Getting your bearings
Harar is a walled city in eastern Ethiopia, built on a hilltop, and its historic core — Harar Jugol — is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. For a visitor, the single most useful fact about transport here is that the old city is compact and very walkable, while the newer town around it is served by auto-rickshaws and taxis. There is no metro, tram or light rail in Harar, and no working passenger rail link to the city, so ground transport means road vehicles and your own two feet.
Walking the Jugol
The walled city is small enough to cover entirely on foot, and there is no need to take a vehicle around it. The main entry is the Harar Gate at the western end. Several other gates pierce the walls:
- Fallana Gate, to the north
- Argoba Gate, to the east
- Sukutat Gate, to the southeast
- Bedri Gate, to the southwest
- Shoa Gate, a pedestrian-only gate just south of the Harar Gate
Because the old city is walkable and vehicles are unnecessary inside it, plan to explore the Jugol on foot and save motorized transport for the new town and for day trips out to sites such as the hyena feeding areas, which are reachable by taxi or on a 15–20 minute walk from the city centre.
Bajaj (auto-rickshaws)
Auto rickshaws — called bajaji in Ethiopia — are readily available in Harar and you can flag one down pretty much anywhere. They are the workhorse of short trips in the new town. Bajaj are typically blue, Indian-made three-wheelers, and they run along the main trunk roads picking up and dropping off passengers.
How you use one affects what you pay. If you use the vehicle as public transport, sharing it with other passengers, you generally pay the local fare, and foreigners are usually charged the local rate in that situation. If instead you ask for a specific destination or board an empty vehicle, that is treated as a charter and the fare is negotiated upfront — expect to pay considerably more than a shared ride. Local fares are small; charter fares are a different order of magnitude, and bajaj drivers usually ask far less than taxi drivers for the same charter.
Taxis and ride-hailing
Taxis operate in Harar alongside bajaj, and a local rideshare/taxi app, Ride, is available in Ethiopia. For trips within about 20 km of town, chartering a taxi or a bajaj is often the most practical way to reach sites, with bajaj generally the cheaper charter option. Because Western-style street addresses are unfamiliar and few towns outside Addis Ababa have proper street names, give your driver a landmark — a bus station, a well-known hotel, a church — rather than a street address.
Buses and minibuses
Harar has no city bus network of the kind you might expect in a capital, but intercity and regional minibuses are central to getting in and out. There is bus service from Addis Ababa, Dire Dawa and Jijiga.
- From Addis Ababa: the Selam Bus Company bus leaves early in the morning (around 4:30–5:30) and takes roughly 11 hours, arriving at the Selam Bus Station about 500 metres west of the Harar Gate. Luxury operators such as Selam Bus and Sky Bus run this corridor; seats can be booked the day before, and departures are almost invariably at 5–6am. Ordinary buses on the same route are less comfortable, with haphazard schedules, and generally leave before 8am, with the last bus timed to arrive before nightfall.
- From Dire Dawa: minibuses run this busy route and the wait is unlikely to exceed about 15 minutes. The trip takes roughly 1–1.5 hours and arrives at the western bus station just outside the Harar Gate.
- From Jijiga: minibuses take about 2–2.5 hours and arrive at the Eastern Bus Station, southeast of the Jugol.
Minibus fares are regulated by the government, and there are many checkpoints along the way. If you meet a transportation official who speaks English, you can ask the correct price to check whether you have been overcharged. On the Dire Dawa route a government agent will likely collect your fare at the start, after which the driver or conductor may add service charges, for example for luggage; you may notice the same happening to local passengers, so it is your call whether to object. Extra charges for luggage that is not on your lap are customary on intercity buses. Night travel is not recommended because of reckless driving.
Rail
There is no passenger rail service you can use to reach Harar. Ethiopia's only railway, which ran from Addis Ababa toward Djibouti via Awash and Dire Dawa, ceased operations, and the Dire Dawa–Djibouti leg only resumed erratically afterward, with full reconstruction a long-term project. Addis Ababa's light rail is a separate system in the capital and does not extend to Harar. In practice, rail is not part of a visitor's transport plan for this city.
Getting from the airport into the city
Harar is served by Dire Dawa International Airport, which is the air gateway for the city. Ethiopian Airlines operates reliable daily domestic flights, including from Addis Ababa to Dire Dawa, with multiple departures a day on the route. Note that domestic air travel in Ethiopia involves check-in bureaucracy: arrive about two hours early, expect multiple X-ray machines, and be ready to show your passport several times.
From the airport, take a shared taxi to the minibus station where the minibuses depart for Harar. Dire Dawa itself is a short distance from Harar by asphalt road, and shared or private taxis cover the connection in roughly an hour. If you want maximum comfort, fly to Dire Dawa and have a hotel there arrange private car transport to Harar; hiring a private taxi in Dire Dawa to take you to Harar is also possible — ask at a hotel for the current rate. Many travellers break the journey with a hotel stay in Dire Dawa rather than pushing straight through.
Practical tips
- Budget transport options to Harar involve long hours and/or cramped conditions; paying more buys real comfort.
- Self-drive car rental is not a viable option in Ethiopia. Organized tours with a 4x4 and driver are the norm, and rates include fuel, driver allowance, insurance and taxes, with tips extra.
- Foreigners are generally not overcharged on intercity buses, but it can happen; ask your hotel for fare guidance before you travel.
- Directions are given by landmarks rather than street names, so learn the names of the main gates and bus stations before you set out.