5 Days in Ethiopia - Recommended Tour Guides?
 

Hi All,

I'm off to Ethiopia soon for 6 days. I fly in from DXB early on the 8th of June and fly out late on the 15th. I've done quite a bit of googling and still find it difficult to get a sense of the place, maybe because of the sheer scale of the distances between places of interest.

Can anyone recommend any "must dos" to try and fit in? More importantly, can you also recommend some decent tour guides?

One suggestion that has been made is to travel via guide to Arba Minch but perhaps there are other areas that people would recommend instead? The Omo valley looks amazing, is it too far to fit in? I also wonder the same about a trip to the Simien Mountains?

Any suggestions or recommendations would be hugely appreciated. I always tend to rely on the word of flyertalkers before other more random sites.

In terms of preference, I generally tend to prefer scenic attractions ahead of more cultural ones (which has just exposed me as a total philistine).

Thanks in advance!

Well Mrs AITF and I have recently returned from our splendid two-week holiday in Ethiopia, so I hope I can help!

If you have five days then I would suggest you either do a North tour or a South tour (we did both since we had bit longer).

If you opt for North then consider Gonder, Simien Mountains, Axum and Lalibela (the latter is a must in order to see the rock-hewn churches and the fantsatic scenery and countryside).

If you go South then think about Arba Minch, Awassa and the region around Lake Langano.

Distances are massive and road quality and traffic varies a lot. We decided to use internal flights with ET to avoid long uncomfortable drives between places and this worked out to be very comfortable.

We were very lucky with guides we had and I can highly recommend both of them- I will send you a PM with their contact details.

Thanks for the advice AITF, I emailed the guys you suggested a few days ago but I've not heard back from them so I took a shot and went with a group that were recommended on tripadvisor. Glad to hear you enjoyed your trip.

Not totally surprised - perhaps the guys are on trips atm and don't have access to their e-mails. Or maybe it's just Ethiopian "reliability".....

Also a bit of a pity you didn't get more responses to your post - perhaps this indicates Ethiopia is a bit of a low-interest destination at present (which actually makes it more attractive IMHO!)

Have a great trip!! What region(s) did you opt for?

I have toured Addis, interesting sites were the museum, coffee shop, German pub, art gallery beside the Sheraton, going up the mountain to view the old 'palace', and 'cultural' restaurant with entertainment. For travel outside the city, definitely opt for domestic flights, the roads are....horrible and dangerous (especially if there is rain).

FYI: Ethiopia is almost twice the size of France and more than 3 times the size of Germany.