Hi everyone. I am very new to this website and I don' t really know where to begin. But I will get straight to the point. Although I am a little nervous, I have faith that someone will respond and get back to me. My husband and I are planning on moving to Ethiopia within the next 18-30 months. I am going to be an accountant and he is currently a truck driver here in the States. Is there anyone on here who can tell me what to expect when we get over there, who should we speak to or not speak to? We do want to go to the villages, the less wealthy parts. We want to go where the heart of the people are at-not the city areas. We have that enough here We know all about the procedures of getting there so no need to update us on that. We also do not want to visit the tourist sites. We do not want to be considered tourists. We will be visiting there for at least 7 days first just to see if we like it. I know there is crime but we are going to see if it is at an alarming rate as to where we live now. We are aware of embracing the culture and knowing that we are stepping into literally a new environment and different soil. But that's what we want and we are very excited. Please, anyone, if there is any place on here or anyone has words of wisdom on here, do not hesitate to respond. And by the way, we are looking to purchase land so that we can build our farm/ranch/prepper area. Stay blessed and encouraged. Shalom

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Hi,
Welcome... I think? How did you come to this site? Bit puzzled by that.

Anyways ... if you use the search thingy (top right of the screen with the orange magnifying glass) and type in Ethiopia then you'll come up wit 10 pages of links to things people have posted here on Ethiopia.

'We' are more of a travelers site - passing through rather than staying.

'We' do have a 'community' in Ethiopia contact them? Mouse over the 'CONTACT' thingy in blue at the top .. under the search thingy, that brings down a page - left side of that in orange towards the bottom 'Community' click on that and find your country of interest...

Good luck.

Hi,



As Warin said above, don't know if you are motorcycle travellers, or bicycle travellers, but here goes:

When I'm travelling around I like to try and get into 'local' society rather than people who deal with and service the needs of tourists.
That's not always easy to do in Ethiopia.

In most towns there are many people working on the streets who target tourists and try to become 'guides'. Indeed in some towns, Gondar springs to mind, it's almost impossible to wander around on your own to look for a hostal/hotel. Visitors are spotted straightaway by 'guides' and 'escorted' around the town.
Well, those guides were very well dressed, spoke English pretty well, and were very knowledgeable (in my experience) and knew which hostals were full and which had rooms. We went to two places which were on our list only to find them full as the guide had already said, so booked into a third that the guide took us to. It was fine.

And later the guide came back and told us, "On your way here from Sudan you met your friends travelling by bicycle. I just found them, they're at another hostal, I'll show you where!"
And sure enough he led us to another hostal where two cyclists we'd travelled with on-and-off since Egypt had booked in, having been taken there by a different guide. And their hostal was full, they'd taken the last room.

So we thought we got pretty good service from these guides. We'd bump into them occasionally during our stay and they usually had some worthwhile bit of info for us.

But that was Gondar. We'd heard that 'guides' in other places have a bad reputation. So we steered clear of them in Bahir Dar where we knew exactly where we wanted to go anyway, and also in Addis Ababa where we'd heard of fellow travellers being entrapped into very unsavoury situations.
South of Addis we never came across 'guides' again.

But back to 'local society'. One technique I've used is to get a haircut in some local barber shop. That always leads to interesting local contact. I once spent a few months in Guatemala with a girlfriend, and she ventured to try a ladies hairdresser in a small town. First time she'd done that in a foreign country. It took her a lot of courage to do so but she had a great time and we made nice contacts in the town.

But as it turned out I didn't visit any barbers in Ethiopia, which is a pity looking back.
Instead I became a regular customer of street shoe-shine boys. And that was just as good.
Local 'guides' looking out for tourists don't invade the territory, nor clients, of the shoe-shiners, who do an absolutely brilliant job and have lots of interesting info for a visitor.
There seemed to be a culture of street shoe-shine boys, and I'd recommend it as a way of getting off the tourist trail.
Horizons Unlimited Motorcycle Travellers' Stories - Ken Thomas

In Addis, visit the music and CD shops. They are intensely proud of their musical culture and as a foreigner you'll be treated royally and taught a lot about Ethiopian music.
Horizons Unlimited Motorcycle Travellers' Stories - Ken Thomas

Ditto the 'Folkloric Music Bars' in the smaller towns. If you've not come across Ethiopian music before, acquire some of the 'Ethiopiques' CDs (easily obtainable in the west) and learn a little about the artists. You'll receive huge respect if you show a little knowledge in the music shops and bars.

Also, learn about Ethiopian athletics stars, at least their names. That helps as well. Helped me at the customs entering from Sudan even though I had to be reminded of the top guy's name. :confused1:

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TTR250 - London to Cape Town

Welcome to the HUBB, I hope you manage to get some useful information here, it sounds like you have some interesting plans.
I think Ethiopia is one of the most fascinating countries on the planet, it has so many unique aspects to its culture, its own calendar, it is currently 2005, language, alphabet, time, a day starts at 6 am not midnight and not to mention the food and drink.
From my limited time there I did not think the risk of crime was any greater than in any other country, being poor does not automatically make people into criminals, they are often some of the most generous people you will encounter. If you are white you will attract some attention from locals, particularly children who can sometimes beg or be just plain curious, I would presume that if you lived in an area for some time they will get used to you but don't start any habits such as giving then things when asked.
As has been said, take some time to learn the culture and etiquette and meet local people, Ethiopia is not top of most people's tourist destinations so apart from a few places you will not encounter too many other foreigners. Good luck with you plans.

Thank you sooo much you guys. Yall are so nice on here. I think I will keep my account on here after all. This guy has his own traveling blog and I emailed him and he told me all about this website. He told me about this other website and the people on there are down right snoody. Almost dream bashing. But I digress. But once again thanks. Yall really made me smile.

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Ethiopian people are some of the most friendly I have ever met, the richness of the culture is amazing, it will change you both forever without doubt.

Funny, I'd seen the post over on the LP site, but missed this one. I didn't respond over there, although I was sorely tempted.

What I remember about responses over there were people suggesting you think carefully about obvious stuff: that you can't just move into a small town without being considered "tourists," that your husband will have trouble (at best) finding work as a truck driver, that seven days isn't long enough to judge whether you're going to like a new country, landscape, climate, language, culture, bureaucracy, etc. etc. etc. Apparently that sort of response wasn't what you were looking for, but when you ask for "words of wisdom," that's part of what you'll attract.

Plus: a lot of the points people were raising were both accurate and quite crucial. It might not be what you're looking for, but it's worth taking seriously anyway.

I'll look forward to hearing more about how this all works out--here or over there. Good luck!

Mark