pocket when I travel in a group. If you would like to visit sometime, I curated a travel guide to help you seamlessly plan your own trip. You can purchase it here. If you would rather have me plan the trip for you for a $50 fee, leave me a message here and I`ll be in touch.