Staff

Who lives in the lower Omo, how village entry and photography payments actually work, which market days to plan around, and how to visit respectfully.

What a tour package usually includes, what it does not, and the eight questions to ask before you compare two quotes from different operators.

Ten steps in the order they actually need doing. Region before dates, the visa site that is not an agent, and the cash limit nobody mentions until the airport.

What each dish actually is, whether it is vegan, and how hot it will be. Plus the one word that gets you a mild version and why injera is not gluten-free.

Rock-hewn churches, the Ethiopian wolf, an active lava lake and the best vegan food in Africa. Twenty-five things to do, grouped by the kind of day.

Three completely different trips. A side-by-side table of what each actually is, how hard it is, how many days it needs and what drives the cost.

Three UNESCO sites almost nobody visits, plus places on Ethiopia's official Tentative List. What each one is, and exactly what reaching it takes.

January and February are the only months dry across all of Ethiopia. A month-by-month table of both rainy seasons, festival dates and what each suits.

Four Ethiopian traditions are on UNESCO's heritage list. The coffee ceremony step by step, Timkat and Meskel dates, and how to behave at both.

Visas, cash limits, the yellow fever rule, the 13-month calendar and the six-hour clock. Fifteen things worth knowing before a first trip to Ethiopia.

The seven-day Ethiopia itinerary everyone publishes runs north. This is the southern route, driven rather than flown, day by day from Addis Ababa.

Ethiopia's endemic birds sit mostly on a southern loop from Addis. Where to go, the months that are dry at both ends, and which zones carry advisories.