I had so many questions as we prepared for our trip. Here are a bunch of random thoughts that might be helpful to other traveling families:
- Safety- I was a little nervous before we left, and definitely questioned myself more than once about what the heck I was doing bringing my kids to a place that just recently got over a civil war and still has pockets of civil unrest. I added my friend to our family circle on Life 360 and told people where they could find all our trust documents. That being said, I felt 100% safe the entire time we were here. Not even one scary moment, but we were smart travelers. We were rarely outside after dark. We kept our money and phones close by (no phones in back pocket!) We were almost always with our guide and driver. We had zero issues. We stayed in Addis. We probably would have been safe traveling elsewhere- except Amhara region- but since the US State Department still rates other areas as 4 (do not travel) and we had kids with us, we did not want to chance it. Things can change quickly and the potential risks outweighed the benefits for us.
- Guides- Speaking of guides- find yourself a good one! Happy to share my contact if you’d like. Sammy was the absolute best. 10/10 recommend. He seems to know everyone all across town. He negotiated us good rates (let your guide book your hotel and driver) and then people were eager to please us because of their relationship with him. He was nimble with changes, highly responsive, and pleasant to work with. He was not with us 100% of the time, but he made sure we were taken care of when he was not around. He also handled all of our birth family arrangements- including getting them to Addis and figuring out their accommodations. When we were with the birth family, he was never intrusive but his ears were always tuned in to jump in with any translation help. He was also always quick to grab pictures! I think the selection of a guide is probably the number one most important decision we made. It’s because of Sammy that our trip went so smoothly.
- Travel Vaccinations- None are required- unless you are traveling from an area with yellow fever, and then yellow fever is required. No one asked to see proof of vaccination. Allow time to figure out vaccinations as in our big city only 3 places offered the recommended shots and price varied by quite a bit. Also, they like to give them at least 2+ weeks ahead of time to monitor for side effects. Our Children’s Hospital has a really great international travel clinic that was incredibly helpful- they printed off a customized book for us and spent about an hour going through everything with me. A few worth mentioning:
- Yellow Fever- After reading about yellow fever I elected to get our family vaccinated. It is from mosquitos (can’t avoid it) and can be deadly. It is expensive, around $200 per shot, but lasts a lifetime…Mark and I received it 10+ years ago and did not need a booster.
- Malaria- This is a prescription, not a shot The clinic explained that malaria is from mosquitos that bite at nighttime. Since we were staying in a multiple story hotel and not planning to be out at night, we went without. If we were staying in more rural areas or a guesthouse that might have windows/doors open often we might have chosen differently.
- Typhoid- This is one that is recommended but we elected not to get it. We felt our risk was low.
- Besides that just normal travel stuff- we brought stuff for diarrhea, motion sickness (helpful for traffic), allergic reactions, headaches, etc.
- Money- We exchanged $200 USD for Birr at the airport. We later exchanged $300 more and that was enough for our 7 days in country. We could exchange money at the hotel which was really nice. You may need more if you plan to do a lot of local shopping or travel to rural areas. Most of the places we went took credit cards. We used birr mostly for tipping (even if you pay with credit, they don’t have tip lines) and also for local shopping. And for bottled water! Their water isn’t safe to drink so you must buy water. You can get it at the hotel but it is about ¼ the price from the street vendors.
- Airline Seat Reservations- We had 6 total legs, round trip, to our flight. I questioned if I should pay for assigned seats, especially since I was traveling with kids. I didn’t want my kids to have to sit alone- especially on the long 13 hour flight. But assigning seats was going to add about $1500 in costs. I decided to chance it and it worked out; we ended up sitting together on all of our flights.
- Phones- The Ethiopian government runs their cell network so US phones do not work here, at least not without very expensive charges. Stop at Ethio Telecom at the airport- open 24 hours- and figure it out there. We bought a SIM card for $30 that gave us 30 days of unlimited data/text/calls. I have heard it does not work with newer iphones, but we are Android users so I can’t say that for sure. We chose to do this for only one phone. Sammy also would have had a simple phone for us to use if we did not figure this out. As a side note- it was so nice that our kids didn’t have their phones to distract themselves with. They had their phones and could use them with wifi at the hotel, but they didn’t work when we were out and about. Without a device to check constantly they were much more present; I loved it.
- Visas- You need one. They are $82/person. Google it and apply at least a few weeks before you travel. I have heard of people having issues with this, but ours were quick and easy. Print it out and bring it with you; we were asked to show hard copies.
- Food Budget- Our hotel had breakfast. We ate out every day for lunch and it seemed to always be $100 regardless if it was just us or if we were with the birth family. We ordered room service most nights and that was around $30-50. Plus whatever other drinks/snacks/ice cream we got…this added maybe another $10-$20/day. All in we were <$200/day for 5 people, including birth family days. Food is still fairly reasonably priced but is much more expensive than it was 10 years ago when we were there.
- Packing List- Don’t forget outlet converters (side note- we had converters from previous trips years ago but bought a couple more for this- the new ones are WAY better! Smaller, you can plug multiple things in, and they have USB/USBC ports. And they are cheap! So if you haven’t bought any recently maybe look into this). Pens- I had my kids journal every night, but we lost all the pens except one and couldn’t find more, and the hotel didn’t really have any extra! Tampons- we could only find pads. Stuff to do in the evenings- we got back to the hotel around 7pm most nights. After dinner, showers, work/school we still had some time before bed. We ended up playing either Yahtzee or Poker every night! We also brought stuff to do with our birth family, but we stayed so busy we didn’t need it. If you will have downtime with a birth family you might bring things like balloons, fingernail polish, or simple games that don’t require English like Memory, Kerplunk, Crocodile Dentist, Simon, etc.
- Sights- If you’re reading this you’ve probably traveled to Ethiopia before so this won’t be news- but prepare your kids to see….lots of things. Kind of funny things like donkeys standing in the middle of busy roads. Different things like 20 people stuffed in a van meant for 8. And sad things like kids with dirty, hole filled clothes walking alongside you begging for money, or nursing mothers (like, actively nursing) catching your eye from the van and standing directly outside your window staring at you while you’re stopped in traffic. Have a plan in place for how you’re going to handle this and help your kids process.
- Laundry- We were planning on doing some laundry there and were told our hotel had it available, but what they had was a laundry service that was $2-3/item. We had a big bag so that wasn’t a good option. Our guide Sammy said there are not really laundry mats like in the US but that they do have laundry services that charge by the kilo. We went without.
- Birth Family Gifts- In addition to all the stuff you donated, we bought life straws and a solar charger. We packed picture frames from Target and had Sammy print off photos while we were there. There’s more that I’m happy to talk about in a private setting, please message me if you have questions.
- Travel Insurance- This one gave me a lot of heartburn. There are companies that offer emergency evacuation but you have to read the fine print. This is usually for medical emergencies, but some will evacuate you at your choice and others require a doctor to recommend it. Some offer evacuation in the event of civil unrest, but some countries are excluded. I called a few companies and most excluded Ethiopia; the one that didn’t was very pricy. My take away- if you are concerned about this spend some time on the phone figuring out what exactly the policies cover. You can’t really tell from their high level online descriptions and I found it easy to get to helpful people. I ended up going with Travel Guard; I paid $272 for our trip. It wasn’t the best insurance, but if something bad ended up happening we’d at least have some coverage. Thankfully it didn’t!
That’s all I can think of. If you are traveling and have questions or want to talk budget, feel free to reach out to me directly!
Hand in Hand 