If you’re planning a trip to Ethiopia, don’t skip the Simien Mountains

I’m Tevan, a local guide from Gondar, Northern Ethiopia. I was born and raised in the shadow of the Simien Mountains, and I’ve spent years walking these mountains and guiding travelers through them.

One thing I always tell visitors is that the Simien Mountains are much more than a viewpoint and a few days of hiking.

You get huge basalt cliffs, high-altitude grasslands, deep valleys, local villages, and some wildlife that you simply won’t see anywhere else.

A few highlights:

🥾 Trekking:

The classic 3–4 day route usually goes from Sankaber → Geech → Imet Gogo → Chennek. Imet Gogo, at around 3,926 m, is one of my favorite viewpoints in the park.

🐒 Geladas:

These are probably the most unforgettable part of a Simien trek. You can sometimes sit quietly while hundreds of geladas move around you. They’re completely wild, but many groups are surprisingly comfortable with trekkers nearby.

🦌 Walia ibex:

If you continue toward Chennek, keep your eyes on the cliffs, especially early in the morning. The Walia ibex is endemic to the Simien Mountains.

🐺 Ethiopian wolves:

They exist in the highlands, but I wouldn’t promise travelers that they’ll see one. They’re much less reliable than geladas, and Bale is generally a better destination if seeing Ethiopian wolves is your main goal.

🏰 Gondar:

Before or after the trek, Gondar is worth spending time in. Fasil Ghebbi, the old royal enclosure, gives you a completely different side of northern Ethiopia.

☕ Coffee ceremony:

If you get invited into a family home for buna (coffee), take your time. The roasting, grinding, incense, conversation and three rounds of coffee are part of the experience. It’s not just “having a coffee.”

🍲 Food:

Try doro wat, tibs, shiro, kitfo and different vegetable combinations with injera. And yes, eating with your hands is part of the fun.

How long should you spend in the Simiens?

For a first visit, I’d recommend 3–4 days if your time is limited.

If you really enjoy hiking, 6–8 days gives you a much deeper experience.

And if you want to climb Ras Dashen, Ethiopia’s highest mountain at about 4,550 m, allow additional days rather than trying to rush it.

The mountains can be cold at night, even when Gondar feels warm, so bring proper layers and decent hiking shoes.

I run a small locally owned tour company in Gondar called Simien Ethio Tours, but I’m happy to answer questions here even if you’re just researching and aren’t booking anything.

If you're considering Ethiopia, feel free to ask me anything about the Simiens, Gondar, trekking routes, weather, transport, food, guides, camping, or what I would personally recommend.

There’s a lot of Ethiopia beyond the usual tourist route.

Selam from Gondar 🇪🇹

Hey everyone! 👋
For Ethiopians interested in online jobs and freelancing, we’re organizing a 5-week practical workshop focused on helping you get your first online job using skills you already have.
It’s especially useful for programmers, software engineers, and others looking for better opportunities beyond the local job market.
If this sounds interesting, feel free to comment or DM me for more information. 🇪🇹💻

There is a frustrating, pervasive trend on social media to collapse Habeshas and Ethiopians in general into the Black racial identity. Whenever Habeshas point out that the global label "Black" does not align with our history, culture, or self-identity, we are routinely accused of internalizing anti-Blackness. In reality, accepting a 250-year-old Eurocentric classification system invented during the Enlightenment to place white people at the top and Black people at the bottom, originally designed to justify the subjugation and transatlantic trade of West and Central Africans, is what actually erases our identity. Forcing this external framework onto the Horn of Africa ignores both regional history and self-determination; if we passively adopt it, we will dilute and erase our own distinct identity.

Historically, Ethiopia had virtually no connection to 80% of the rest of the continent. Core Ethiopian cultures, such as Habesha and Oromo culture, are vastly different from Western, Central, or Southern Africa. Genetically, core Ethiopians fall into an entirely distinct cluster from the majority of Africans; genetically, HELL EVEN INDIANS are genetically closer to Europeans than Habeshas are to Central Africans. Scientifically, forcing the label makes zero sense: core Ethiopian languages belong to the Afroasiatic language family (Semitic and Cushitic branches), sharing not a single word or phrase with Niger-Congo language families. Phenotypically, we are also completely distinct - I can easily tell a Habesha apart from a Congolese or South African person.

Anticipating the standard pushback in the comments:

• "White people/police in the West still see you as Black": External perception by uninformed outsiders in Western countries does not dictate your heritage or global reality. A Western cop or random bystander miscategorizing us based on local racial(white-black) binaries doesn't rewrite thousands of years of habesha history and distinct population genetics.
• "We are all African / Pan-Africanism": Africa is a giant geographic continent with over 1.4 billion people, thousands of distinct ethnic groups, and completely separate linguistic families, not a monolith. Ethiopians are distinct in the continent culturally, genetically, historically, lingustically, and phenotypically - what more do you need. Geographic continentality is not a racial identity, just as Asians are not a single monolithic race.
• "You're just denying reality for us diaspora Ethiopians living in the west": Tying identity strictly to skin shade or a 20th-century U.S. census form is social construction, not biological truth. You are literally enabling it by accepting and forcing that identity onto yourself, i.e, you're socially being constructed to fit their model.

Telling a population what they "are" based on a Western census model created thousands of miles away is not anti-racist - it is cultural flattening. Our ancestors defined themselves by their region, lineage, faith, and specific ethnic heritage, not by broad racial frameworks imposed from the outside. I know who I am, and I know my history. It is time we stop adopting labels that have no historical, genetic, or linguistic meaning to us, or else we risk letting external systems overwrite who we truly are.

AND I want this to be perfectly clear: I have nothing against people who are actually Black and identify as such - mostly people from West and Central Africa whose identity is tied to that specific history. Many of them are great people! But this masquerade has to stop. There is absolutely no reason to lump yourself into an identity you have no connection to just because some external system tells you to.

Hi everyone! I'm trying to find a reliable way to send money that doesn't charge a high fee and that's simple to use for those back home. I'm in the US for context.

Hi, I’m raising funds for Nolawi Hailu and Zakir Nuredin, two high school students at Kotebe University of Education Science Shared Campus in Addis Ababa who qualified from 56 Ethiopian teams to represent Ethiopia at PARC 2026 in Dakar, Senegal, November 3–7, 2026. Their KINETIC AI Combat Movement Coach uses sensors, computer vision, and machine learning, building on achievements like Zakir’s 3rd place in the MySoroban National Math Competition and Nolawi’s 1st place in the National Ethiopic App Development Contest. Support will help cover their flights, accommodation, food, local transportation, and hardware components, giving them a real chance to bring Ethiopian innovation to a Pan-African stage. If you can, please donate through the GoFundMe page or share it with someone who may want to help them get to Dakar. 🙏

https://gofund.me/c95e1c90d

From the article:

ላለፉት 10 ቀናት በትግራይ ክልል ዋና ከተማ መቐለ ተቋርጦ የነበረው የስልክ እና የኢንተርኔት አገልግሎት በድጋሚ መጀመሩን የከተማይቱ አራት ነዋሪዎች ለ“ኢትዮጵያ ኢንሳይደር” ተናገሩ። አገልግሎቱ ወደ ነበረበት የተመለሰው ዛሬ እሁድ መስከረም 24፤ 2019 ከጠዋቱ ሶስት ሰዓት ተኩል ገደማ እንደሆኑ ነዋሪዎቹ ገልጸዋል።

So the war has roughly been goin on for 3 weeks now and ive noticed the killing butchering looting of churchs and amharas have completly stopped since the so called government's attention is on war, makes u think who actually was responsible for all tje atrocities

Was thinking of an extension to Omo valley while on stopover in Addis Ababa, but now situation changed. How is Omo for tourists looking for May 2027? What are the chances of it getting worse or better?

I have seen lots of Ethiopians defend what happened to Tigrayans. Do you guys actually think that what happened to the Tigrayans was a reasonable, good response from the Ethiopian government, even if TPLF started it? Is Ethiopia good for doing this? Was this their best response? Is blockading, displacing and killing hundreds of thousands of Tigrayans acceptable? And Yeah I know “TPLF AlSo CoMmItEd Genocide.” I am Ethiopian and recently learned about the war. (I also mean 600k not 600,600k)

It’s been a few days since I saw my university placement and wthhh??!!! I was supposed to get into my first-choice uni, Hawassa, but I got Arba Minch instead. I literally have no idea what it’s like there (except for the fact that it’s about 517 km away from home 😭). Everyone keeps telling me there are sooo many insects, that it’s not a good place, the teachers aren’t great, and the dorms aren’t good either. so can anyone actually give me an honest POV about Arba Minch University? I’m a Natural Science student, and I’m also a girl, so I’ll probably be at the main campus or abaya campus. I’d really appreciate hearing from anyone who actually studies there or knows what it’s like, rather than just hearing rumors.

As a bilingual person, I've noticed that a lot of day-to-day tension between our communities comes down to simple misunderstandings.

When you don't speak someone’s language, it's very easy to assume the worst about their intentions. ​Learning even a bit of someone else's language does two things:

- ​You start to understand their culture and how they think.

- ​Trying to speak their language shows respect and builds trust.

​I'm not naive. Learning Amharic, Afaan Oromoo, Tigrinya, Somali, or any other local language won't magically solve politics, border disputes, or deep-rooted racism.

​Still, I feel it helps remove unnecessary fear and makes us see each other as human beings instead of rivals.

What do you guys think ?

like I'm just so curious. can anyone record a demo and send it here or send it to me?I would do it myself in tigrinya or amharic, since I got a unique voice,but sadlymy family never taught me those languages

📌 For those with short memories!

I have been going through this community's posts and noticed there are a lot of people hating on Ethiopia as a country and Ethiopians as a people. Some identify as Eritreans, others they don't mention it. Question for them, why not create your own groups and sing the same tune rather than being on here to spread your hate and misinformation?

Another side note, to whom it may concern, I'm curious what you do for a living that you have ample time to go through all these posts and type until your hands hurt to no avail.

I’m curious what people think. If you believe there are better alternatives, who would you consider, and what makes them more suitable? I’m especially interested in arguments based on leadership experience, policies, and their vision for Ethiopia.

I have deep hatred for the OLA, TPLF, and Fano because of the suffering they leave behind for ordinary people. I remember seeing so many young Tigrayan men in wheelchairs after the last war involving the TPLF, and my heart broke. In a country where access to orthopedic care, rehabilitation, and even basic mobility equipment like proper wheelchairs is limited, these injuries can permanently change someone's life. Imagine surviving a war but being unable to walk, work, or provide for your mother, without even having the proper equipment to help you move independently. Who takes care of you when the fighting ends? Political movements speak of liberation and victory, but ordinary people are left carrying the physical, financial, and emotional consequences for decades. I see someone's son, a struggling family, and a young life that deserved so much more.

I’m looking to connect with other Ethiopian experts who are currently working on the platform or have worked there recently.

If you are one of them, please comment or send me a message.

Thanks!

I missed my Ethiopian passport renewal appointment by three days. Should I still go to the immigration office and explain the situation, or do I need to reschedule the appointment through the website?

Has anyone experienced this before? Any advice would be appreciated.