Things To Do

Specific places and activities worth building a trip around.

History & Culture

Addis Ababa's Art Galleries

A small but real contemporary art scene, anchored by Addis Fine Art's internationally-connected gallery and the Gebre Kristos Desta Center, Ethiopia's pioneering museum of modern art.

History & Culture

Unity Park & Addis Ababa's New Public Spaces

The former Imperial Palace grounds, opened to the public as a museum, zoo, and sculpture garden in 2019 — and the first landmark in a much larger wave of new parks and museums the city has built since.

History & Culture

Harar Jugol (Old Walled City)

A UNESCO-listed maze of over 360 narrow alleys inside Africa's only intact medieval city wall — 82 mosques and 100+ shrines packed into about one square kilometer.

History & Culture

National Museum of Ethiopia

Home to "Lucy," one of the most complete early hominid skeletons ever discovered — plus imperial artifacts and a genuinely wide sweep of Ethiopian history in one building.

Religious Sites

Holy Trinity Cathedral

Ethiopia's most significant Orthodox Tewahedo cathedral, and the burial site of Emperor Haile Selassie — striking architecture and stained glass in the middle of Addis Ababa.

Religious Sites

Rock-Hewn Churches of Lalibela

Eleven churches carved from solid volcanic rock in the 12th–13th century — a UNESCO World Heritage site and still an active place of worship, not a museum.

Nature & Wildlife

Entoto Mountain & Entoto Park

Addis Ababa's forested ridge above the city — Menelik II's original capital, the best skyline views in the metro area, and, since 2021, a landscaped natural park with cafes and trails.

Nature & Wildlife

Ethiopian Wolf Watching on the Sanetti Plateau

The world's best chance to see the Ethiopian wolf, the rarest canid on Earth, on a vast high-altitude moorland reachable by 4WD without any technical hiking.

Nature & Wildlife

Harar Hyena Feeding

A generations-old nightly tradition just outside Harar's walls: local "hyena men" hand-feed wild spotted hyenas raw meat after dark.

Adventure & Outdoors

Wenchi Crater Lake: Boat Trip, Horseback & Hot Springs

The standard way to see Wenchi: ride or walk down into the crater, take a dugout canoe out to the island monastery, and finish at the hot springs — a full, structured day rather than a quiet lake stop.

Food & Drink

Cultural Dinner Restaurants (Injera, Music & Dance)

A handful of large traditional restaurants around the city pair a full Ethiopian menu — injera, kitfo, tibs — with live music and dance from several of the country's regions in one sitting.

Food & Drink

Tomoca & Addis Ababa's Coffee Culture

Ethiopia is coffee's birthplace, and Tomoca — roasting in Addis since 1953 — is the classic starting point. A proper sit-down coffee ceremony at a traditional restaurant is worth seeking out too, rather than just coffee to go.

Shopping & Markets

Shiro Meda & Modern Shopping

Shiro Meda is the city's traditional-dress and handicrafts market — hand-woven cotton, habesha kemis, crosses, basketry — a calmer, more specific counterpart to Merkato. Malls like Century Mall and Friendship City Center cover the modern end.

Shopping & Markets

Merkato

One of the largest open-air markets in Africa — spices, coffee, textiles, and metalwork traded at genuinely local prices, not a tourist bazaar.