Can you buy a bus ticket in Ethiopia?

August 23, 2026 at 12:20 pm, No comments

If you want to travel by bus in Ethiopia, you have to solve some problems first. Here I can help you a little. Since I’m in Ethiopia during the rainy season this time, I really don’t feel like freezing and getting soaked in Addis. Hawassa, on the other hand, has exactly the kind of weather I love. So—let’s go! If you’re just a regular visitor from Europe and you want to travel somewhere in Ethiopia by intercity bus (city transport is a different, no less interesting story), you’ll definitely need a pocket full of patience—and you’d better have a bit of an explorer’s gene. It’s not like there’s a clear bus station with ticket windows and bays where buses depart. Well, technically there is… sort of. But as an ordinary white foreigner, you can’t just find it and understand it that easily. The cheap, slow, overcrowded buses meant mainly for locals have one station and one departure area. But if you want something a bit faster and more comfortable, there are buses run by different companies (Selam bus, Awash bus, etc.)—and they leave from completely different places that you won’t find on a map, and you won’t understand where to buy a ticket. And nowhere is it truly clear whether you need to buy the ticket in advance or whether you can get it by the bus. It’s also unclear what time you’re actually supposed to be there. So this is where all your creativity has to come into play to untangle the knot. Personally, I had help from a local friend. To be fair, even he didn’t have much clarity about how it all worked. So in the middle of the night he picked me up from the hotel and drove in a totally different direction than we’d agreed the evening before—because someone had whispered another option to him. And it worked! By the roadside we spotted a big bus, rushed over to ask: where are you going, what time do you leave, can we buy a ticket, and so on. Everything worked out. Needless to say, that bus wasn’t standing at any marked stop—nor at any other place a stranger could logically recognize as “the spot where you’d wait for a bus to destination X.”

I spent a few days peacefully relaxing in my dreamland, until it was time to think about going back. And what do you think—does Hawassa have a bus station and ticket offices? Correct—NO! So once again I walked around, searched, asked (Amharic isn’t my strong suit, and for them—English… well…). I didn’t find anything, except the local bus station. Walking back to the hotel, that Angel who sits on each of our shoulders gave me a nudge and pointed: go there! And again—it was the right direction. I found everything, figured it out, and got home (back to Addis), but the point is: if you don’t have time, courage, and your own guardian angel on your shoulder, it’s really not that simple.

Back in Addis, I found yet another bus station—the one those “fancy” buses run from (and to). Now I’m wise. Before that, I wasn’t.

Practical note: the price for 350 km and a 4-hour ride, including a small breakfast snack and a bottle of water, is 7.5 EUR.

Can you buy a bus ticket in Ethiopia?

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