Oromia Region · Ethiopia
Adama travel guide
Adama is a city in Oromia Region, Ethiopia, home to about 324,000 people.
- Best months
- October to May
- Nearest airport
- ADD70 km · Addis Ababa Bole International Airport
- Currency
- ETBbir
- Time zone
- Africa/Addis Ababa
- Language
- Amharic
About
About Adama
Adama (Oromo: Adaamaa, Amharic: አዳማ), formerly Nazreth (Amharic: ናዝሬት), is one of the cities of Oromia Region of Ethiopia. Located in the East Shewa Zone 99 km (62 mi) southeast of the capital, Addis Ababa, the city sits between the base of an escarpment to the west, and the Great Rift Valley to the east.
Adama was renamed Nazret or Nazreth after Nazareth, the childhood hometown of Jesus, in the 1940s. Its name reverted to Adama in 2000, but is still also known as Nazareth. It served as the capital of the Oromia region for a few years, until Addis Ababa, also known as Finfinne, became the capital of Oromia again in 2005. Being at 1600 m altitude (750 meters lower than Addis Ababa) in the middle of the Rift valley, Adama is significantly warmer than Addis and other parts of Ethiopian highlands.
Wikipedia and Wikivoyage contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0; excerpted.
Where to stay
Which part of Adama to stay in
Many inexpensive guesthouses are available in the side streets off the main road, quite a lot of them are signposted in English and/or may be found via Google Maps. You may have to walk around a bit if arriving on a weekend, as it's when many people from Addis Ababa come to Adama. The price asked for a clean room with hot shower and old TV in a nice (for a guesthouse) building was 250-300 birr (July 2019).
Wikivoyage contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0; excerpted.
When to go
The best time to visit Adama
The most comfortable months for a city stay in Adama are October to May. May is the warmest month, with average highs of 29 °C; August is the wettest, with about 238 mm of rain.
Comfortable means average daytime high between 18 °C and 29 °C and under 80 mm of rain in the month. Averages for 1991–2020 over the surrounding area, a grid square about 50 km across, so a coast or a nearby mountain can make the town itself warmer or cooler. Data: CRU TS v4.10, Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia (Open Database License).
Getting there
Getting to Adama: airports and arrival
The nearest airport with scheduled flights is Addis Ababa Bole International Airport (ADD), about 70 km from the city centre in a straight line.
Getting in
Adama lies approximately 100 km southeast of Addis Ababa, along the main highway that leads to Djibouti via Dire Dawa.
Getting around
Street names and addresses are not discernibly marked (if, indeed, they are used at all). The Addis Ababa-Dire Dawa Road is the main thoroughfare through the town, and is pretty walkable by African standards, at least in the city center. Blue-and-white taxis use fixed routes along major streets, and cost less than one birr per person, per ride. These will pick up and let off other passengers along the route. It is possible to hire a taxi for private use (called "contract") for a higher fare, which should be agreed upon in advance.
Wikivoyage contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0; excerpted.
ADD · Addis Ababa Bole International Airport
Local knowledge
Eating, drinking and staying safe in Adama
Eat
The famous "tibs", or "kurt", raw or roasted beef in the city's famous restaurants specialized in serving roasted beef dishes. Small restaurants on the main street are inexpensive (with most expensive meat dishes around 100-120 birr), but often there's neither English menu, nor someone speaking enough English to help a foreigner. Oromo language in menus, unlike Amharic, uses Latin script, but the names are quite different from what you could know from Addis - worth to do some research if you want to try some truly local (or Somalian) delicacies.
Drink
Several cheap (around 20 birr per mug) bars are available at and near the main road, where you'll see many visitors from Addis enjoying their beer on a weekend. A few nicer club-like bars are open till late, but other than that, there's not much of nightlife in town. As it is Ethiopia, coffee is also cheap, good and easy to find.
Wikivoyage contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0; excerpted.
Questions
Adama: questions travellers ask
When is the best time to visit Adama?
The most comfortable months for a city stay in Adama are October to May. May is the warmest month, with average highs of 29 °C; August is the wettest, with about 238 mm of rain.
Which airport is closest to Adama?
The nearest airport with scheduled flights is Addis Ababa Bole International Airport (ADD), about 70 km from the city centre in a straight line.
What currency is used in Adama?
bir (ETB).
Nearby
Destinations near Adama
Sources: city facts from Wikidata and Wikipedia; airports from OurAirports; climate from CRU TS v4.10 (University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit), 1991–2020 monthly means, 0.5° grid; places to stay, guest scores and amenities from each operator's own public pages. How this guide is made.