Eritrea

Visa requirements for Eritrea depend on which passport you hold. Check the Traveller visa tool to see whether your passport needs a visa and, if so, how long you can stay.

October–March is cooler and drier — best for Asmara (pleasant year-round at 2,300m altitude) and the Red Sea coast at Massawa. The Danakil Depression (shared with Ethiopia and Djibouti) is accessible but extreme — never visit without a specialist guide. July–September is the rainy season.

• Modest dress throughout
• Asmara is relaxed — business-casual is fine in the capital
• Conservative dress in smaller towns and rural areas

• Asmara is a UNESCO World Heritage city for its extraordinary modernist/Art Deco colonial Italian architecture — a perfectly preserved 1930s cityscape
• Eritreans are proud, stoic, and warm once trust is established — the isolation has made them reserved with strangers
• The Italian coffee culture (espresso, macchiato) is deeply embedded — Asmara has exceptional cafes
• Do not photograph people or military without explicit permission

• Eritrea is a single-party state — no political expression, public assembly, or independent media. Exercise extreme caution.
• Tourism requires a visa (hard to obtain independently), a guide, and travel permits for areas outside Asmara
• Photography of military and government buildings strictly prohibited — the rules are broadly applied
• LGBTQ+ activity is illegal