Activities Calendar Coverage Get a plan Sign in Join free

Coverage / Djibouti

Djibouti

Eastern Africa

A small, superheated republic at the mouth of the Red Sea, where the African plate is tearing apart along the Afar Triangle. Its short coast on the Gulf of Tadjoura draws plankton-feeding whale sharks every winter, while inland the rift bottoms out at Lake Assal, the lowest point in Africa at 155 metres below sea level, and throws up the steaming limestone chimneys of Lake Abbe. Between them lie salt caravans, the juniper forest of the Goda Mountains and the volcanic Grand Bara plain.

4 activities · 4 pairings · 8 verified providers

What you can do in Djibouti

Freediving

Gulf of TadjouraJan Feb Nov DecThe Gulf of Tadjoura holds one of the most dependable whale shark aggregations anywhere, and you meet these fish on their terms, by snorkel rather than tank. Every year from about November to February, juvenile whale sharks, the largest fish in the sea, crowd into the shallow, plankton-heavy water off Arta beach and Ras Eiro at the western end of the gulf, close to shore and close to the surface. No diving experience is needed. Boats leave from Djibouti City, and once a shark is spotted you slip quietly into the water and fin alongside a five to seven metre animal as it feeds, which is the whole point of coming. The gulf is a flooded branch of the Afar rift, where the seabed is still pulling apart, and the same warm water holds dolphins, turtles and coral, so a morning afloat rarely delivers only one species.

Overlanding / Expedition Driving

Lake AssalJan Feb Mar Nov DecLake Assal is the lowest point in Africa, a turquoise crater lake sunk 155 metres below sea level in the Afar Triangle, and the drive down to it is the reason to come. The road drops out of the volcanic hills past the young Ardoukoba fissure, which last erupted in 1978, onto a blinding white shore where the salt crust is thick enough to be mined and hauled out by camel caravan. The water is ten times saltier than the sea, the third most saline body of water on the planet, so you float without effort in warm brine at the bottom of the continent. A 4x4 and a driver who knows the descent are essential, the heat is ferocious, and the run pairs naturally with the steaming chimneys of Lake Abbe deeper in the rift.

Photography Expeditions

Lake AbbeJan Feb Mar Nov DecLake Abbe is one of the strangest landscapes on Earth to point a camera at: a shrinking soda lake on the Djibouti-Ethiopia border where hundreds of travertine chimneys, some fifty metres tall, stand steaming across the plain. The mineral towers were built where hot geothermal water met the lake, and at dawn they glow orange while fumaroles vent white steam and flamingos work the shallows. Afar herders bring their camels down to the hot springs at first light. The site sits on the Afar triple junction, where three tectonic plates pull apart, and its otherworldly look put it on screen as an alien world in the 1968 film Planet of the Apes. Photographers come for sunset, overnight in a basic camp, and shoot the chimneys again at sunrise.

Scuba Diving

Moucha IslandJan Feb Mar Apr Oct Nov DecThe Musha and Maskali islands sit just off Djibouti City inside a protected marine park, and they are the easy, year-round face of Red Sea diving in the Gulf of Tadjoura. Shallow coral gardens ring the islands in warm, clear water, with reef fish, rays, turtles and the occasional reef shark, and the short boat ride means you can dive in the morning and be back in town for lunch. This is where Djibouti's dive centres run their certification courses and check-out dives, so it suits first-timers and anyone after easy reef time. For stronger currents and bigger fish, the same operators push further out to the tide-swept narrows of Le Goubet and, in season, the remote Seven Brothers archipelago near the Bab-el-Mandeb strait.

Best months at a glance

	J	F	M	A	M	J	J	A	S	O	N	D
Freediving
Overlanding
Photography
Scuba Diving