Category: Ethiopia
Debre Libanos Monastery
Debre Libanos is the most important monastery in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church after the great northern foundations, and for several centuries it was arguably the most powerful religious institution in the country after the office of the Abuna itself. It stands on a terrace between a cliff and a gorge in the North Shewa […]
Where to Stay in the Gheralta Mountains
Read this first: the Gheralta Mountains lie in Tigray, in northern Ethiopia. Checked on 4 October 2026, the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office advises against all travel to Tigray and records that all civilian flights to and from the region have been suspended. This page therefore cannot confirm that any lodge, hotel or guesthouse […]
Tigray Ethiopia Travel Guide
Tigray is the northernmost region of Ethiopia, and by a long way the most historically dense. The kingdom that gave Ethiopia its script, its church, its coinage and its first cities was centred here. The battle that stopped Europe’s conquest of Africa in its tracks was fought here. More than a hundred churches cut into […]
Where to Stay Near the Danakil Depression
Almost every other page on this site that answers a “where to stay” question can tell you which part of a town to base yourself in and what each price level buys. This one cannot, and the reason is the most useful single fact about the Danakil Depression: for most of a Danakil trip there […]
Where to Stay in Axum
Read this first: Axum sits in Ethiopia’s Tigray regional state. Checked on 4 October 2026, the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office advises against all travel to Tigray and records that all civilian flights to and from the region have been suspended. Because of that, this page cannot confirm that any hotel, lodge or guesthouse […]
Mekele Ethiopia Travel Guide
Mekele is the capital of Ethiopia’s Tigray region, a highland city on the northern edge of the country that has spent most of its recorded existence as a place of consequence: an imperial seat in the nineteenth century, the site of a siege that preceded the Battle of Adwa, a university town in the late […]
Where to Stay near the Simien Mountains
Read this first: the Simien Mountains, Debark and Gondar are all in Ethiopia’s Amhara regional state, and the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office advises against all travel to all of it. Because of that, this page cannot confirm that any lodge, hotel, campsite or hut described below is currently open or taking bookings, and […]
Where to Stay in the Bale Mountains
The Bale Mountains are not one place to stay but two sides of a massif, separated by a 4,000-metre plateau and a road that takes a long morning to cross. Choose a bed in the north and you get the Gaysay grasslands, the park headquarters and the mountain nyala on your doorstep. Choose the south […]
Where to Stay in Harar
Where you sleep in Harar changes the trip more than it does in most Ethiopian towns, because the choice is not between one hotel and another but between two different places. Inside the walls of Jugol, the old city, you are in a dense, lived-in Muslim town of blank-walled compounds and unlit alleys where prayers […]
Where to Stay in Gondar
Read this first: Gondar sits in Ethiopia’s Amhara regional state. Checked on 4 October 2026, the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office advises against all travel to all of Amhara, and the US State Department lists the Amhara region under “do not travel”. Because of that, this page cannot confirm that any hotel, lodge or […]