Djibouti is more than a country with a funny name. There are lots of great things to do in Djibouti, including some great natural sites found in this gulf-side African country. These are my favorite Djibouti travel destinations and experiences:
Djibouti City
There isn’t much to do in Djibouti City but to walk around, visit shops, and eat, but you can have an enjoyable time doing this. Due to heat, the city pretty much shuts down between noon and 5pm every day so the best time to walk around is the morning and the late afternoon/evening. Some of my favorite things to do in Djibouti City:
• Walk around the alleyways.
• Shop at the night market. Bargain hard and have fun with it. Djibouti soccer/football jerseys make a cool souvenir.
• Go to a fresh juice stand.
• Visit one of the fancy grocery stores – it surprises me that so many fancy stores can exist in this country. Many exist due to the shipping industry and high number of military bases from France, US, and more. Did you know many of the drones that target the middle east leave from Djibouti airports?
• Marvel at the mosques. These all appear to be working mosques so they’re not for tourist visits like some of the most famous mosques in the world.
• Have at least one meal in a Yemeni oven restaurant – oven baked flat bread and fresh fish!
• Chat with the locals. French is more widely spoken but many do speak English.
• Have a beer in one of the bars or nightclubs. Unlike it’s neighbor Somaliland that’s totally dry, there are multiple venues for alcohol in Djibouti City. One street in the city center is lined with seedy bars.
Highway to Ethiopia
From Djibouti city, my 3 friends and I started our 2-day 4×4 lake tour booked through Rushing Waters tours. Since we luckily had a group to share, the cost of this two day trip was $200 apiece. If you’re not lucky enough to find a group and the 2-day 2-lakes trip is too expensive, you might do an alternative of taking a taxi to Lake Assal only (see Traveling to Djibouti tips here). The lakes of Djibouti are accessed by highway west out of Djibouti city. My biggest surprise was seeing 100’s of trucks with Ethiopian license plates. As Ethiopia is landlocked, they do the bulk of their importing via Djiboutian sea ports. While we didn’t make it all the way to the border, we knew that this road continued to the Danakil Depression area of Ethiopia as we saw the same trucks on the side.
Dikhil Oasis
The last big city on the main highway before heading off road to Lake Abbe is Dikhil. Due to a spring, it’s an oasis in an otherwise desolate area. You can take a quick tour around the green gardens and make sure you look out for giant tortoises. Dikhil is also home to a nice restaurant. Nearly all tours on their way to and from Lake Abbe stop for a break and lunch. They serve great chicken and French fries and have inexpensive ice cold non-alcoholic drinks.
Wildlife
Make sure you keep your eyes open for wildlife when you make your way to Lake Abbe. Wildlife is abundant and includes baboons, several types of antelope, and warthogs. Our guide didn’t know the English word for warthog but he knew Pumbaa!
Lake Abbe
Lake Abbe is otherworldly. A big hypersaline lake on the border of Ethiopia and Djibouti, the Djibouti side is visited by tourists more frequently. What makes the Djibouti side unique is the hot springs and huge natural chimneys that appear to be made of mud. There are Afar nomads that live in the area and their livestock feeds at the lake each day.
Lake Abbe Camp
The best part of the Lake Abbe experience is witnessing the sunset and sunrise and to do this you must stay at the encampment. Sometimes you might have the camp to yourself, but the night we stayed there was a group of a dozen Italians and a group of three that had just finished a tour in Somaliland. You get a huge dinner and sleeps on cots in Afar tents. The camp has a surprisingly clean toilet block and even a couple showers. I recommend spending some time watching the stars after everyone goes to bed.
Lake Assal
This lake is the second lowest place on earth, only after the Dead Sea in Israel/Jordan. What really amazed me was watching the thermometer on our car. In the 15 minutes it took to drive from the Sea to the lake, (i.e. from sea level to 155 meters below) the temperature raised by nearly 20 degrees F! This lake was gorgeous – the most incredible color of whites, blues, and greens. We drove to the basin and walked across the pure white “beach” of solid salt. This lake has a higher salt content than the Dead Sea so it’s only possible to float. I could have spent all day here if the sun wasn’t so brutal. Local kids sell souvenirs like salt pellets and salt encrusted goat skulls!
Whale sharks & Snorkeling
If visiting in November to February, it may be possible to snorkel with Whale Sharks – the largest fish on earth. We had the opportunity to go on the weekend Dolphin Excursions trip. For $110, there is a full day of boating, snorkeling, trying to find whale sharks, and lunch. The boat was super comfortable, and we enjoyed the 2-hour trip to the snorkel site. The passengers were split in two – one group would get in the small boats first to see the whale sharks and we were in the second group which meant we could snorkel on the reef and go to the beach first, and snorkel with whale sharks second. The reef was quite good – with typical tropical fish, smallish giant clams, and a nice white sand beach. We got super lucky when a large whale shark came close to the boat. We swam with him for a few minutes until it swam far out into the sea. We were told it was unusual for them to come to this area. Next, we got into small boats with local fishermen to swim with the juvenile whale sharks. There were a few around but they were so fast…by the time I got the bravery to jump in it was already gone. I didn’t really like this portion… it felt like we were chasing the poor fish around in our small motor boats.
Lunch was great, and we had over another hour to swim on the reef. The tide was going down, so the reef and fish were close. The water temperature was perfect for swimming. We had about 2 hours back to the city and got to see a nice sunset as we came into port. Overall a lovely day.
Where I stayed:
• Djibouti City: Residence Lagon Bleu. Djibouti tourism is EXPENSIVE and neither of the nice hotels in the city (Sheraton or Kempinski for over $300 per night) get good reviews. This centrally located apartment hotel is the best of the budget places. Our room for $90 a night included A/C, wifi, basic breakfast of coffee and breads (make sure you tell them what time the night before), sitting room, and a kitchenette (self-catering would be easy as there are many groceries nearby). Note that there is not an elevator so you need to climb 2-3 flights of steps to the rooms. Book it here.
• Lake Abbe: The encampment. This will be included if you book a tour. According to the Lonely Planet, it’s around $100 per person per night for half board if you’ve arranged the trip on your own.
Djibouti Jokes
My nephew was giddy when he heard I was going to Djibouti. There are lots of silly jokes:
- Djibouti isn’t very big
- There’s a lot of hot air in Djibouti
- Djibouti is to world countries as Uranus is to planets.
- You fell down so you must have a pain in Djibouti.
Do you have any good Djibouti jokes to share?
If visiting Djibouti, consider visiting it’s neighbors of Ethiopia or Somaliland.
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3 comments
Love the article. Especially because the only thing I knew about Djibouti was the name. Lake Abbe totally looks like the outlands in the Lion King. Thanks for sharing!
Hello, that was a good read thanks alot! i’m doing 3 weeks in ethiopia and figured i might be able to fit in one week in djibouti, is one week enough? is there a specific backpackers hostel that you can recommend in the capital where i might meet people to share a tour with? also do people speak arabic there? (because i speak it myself!) thanks!
Author
If you want to hit the desert lakes, city, and a day on the water, you can do Djibouti in 4 days.
There is no hostel. I would recommend you try to find people to share tours before you go & pick your dates. It’s possible to find on tripadvisor or lonely planet thorntree. Tours are very expensive. Even with 4 people sharing the cost will be over $100 USD per day.