Afrinkong
Nature & LandscapesThe Escarpment
The plateau drops two thousand metres to the Red Sea in about ninety kilometres.
Photo DΛVΞ GΛRCIΛ / Pexels
ERITREA · Tourism
Asmara on the Plateau
A modernist capital on a highland plateau that UNESCO listed whole, a steam railway down to the Red Sea, and three hundred islands off Massawa that almost nobody visits.
East AfricaRegion
27Tourism experiences
Art deco Asmara, and the Dahlak islandsKnown for
01
Featured destinations
Where the country actually takes you.
Nature & Landscapes
Emba Soira
3,018 metres in the southern highlands, with terraced farming right up the sides.
Seasonal Only
The highland streams run in the summer rains and are dry the rest of the year.
Photo Cafer SEVİNÇ / Pexels
Lakes & RiversThe Red Sea Coast
No permanent rivers to speak of — the water here is the sea, and it is very warm.
Photo Re pour / Pexels
The Dahlak Archipelago
Three hundred and fifty islands, four of them inhabited, and reefs almost nobody has dived.
Photo Vika Glitter / Pexels
The Green Belt
Semenawi Bahri, a strip of cloud forest on the escarpment an hour from the capital.
02
Wildlife & safari
What lives here, and how you see it without disturbing it.
Wildlife
Danakil and Dahlak
Wild ass in the Danakil, dugong and turtle in the Dahlak archipelago.
Photo Pranav Chaugule / Pexels
Not the Business Here
There is no safari circuit. The wildlife is coastal and marine, and it is worth the swap.
Photo Murilo Fonseca / Pexels
Terraces That Hold the Soil
Highland terracing built by hand over centuries, and still the reason the topsoil is there.
Photo GOWTHAM AGM / Pexels
03
Culture & heritage
The part of a country you cannot photograph from a vehicle.
Culture
Nine Groups, Two Faiths
Tigrinya, Tigre, Afar, Bilen and five more, roughly half Christian and half Muslim.
Photo Isaac Naph / Pexels
Traditional PeopleThe Afar and the Rashaida
The Afar on the southern coast, and the Rashaida who came across from Arabia in the 1840s.
Injera, Zigni and Macchiato
Eritrean stews on injera, and an Italian coffee culture that never left.
Photo Max Vakhtbovych / Pexels
Festivals & CelebrationsMeskel and Eid
Meskel bonfires in September, and Eid in Massawa, in the same country and often the same street.
Photo Christian Alemu / Pexels
Traditional Arts & CraftsFiligree and Basketry
Silver filigree from Asmara's goldsmiths, and coiled straw baskets from the highlands.
Photo zaid mohammed / Pexels
Adulis and Qohaito
A Red Sea port that traded with Rome, and a highland city on the escarpment above it.
Photo Ayşegül Aytören / Pexels
HeritageAsmara, Listed Whole
The first modernist city anywhere to be inscribed as a World Heritage site, in 2017.
Photo Amar Preciado / Pexels
04
Cities & everyday life
Where people actually live between the landmarks.
CitiesAsmara and Massawa
One a cool art-deco plateau town, the other a coral-block Ottoman port on the sea.
Photo Helin Gezer / Pexels
ArchitectureFuturist and Coral
Fiat Tagliero's concrete wings in Asmara, and Massawa's buildings cut from the reef itself.
Local LifeThe Passeggiata
Asmara walks Harnet Avenue in the evening. Everybody does, and nobody hurries.
Photo pierre matile / Pexels
Family & CommunityThe Safest Capital Around
Asmara is small, walkable and calm, and children are everywhere in it after dark.
05
Adventure & outdoors
For travellers who would rather walk it than watch it.
Adventure
The Massawa Road
Down the escarpment by road or by the restored steam railway, two thousand metres in a morning.
Cycling
Eritrea is a cycling country — the Tour of Eritrea climbs the escarpment.
Photo Leyla Helvaci / Pexels
Modest, and Improving
A handful of restored Italian-era hotels in Asmara. Nothing on the coast yet.
06
Travel inspiration
The frames people come home with.
Deco in Low Light
Asmara's facades in the late afternoon, when the plaster goes warm and the streets empty.
Hidden GemsThe Tank Graveyard
A hillside outside Asmara stacked with the wreckage of thirty years of war.
Photo bigworldinalens / Pexels
Why Visit This Country
Why Eritrea
Nowhere else has a whole intact modernist city, a steam railway and an unfished reef.
Why Eritrea
Nowhere else has a whole intact modernist city, a steam railway and an unfished reef.
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