Ethiopia is an ancient country whose unique cultural heritage, rich history and remarkable biodiversity are reflected in a tally of nine UNESCO World Heritage Sites – more than any other country in Africa. Within its borders, you’ll find the world’s fourth-holiest Islamic city, along with as the oldest continuously-occupied town south of the Sahara. Compelling antiquities include the mediaeval rock-hewn churches of Lalibela and Gheralta, ruined palaces and temples dating back 3,000 years, the magnificent 17th century castles of Gondar, and the oldest human fossils unearthed anywhere on the planet. Add to this the beautiful Simien and Bale Mountains, the spectacular volcanic landscapes of the Danakil Depression, and a wealth of mammals and birds found nowhere else in the world, and it’s little wonder that Ethiopia has become the most attractive and popular emergent tourist destination in Africa.
Ethiopia’s fascinating and enigmatic recorded history stretches back 3,000 years to the reign of the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon.
Ethiopia’s rich biodiversity is reflected in a varied flora and fauna embracing more than 50 endemic species of mammals and birds, ranging from the iconic Ethiopian wolf to the spectacular Raspoli’s turaco.
A stable and peaceful democracy since 1994, Ethiopia Today is a federal state whose progressive economic policies are reflected is a post-millennial average annual growth rate of around 10 percent.
A unique musical heritage and cuisine, together with an ancient coffee culture and thriving arts and crafts scene, ensure that the Ethiopian lifestyle has much to offer curious visitors.
From hiking and wildlife viewing to hot-air balloon trips and exploring museums, Ethiopia offers limitless possibilities to outdoor enthusiasts and curious travelers.A wide range of outdoor and adventure activities includes scenic overland expeditions, hiking in lush forest and Afro-alpine moorlands, climbing active volcanoes, and ballooning around Addis Ababa .
From the coffee forests of the western highlands to the jewel-like lakes that dot the Rift Valley, Ethiopia’s wealth of down-to-earth nature experiences includes the opportunity to track endemic wildlife on foot, and some of the finest birding anywhere in Africa.
Whether you are picking through venerable museums and paleontology sites, or enjoying shopping fir handicrafts and exploring the unique and spicy cuisine, Ethiopia offers a rare variety of rewarding cultural experiences.
As might be expected of the country where coffee first originated, Ethiopia has a strong and pervasive culture centered around coffee, known locally as buna. Indeed, the rich aroma of freshly roast bean is one of the country’s most characteristic odors, emanating from the doors of private houses, coffee shops and restaurants in villages and towns throughout the country.
- Coffee is Ethiopia’s most important cash and export crop. The country now produces almost 400 million kilograms of coffee (almost 5 percent of the global total), which makes it the world’s fifth-largest coffee exporter. Around 98 percent of Ethiopia’s coffee is grown by subsistence farmers, and all phases of production, from cultivation to drying, are done by hand . Roughly half of the coffee produced in Ethiopia stays in the country, which has the highest domestic consumption of coffee in the continent.
- Designed to honor guests, or simply as a way for friends and families to get together and chat, ‘coffee ceremonies’ are held on a daily basis, sometime several times a day, in hotels, cultural restaurants and private homes all over Ethiopia. Usually accompanied by burning frankincense, a bowl of popped corn, and freshly cut grass strewn across the floor, the ceremony is a leisurely business, as the beans are roasted, then ground, then brewed with boiling water in a black clay pot known as a jebena. Traditionally, three successive pots of coffee are brewed, and it is rude to leave before the last round has been drink. While this is still the case in private homes, most hotels and restaurants now serve one pot or cup per patron.
- Most bars, restaurants and ‘buna bets’ (coffee shops)’ also have coffee machines used to produce espresso-style black coffee or milkier buna watat. Most locals claim that machine coffee is more bitter than traditionally brewed coffee, hence a recent trend for even the most upmarket cafes to offer patrons the choice of both.
The hotel supply in Addis Ababa is growing quickly with an increasing number of properties offering international standards including several apartment hotels and branded hotels: Sheraton, Hilton, Radisson Blue, Golden Tulip, Marriott and Ramada. Smaller hotels and cozy guest-houses are also available.In the main tourism destinations there is a range of accommodation available including urban hotels as well as smaller properties with local charm and lodges in national parks and other unique locations.
In the shores of the Langano and Hawasa lakes in the Rift Valley there are a number of resort hotels with large garden areas and beaches. The town of Bahir Dar on the Lake Tana also has a good choice of hotels some of them by the lake.
In Bishoftu, located 40 km from Addis Ababa, there are several resort type properties on the shores of volcanic lakes. The town of Adama, located 90 km from Addis by express road, has a diversity hotels catering mainly the market of domestic events.
Ethiopia is a safe and reasonably healthy country provided you take a few common sense precautions.Ensure your inoculations for typhoid, tetanus, polio and hepatitis A are up to date, mainly if you are traveling out of the capital or you will stay away from the largest hotels
Anti-malarial prophylactics should be taken if you’ll be visiting low-lying moist regions such as the southern Rift Valley and South Omo. There is also a small risk of malaria, especially during the rainy season, at mid-altitude sites such as Bahir Dar and Harar. Malaria is all but absent above 2000m, for instance in Addis Ababa, Gondar, Lalibela and the Bale and Simien mountains.
Avoid drinking or brushing your teeth with tap water. Bottled water is safe and widely available.
It’s a good idea to carry a few packs of antiseptic wet wipes to wash your hands after toilet stops or before meals in more remote areas where running water may not be available.
Ethiopia is a safe and politically stable country, though there may be some risk attached to travel in remote border areas with more volatile neighbors such as Eritrea, Somalia, Sudan and South Sudan. None of these areas is likely to be visited on a normal tour.
Pickpockets and con artists proliferate in central Addis Ababa but are not a serious cause for concern elsewhere in the country.
Ethiopia is a true cultural melting pot thanks to the immensely diverse ethnic and linguistic background of its people.
Ethiopia supports more than 80 different ethnic groups, each with its own language, culture, customs and traditions. This diverse mix of ethnic and linguistic backgrounds has created a distinctive national identity that enables the country to offer the rest of the world a unique body of knowledge and experience. These include traditional coffee-drinking ceremonies, food and drink preparation, a variety of costumes, face & body beautification, religious and wedding ceremonies, legends and storytelling, and many other cultural events that attract visitors from all lifestyles.
- Ethiopia possesses a unique alphabet known locally as Fidel and derived from Ge’ez, which is one of the oldest languages in the world. Fidel evolved from the ancient abjad (consonant-only alphabet) used by the pre-Axumite and Axumite civilisations of northern Ethiopia. It is classified as an abugida (syllable alphabet) and comprises 26 consonants that each take seven different forms depending on which if any vowel is to be pronounced after it.
- Evidence is strong that the Afro-Asiatic (Hamitic-Semitic) group of languages developed and fissured in the Sudan-Ethiopian borderlands. It is here that the proto-Cushitic and proto-Semitic languages began their evolution.
- In Ethiopia, the Semitic branch grew into a northern group, today echoed in Tigrigna, and a southern group, best heard in Amharigna (pronounced Amhargina and also known as Amharic). The branch simultaneously spread to the Middle East, from whence it returned in a written form, millennia later, to enrich its cousins several times removed.
- Much of the linguistic development came after the eighth millennium B.C., as population grew consequent to the domestication and herding of cattle, goats, sheep, and donkeys and the intensive collection of wild grains.
- Volumes of books (in the form of manuscript) written in Ge’ez that contain valuable ancient documents on religion, history, culture, medicine, astrology and philosophy are available in the national archive, museums and in ancient monasteries in the different parts of the country. This is another asset to attract scholars and tourists to the different parts of the country.
- Amharigna (Amharic) is the national working language, but other languages such as Oromiffa, Tigrigna, Somali, Harari, Gurage are widely spoken locally. Indeed, the various nation and nationalities of Ethiopia collectively speak more than 80 different languages.
- Diversity is greatest in the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples’ Region, where some 53 different languages are spoken by a similar number of ethnic groups, among them the Sidamo, Wolayta, Hadiya, Gurage and dozen-plus tribes of the Omo Valley.
Indigenous languages aside, foreign languages such as English and Arabic are quite widely spoken.
Noted for the singularity of its cultural landscapes, Ethiopia produces food, music and art that bears little resemblance to anywhere else in the world – as well, more familiarly as some of the most delicious coffee you’ll ever taste.
Ethiopia is the original home of coffee and its rich coffee culture is embodied in the aromatic and age-old ‘coffee ceremonies’ held daily all over the country.
Ethiopia’s unique cuisine – dominated by pancake-like injera, heaped with a tantalizingly spiced selection of vegan or meat dishes – will delight visitors with adventurous palates.
A host of colorful Christian and Islamic festivals includes the Meskel Ceremony held in Addis Ababa or Aksum, and Timkat, best experienced in Gondar.
From hiking and wildlife viewing to hot-air balloon trips and exploring museums, Ethiopia offers limitless possibilities to outdoor enthusiasts and curious travelers.
A wide range of outdoor and adventure activities includes scenic overland expeditions, hiking in lush forest and Afro-alpine moorlands, climbing active volcanoes, and ballooning around Addis Ababa .
From the coffee forests of the western highlands to the jewel-like lakes that dot the Rift Valley, Ethiopia’s wealth of down-to-earth nature experiences includes the opportunity to track endemic wildlife on foot, and some of the finest birding anywhere in Africa.
Whether you are picking through venerable museums and paleontology sites, or enjoying shopping fir handicrafts and exploring the unique and spicy cuisine, Ethiopia offers a rare variety of rewarding cultural experiences.
All visitors to Ethiopia require a visa. However, at Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa, a tourist Visa on Arrival (VOA) is available to leisure visitors from the USA, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, China, Japan, Korea, Israel, Russia, the UK and all other European Union nations. A one-month tourist VOA costs US$50 and three months costs US$70. Multiple-entry visas are not currently available on arrival, so should be obtained in advance at an embassy. Please note that visa on arrival is not available to visitors entering by land borders.
Business travelers, consultants and professionals working for NGOs need a Business Visa. This should be obtained in advance from an Ethiopian Embassy. Visitors who have their residence in countries without an Ethiopian Embassy, or far from the capital where the Embassy is located, can get the support of the organization they are working for in Ethiopia to provide them with a document issued by the Immigration Authority allowing them to get a one-month single-entry visa on arrival.
Both tourist and business visas can be extended at the Immigration Authority offices located in Churchill Road, near the Post Office, in Addis Ababa.
Ethiopia can be visited at any time of year, but different seasons have different advantages.Conventional wisdom is that visitors should avoid the rainy season, which usually starts in June, but peaks over July and August in the central and northern highlands. Certainly, highland towns such as Gondar, Lalibela and Addis Ababa can be very damp and cool during the rains. The countryside is also very green and scenic during the rains, and you’ll encounter fewer tourists at popular sites such as Lalibela.
The late rainy season, from September through to early October, is a lovely time of year. There’s a significant drop in precipitation over this period, but the countryside is very green, and punctuated by yellow meskel wild flowers. On 27 September (a day later in leap years), Ethiopia erupts into festival mode to celebrate Meskel, which commemorates the finding of the True Cross more than 1600 years ago.
Arguably the optimum time to visit Ethiopia is from mid October to January, when the rains are over but the countryside is still quite green. This is also the peak tourist season, so facilities and sites of interest tend to be busier than at other times. It is well worth aiming to be in Lalibela or Gondar for Timkat (Ethiopian Epiphany), another wonderfully colorful celebration held on 19 January (except on leap years).
The late dry season, from February to May, is also a good time to visit, though the scenery tends to become dryer and browner towards the end of this period, except in the far south where the first rains often fall as early as April.
Wildlife can be observed throughout the year, but the European winter – November to March – is particularly rewarding for birders, as resident species are supplemented by large numbers of Pala arctic migrants.
The national carrier Ethiopian Airlines ranks among the oldest and most respected airlines in Africa. It also offers the continent’s most extensive flight network, with international routing connecting Addis Ababa to more than 90 cities outside Ethiopia, as well as 20 domestic destinations. For a complete list of international and domestic offices and call centers, see www.ethiopianairlines.com.European destinations serviced by Ethiopian Airlines include London, Brussels, Dublin, Frankfurt, Madrid, Milan, Paris, Rome, Stockholm and Vienna. It also operates flights to three North American cities, namely Los Angeles, Toronto and Washington DC, as well as Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. The national carrier also operates flights between Addis Ababa and several destinations in the Middle East and Asia, including Bahrain, Bangkok, Beijing, Beirut, Dubai, Doha, Delhi, Demmam, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Hong Kong, Jeddah, Kuala Lumpur, Kuwait, Manila, Mumbai, Muscat, Sana’a, Seoul, Shanghai, Singapore, Tel Aviv and Tokyo.
Ethiopian Airlines operates the most extensive international network servicing Africa and the Indian Ocean Islands. Cities flown to include Abidjan, Abuja, Accra, Bamako, Bangui, Berbera, Blantyre, Brazzaville, Bujumbura, Cairo, Cape Town, Cotonou, Dakar, Dar es Salaam, Djibouti, Douala, Entebbe, Enugu, Gaborone, Goma, Harare, Hargeisa, Johannesburg, Juba, Kano, Khartoum, Kigali, Kilimanjaro (between Moshi and Arusha), Kinshasa, Lagos, Libreville, Lilongwe, Lome, Luanda, Lubumbashi, Lusaka, Malabo, Malakal, Maputo, Mombasa, N’Djamena, Nairobi, Ndola, Niamey, Ouagadougou, Pointe-Noire, Seychelles and Zanzibar.
Other airlines that fly to Addis Ababa include Air China (www.airchina.com), Egyptair (www.egyptair.com), Emirates (www.emirates.com), Fly Dubai (www.flydubai.com), Gulf Air (www.gulfair.com), Kenya Airways (www.kenya-airways.com), Lufthansa (www.lufthansa.com), Saudi Airlines (www.saudiairlines.com), Sudan Airways (www.sudanair.com), Turkish Airlines (www.turkishairlines.com) and Yemenia (www.yemenia.com). In addition, KLM (www.klm.com) operates a code share with Kenya Airways, and South African Airways (www.flysaa.com) code shares with Ethiopian Airlines.
All international flights arrive and depart from Bole International Airport on the outskirts of central Addis Ababa.