The Addis Eats team is recently back from 4 days in Somaliland with TripScout Founder and friend, Konrad.
Check out our other blog: How to Get to Somaliland from Ethiopia.
Note: unmarried couples aren’t allowed to share a room and can sometimes be required to show a marriage certificate, although no one ever asked us.
Hargeisa:
Oriental Hotel: This is the oldest hotel in town (somewhere around 60 years) and has a really cool feel to it. It is definitely the main tourist hotel. Rooms are clean and cost $15 a night.
Oriental Hotel
City Center Hotel: This was our favorite hotel of the trip. The staff at the front desk were really friendly and willing to go out of their way to help us – they helped us organize buying a 6 kilo whole tuna to bring back to Ethiopia. The hotel is located right smack in the middle of the market. We awoke and fell asleep to sounds of a bustling market and enjoyed awesome 360 degree views from the rooftop. $23 for a double room with wifi. [cchhargeisa@live.com, Shaafi@hotmail.co.uk]
The view from the City Center Hotel Rooftop
Ambassador Hotel: This hotel is out of town and so we do not recommend it. It’s usually occupied with NGO workers, journalists etc.
Berbera:
Man Soor Hotel: We spent our first night here. The hotel is about 5km from Berbera town and the only option if you want to stay on the beach. It feels sort of like a converted military base and is a bit removed from the water. The rooms were nice and very clean, but this hotel is much more expensive than any other we encountered: $84 for a double room. There is wifi.
There’s a dive center here, although they apparently need a three to four day notice to arrange the boat and coast guard. They charge $50 USD per tank or $15 per person to snorkel. We went diving with them… and while it was a great experience to be driven around by a team of Somalilanders, the actual logistics of the dive was less than impressive (equipment, though new, wasn’t set up properly and because they couldn’t organize the boat we dove in less than 7 feet of water). We’d recommend trying to sort out diving with one of the tour companies in hargeisa.
Mansoor Hotel, Berbera
Esco Hotel: This hotel is in Berbera town, down the street from our favorite restaurant (see upcoming What to Eat in Somaliland blog). It’s got a definite ‘trucker’ feel to it and we’d give it a 3 out of 10 for cleanliness, but it’s got a ton of charm and for $10 USD a night it wasn’t bad. The view of the port and shipwrecks from the rooftop was also cool, but we’d probably recommend the nearby Nayrush Hotel located on the road directly behind Esco with water views as well.
Esco Hotel Hallway
Check out our other blogs about Somaliland: How to Get to Somaliland from Ethiopia & What to Do in Somaliland.
