Egipt to Ethiopia
 

Dear all,

We are planning our trans-african route. We start from Poland and would like to take the East Coast route to South Africa. As there is a ferry operating between Turkey and Egipt, my question is:

Can we safely travel through Egipt and Sudan to get to Ethiopia?

My concern is mainly because of the recent Sudan-South Sudan clashes and elections in Egipt.

Will appreciate any info and comments.

Best regards!
Szymon

Hello Szymon,

We hope so! We are just about to drive south from Cairo, through Egypt and Sudan to Ethiopia. So we can update once we make it to Ethiopia.

We have lived here in Cairo for the last 3 years. In my opinion Egypt is currently safe to drive though, except northern Sinai. As with these sorts of issues, things can change quickly.

Enjoy the planning!

Dougal

We did travel from Ethiopia through Sudan and Egypt at the beginning of this year. The conflict in Darfur and South Sudan was still going back then. In your everyday travel experience though you hear and see nothing about it. Between Egypt and Ethiopia you only travel through the safe North Sudan area. Any road to a potential conflict zone is blocked for tourists by Police anyway.
What we found in Sudan is that you should be careful what you take photos of. Particularly outside tourist areas. There seems to be a paranoia in Sudan that taking photos makes you automatically a 'CIA-agent'.
Egypt was safe back then as well, same story, roads to potentially unsafe areas were blocked off for tourists by a police road block. With the new government in Egypt now things might develope otherwise so keep checking the news.

In both countries we found that local people take extreme care for tourists. It is their culture to extend an unbelievable hospitality. If you seek the contact to local people you will quickly get a real time picture of which areas are safe and which are not.

We're in Cairo and we crossed Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt in the last 3 weeks. No real security issues in Egypt, Ethiopia was super friendly not the horror stories we've heard (lot of hassle, stone and sticks thrown etc) and Sudan was the most friendliest country in North Africa. I know that in Khartoum they had some clashes but I really doubt that they can involve tourist.

Cheers,
Ionut