Somalia

Somalia has one of the longest coastlines in Africa, a poetic oral tradition that produced literature of genuine beauty, a mercantile history connecting the Horn to Arabia, India and China for two millennia, and a capital, Mogadishu, with an old town of coral-stone architecture that once made visitors write home. The country has been through thirty years of civil conflict that have made most of it inaccessible, and any honest guide must say so plainly. Somaliland in the northwest operates as a de facto independent state with relative stability and is increasingly visited by those who go looking carefully.

Travel advisory Most of Somalia outside Somaliland carries extreme risk. Check current conditions before planning travel.

Our guide is being written from the ground up, with the time this place deserves.

We are still gathering the notes that make a guide worth keeping, and we are doing so with the care a place this complicated demands - waiting until we can tell the story honestly and completely.