Ethiopia family holiday

country:	Ethiopia
departures:	This trip can be tailormade at a time to suit you and can be adapted to suit your interests, budget and requirements as necessary. Minimum 2 people
price:	From £1159 (16 days) excluding flights. Price based on two people sharing. Child price £695.
vouchers:	Gift vouchers can be used with this holiday

Ethiopia holidays

Family wildlife holidays

the amazing things you'll be doing

Experience an Ethiopian tour following an historic route to Lalibela described as a creation of angels, Gonder - city of fairytale castles, the most breathtaking and dramatic Simien Mountains, Axum - the center of one of world's most powerful kingdoms, the spectacular Blue Nile Falls and island monasteries at Bahirdar. This tour features four of the eight Ethiopia world heritage sites recorded by UNESCO.

Explore the dramatic ranges of Simien Mountains which is the last refuge for remarkable primates of the Gelada baboon, Walia Ibex, and Red fox which are found nowhere else on earth. Our guides are professionals trained in many disciplines such as basic guiding, first aid, map reading and wildlife conservation and SMNP ecology, botany, mammals and bird identification, history, trekking arrangement and mountaineering.

This tour will enable you to experience the spectacular and exotic historical attractions of Ethiopia. We look forward to providing you an enjoyable trip and one of the best photographic opportunities that you will always treasure.

day-by-day itinerary

Day 1:	Arrive Addis Ababa. A welcoming reception and transfer to your hotel.
Day 2:	City tour. Visit the colorful and vibrant city Addis Ababa regarded by many as 'The African diplomatic capital'. Enjoy its gorgeous climate of seemingly perpetual blue sky and cool high land air. Visit its museums the ethnological, natural history, St. George Cathedral, the national museum. These rank among the most important sub-Saharan museums in Africa. Late in the afternoon enjoy, the terrific and windy panoramic view of Addis Ababa below the Entoto Mountains
Day 3:	Drive to Bahirdar. Visit one of Ethiopia's most holy sites, the monastery of Debre Libanos which was founded in the 13th century. The site is beautifully set beneath a cliff on the edge of gorge and is a peaceful place to wonder. There is a good chance of seeing gelada baboon and lammergeyer along the way. Then proceed to a truly magnificent Blue Nile gorge where you will admire the expansive views over terraced slops and euphorbia studded cliffs on the opposite wall. It is the most dramatic stretches of road in Ethiopia dropping over 1000m
Day 4:	Bahirdar, Lake Tana and island monasteries. A full day visit of Bahirdar, one of Ethiopia's most attractive towns with its wide avenues of palms and flamboyant trees. It makes pleasant base from which to explore the areas main sites; the Blue Nile falls and the island monasteries of Lake Tana. Have a boat excursion to Lake Tana islands and medieval monasteries of Kibran Gabriel, Mitsle Fasiledes & Tana Cherkos. The most famous is Ura Kidanemihret of the Zege peninsula with its very beautiful painted temples.
Day 5:	Drive to Gondar. Visit Ethiopian medieval capital Gondar, with its large royal enclosure containing grand castles, palaces, houses and outbuildings. See King Fasiladas's palace, the oldest and perhaps most impressive of the castles. Behind the castle are various ruined buildings including the remains of a bathing pool, a chancellery and a library of Fasiladas's son Yohannes I. Marvel at Debre Birhan Selassie, one of the country's most famous churches that lies 2km to the north east of Gondar.
Day 6-8:	Drive to Simien Mountains. Here we begin our trek to experience the beauty of the mountain, its wildlife, for bird watching and camping. Simien Mountains National Park has been declared a world heritage site by UNESCO. One of the principal mountain ranges of Africa, there are a number of peaks rising above 4000m including Ras Dashen. As a 1925 traveler Rosita Forbes in 1925 described them as 'The most marvelous of all Abyssinian landscapes'. Among the most beautiful mountain ranges in Africa they will give you a taste of Ethiopia's remarkable wildlife, including the beautiful walia ibex, gelada baboons and Ethiopian wolves.
Day 9:	Drive to Aksum. Drive to Aksum through the escarpments of the Simien mountain ranges and Tekeze valley.
Day 10:	Visit Aksum. A full day visit in Aksum, where a high civilization had risen several centuries before the birth of Christ. They are 'the last of the great civilizations of antiquity to be revealed to modern knowledge' according to Dr Neville Chittik. Aksum's astonishing Stelae strike you for their huge size, their incredible, almost pristine preservation and their curiously modern look. Sculpted from single pieces of granite to look like multistoried buildings. Though the stone is famously hard, Aksum's masons worked it superbly often following a set design.
Day 11:	Drive to Mekele. Journey to a little visited but peaceful and astonishing spot 'Yeha' which is Ethiopia's first known capital and considered the birth place of the country's earliest civilization. Its ruins are impressive for their sheer age, dating from around the 5th century BC. Also the monastery of Debre Damo which is the first monastery in Ethiopia dates back to Aksumite times. It boasts the oldest standing church in the country.
Day 12:	Drive to Lalibela. We travel through the magnificent Ambalage chains of mountains to Lalibela.
Day 13:	Visit Lalibela. Have a full day visit to the 12th-13th century rock hewn, monolithic, semi monolithic, and cave churches of Lalibela. Lalibela undoubtedly ranks among the greatest historical sites, not only on the African continent, but also in the Christian world. Many are not carved into the rock, but freed entirely from it. The buildings are refined and many are within such a very short distance of one another.
Day 14:	Drive to Dessie. On route you will experience the rugged mountains and beautiful scenery.
Day 15:	Drive to Addis. For sight seeing the beautiful landscape and mountain scenery with a night and farewell dinner
Day 16:	Departure. Transfer to the airport.

If you want a customized itinerary, quotation, or any other tour information about this trip we are very happy to help.

travelling with a local operator

This holiday is operated by a company based in the holiday destination and they will be able to provide expert local knowledge. They will be able to tailor make your holiday to suit your requirements not only concerning the dates of travel but also typically the standard of accommodation, and thus price. It is rare for local operators to be able to help with the booking of your flights.

how this holiday makes a difference

This trip is a great opportunity to see Ethiopian endemic species of Gelada, Red fox and Walia Ibex. Your visit will benefit the park's effort to protect these great endemics and conserve the environment. The park is a UNESCO world heritage site and many species were once on an endangered list.

The trip also gives employment and a market opportunity for the local shop owners, markets, restaurants, guides, scouts, mule hires, and many more. Also all the accommodations throughout your trip are owned and run by the members of the local community. Your needs associated with your travel will be served by the members of the community.

As you visit the park you will stay in lodges run by the park. All the guides throughout the trip are locals who have had adequate trainings and experiences and scouts are hired from the park. Also for your trekking arrangements, we hire mules from the local farmers and purchase most of the items that are necessary for your stay from local shops.

Most of the destination suppliers have already put in place a policy of using the local resources for development of the tourism industry in their respective areas. They also have economic policies to employ their staff from the local communities and to use the local resources for the services they provide. As part of environmental conservation efforts they give information to their customers on an efficient usage of water, electricity; and give away some materials like plastic bags to recycling agencies.

Also as part of their environmental responsibilities, they participate in different conservation initiatives like in '2 trees for 2000', a millennium initiative against the deforestation and land degradation in Ethiopia.

For you to have a better knowledge of the trip we will provide you with an accurate pre-trip information pack before the start of the tour. And in order you to have a good understanding of the places, the environment, and the local community; we will supply you with our Travelers Code of Conduct which is also supplied to our staff and local suppliers.

The trip also helps us support and contribute to a local initiative at Gonder working on disadvantaged groups living in rural and suburban settings. It helps the youth without access to basic primary education and for school dropouts providing tailored and market oriented skill trainings.

Also if you have some spare time at Addis we will arrange a visit to a project which is making a difference in the lives of children. You can make a miracle happen for a child and in return get a great deal of satisfaction. Be it a small or big gift, you can help a needy child get life's essentials, like food, an education and basic health care. If you wish to sponsor a child it will also make a big difference and help break the cycle of poverty.

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