edit Eritrea Travel Guide

By plane

By train

By car

By bus

By boat

Working in Eritrea for an Eritrean employer (state or private) and for an Eritrean wage is not an attractive prospect for most westerners or people reading Wikitravel:) Most foreigners in Eritrea work for foreign employers (the UN, the few remaining NGOs, Foreign Companies, Foreign Embassies and related agencies as well as the International School) and a few foreigners mainly from South Asia work for the Eritrean government in various state-job contracts. Most if not all of these individuals aquired their jobs in their home country and/or were recruited and provided with their legal documentation by the Eritrean government while in their home country. It is unusual and perhaps difficult to arrive in Eritrea on a tourist visa and later apply for a work and residence permit while there.

Do not drink the water and even check bottled water to make sure the cap is sealed. Be very careful what you eat. Many people get sick here. There is a Jordanian UN hospital that will treat foreigners. Local hospitals have inadequate facilities. Be healthy if you come here. Avoid uncooked food and unbottled drinks. Practise safe sex.

If you are flying in to Asmara, you will need a permit from the Tourist Bureau on Liberation Avenue if you consider traveling outside Asmara's city limits. This permit needs to be applied for 10 days before travel. There are very few places other than Asmara, Keren and Massawa/Dahlak Islands that foreigners can travel to. If you are coming by land (or ferry to Massawa), you can get a travel permit at the locality of your arrival, to transit the country, given you have a valid entry visa. As long as you notify and consult with the Eritrean conculate issuing your entry visa about your point of entry and travel plans well ahead of time, getting the travel permit is no problem.

The most common form of intercity transportation in Eritrea is bus and/or minibus. The most frequent services, consisting of several buses/minibuses a day run between Asmara and Keren, Asmara and Massawa as well as between Asmara and the towns of the southern highlands such as Debarwa, Mendefera, Adi Quala as well as Dekemhare, Segeneiti, Adi Caieh and Senafe reaching the UN patrolled Temporary Security Zone on the Ethiopian border (at and beyond Senafe and Adi Quala) for which you need two permits to enter, one from the Eritrean authorities and one from the UN, both acquired in Asmara in advance. There are also daily bus services on the road between Teseney (On the Sudanese border close to Kassala) and Asmara traversing Barentu, Agordat and Keren as well as an alternative route traversing Barentu and Mendefera. Once a day buses/minibuses also run between Asmara and some of the villages of the southern highlands as well. Buses to the north of the country (Nakfa) are less frequent and travel between once weekly to a couple of times weekly between Asmara and Nakfa traversing Keren and Afabet. The buses to the southern coast (Assab) from Asmara are equally infrequent, once weekly only, traversing Massawa. Tickets are bought on the bus and the first come first served rule applies. Some state-run buslines to remote frontier areas do allow for tickets to be bought in advance
at the Asmara bus station, where you can also inquire about the bus-schedule. There will always be some people who speak English and are more than willing to help translate.

Domestic flights also connect Asmara with remote Assab twice weekly, with the airline Nasair which also flies between Asmara and Massawa twice weekly. However the latter flight route may not be a necessary option since the distance between the two latter cities is only 120 Kms along one of Eritrea's best and most scenic roads and there are buses several times a day running between the two cities that cost a fraction of the flight and take little more than two hours making time for refreshing stops in the mountains.

The only rail line in Eritrea runs between Asmara and Massawa and it is only served by a museum railway (steam engine and all) with no regular service, it only caters to chartered tour groups and it takes a daunting 5 hours to complete the journey just one way.