Ethiopia Travel Guide by Bradt - Best Ethiopia Guidebook for Tourists & Backpackers | Explore Historic Sites, Culture & Adventure Travel

The author of this book has written several guidebooks on the Africa continent, mainly about Tanzania, Mozambique, and Malawi amongst others. This one, however, is his piece de resistance. Indeed, as Hilary Bradt's blurb at the outset of the book indicates, this might THE best guidebook that Bradt has to offer. That is saying a lot, given Hilary's own Madagascar guidebook towers above (almost) all. From the organization of this book, the amazingly detailed descriptions of the different sites on offer to the excruciating amount of detail on how to get to these places, it is clear that this is one of the greatest travel guidebooks ever written about a single country. This book also evidences the author's great deal of respect and appreciation for the Ethiopian people and their culture. His many words and paragraphs on the intricacies and wondrousness of the Ethiopian people gives lie to carping review written by Brian Maher, who has evidently not read the book beyond a few pages. Having read the entire book, I can emphatically say that any 1-star review is utterly incomprehensible and baseless by nature of the enormous effort and details present in this book.The organization of the the different places in this book is one of the best things about it. As always, this book starts out in the capital/biggestCity (Addis Ababa), then spirals out in to the different cities within day tripping distance around it, then branches out to the different regions of northern Ethiopia in a clockwise manner: Bahir Dar, Gondar, Axum/Tigray, Mekele/Afar/Danakil, Lalibela, etc. Then it moves to the Eastern and Southern regions from Awash, Harar, Bale, Lakes, Omo and finally to Gambella. This organization is eminently helpful to the independent/backpacker traveller as it provides a logical way to get around the vast country (by European or SE Asian standards). The chapters on the surrounds of Addis Ababa was unexpected find for me, as I initially expected them to be the usual cursory list of sites included for the sake of completeness. But that section was written in a manner that really made appreciate the value of sites like Lake Bishoftu, Tiya Stelae fields, Mount Wenchi Crater Lake and the Muger Gorge.Similarly, the author goes to great pains to provide the latest rates for various restaurants and hotels near to all these sites. It is a Sisyphean task since the rates and places change as soon as the book comes out but it is much appreciated as it gives the traveller a rough marker to know which ones to trust and patronize, sometimes these choices will make or break a trip. The general background/history to the various great sites and places of Ethiopia are not only detailed but indicate the author's firm understanding of the country. Indeed, the extent of detail to which the author goes to even for the geological history of places makes reading a tough chew sometimes. The author also puts a significant effort into clarifying that unlike most Western countries (and countries like Korea and Japan), there is no "majority" or "dominant" cultural group and hence there is no single representative "Ethiopian" people or culture. This is one of the great challenges of the African continent as it forms one of the greatest barriers to State, unity and progress. At relevant places, the author puts in a significant effort explain about more than twenty ethno-linguistic groups of the country.I still have some gripes about this book. It might be a cliche to criticize a work for being too detailed but that more than applies in this case. The author (and the other contributors) pepper this guidebook with so much information about all the little place, waystation towns and crossroads that it obscures the big picture of the main sites like Lalibela and Bale. Indeed, the chapter on Northeast Tigray was one of the toughest reads I have had to do because it was interspersed with so many little obscure ruins that of little or no interest, which all sounded the same after hundreds of places. I get that the author wants independent/"slow" travellers to be aware of them all but it really detracts from all the major sites like Abuna Yemata Guh and Debre Damos, which after initial reading I thought were just another set of minor sites but to my surprise I found dozens of videos about them online and so came to realzie their importance over the others which this book failed to signify . Whereat the others mentioned in that chapter were just wayside curiosities but were still given equal emphasis. I am not saying that those places are worthless but rather that mentioning each and every little site and how to get to them obscures the really major ones that most travellers want/care to visit. I have had similar complains about the chapters on Lalibela and Bahir Dar. Also, I felt that the chapter on Southwest Ethiopia (Jimma, Kibish and Gambella) was way bigger than necessary, of interest to only a small slice of traveller with time & money and that the author merely included them for the sake of appearing to be more complete. This book now stretches over 600 pages and a lot of that is extra sites, hotel descriptions and restaurant reviews (most of which can be found online these days) and hence is just literal "deadweight" for us to carry. Similarly the gargantuan chapter on Addis Ababa in corpulently bloated with so many hotel/bar/restaurant/club reviews that the actual sights and places to see barely amount to a dozen pages of a total of 50! I have many more quibbles but the last one that I am going to say is one which applies to all Bradt guidebook, especially the ones by this author: The beginning of the book is deluged with information about the deep history of the country, it's politics, administration, medical safety and physical safety so much so that it really derails and disinterests the general reader at the outset. This frankly is off putting and also made me initially not read the book to hear about all the medical issues and vaccinations to be dealt with instead of reading about all the places that there is to visit which is was my main motivation to buy the book. Admittedly, these are important things to know for a tourist, especially first-time Ethiopia travellers but putting this information at the front rather than at the end really detracts away from the main content and discourages the reader from perusing further or visiting the country.With that being said, the amount of information and explanation present in this book about Ethiopia clearly makes it the best travel guidebook on this country and mayhap the best travel guidebook there is. For Philip Briggs, this is certainly the Jewel in the Crown. The delight and passion with which the book is written along with the great efforts put in by the author and various contributors for the independent traveller to have the best information on hand and the best experience on the ground makes it even more special. I want to thank them, especially the author, for the wonderful work that they done in bringing the joys and marvels of Ethiopia to the limelight.