For many years, Somalia’s identify has been shorthand for battle, piracy and hazard. Since the nation’s civil warfare started in the Nineteen Nineties, the nation has had comparatively few Western guests. Yet, towards the chances, the East African nation is now seeing a quiet rise in overseas vacationers.
About 10,000 vacationers visited Somalia in 2024, in keeping with the nation’s Department of Tourism — a 50% enhance on the earlier yr. That’s regardless of most Western governments nonetheless advising towards all journey.
James Willcox, founding father of the journey tour firm Untamed Borders, advised NCS Travel that demand is rising quick. His firm organized a document 13 group journeys to Mogadishu this yr, in contrast with simply two in 2023.
On September 1, 2025, Somalia launched a new eVisa system aimed toward simplifying entry procedures and boosting customer numbers. But optimism across the program has been undercut by the nation’s inside divisions. The autonomous areas of Somaliland and Puntland have each mentioned they received’t acknowledge the brand new visas — underscoring the boundaries of Somalia’s central authority at the same time as it tries to mission stability.
“Mogadishu is dangerous. You feel it as soon as you land,” mentioned Karin Sinniger, a Swiss traveler who visited in 2020. “You have to sleep within the secure perimeter or ‘Green Zone.’ Even there, there’s been bombings.”
Leaving that space, she advised NCS Travel, means touring in armed convoys with police and navy safety. “Still,” she added, “walking on the beach felt safe.”
Somalia retains its repute as one of many world’s most harmful locations. The UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office warns of a “high threat of kidnap.” The US Department of State classifies Somalia as “Level 4: Do Not Travel,” citing “crime, terrorism, civil unrest, health, kidnapping, piracy and lack of availability of routine consular services.”
Those warnings are removed from theoretical. Al Shabab militants proceed to function throughout Somalia, together with in Mogadishu, the place the group carried out a number of lethal assaults in early 2025.
So why does anybody wish to journey there?
For Sinniger, the journey was a part of a private problem: an try to go to all 193 UN-recognized nations and scuba dive in each. When her gear was misplaced in transit, a native lobster diver on Mogadishu’s Lido Beach lent her a makeshift “hookah system” — a lengthy hose hooked up to an air compressor — so she might full her dive.
Willcox mentioned a lot of his shoppers are additionally on “country counting” missions or are vacationers looking for excessive locations. “Mogadishu is the most high-risk destination Untamed Borders operates in,” he mentioned, including that he’s guided and arranged excursions to Mogadishu for over a decade with out incidents. “The risk of attacks is real. All of the limited places where international guests can stay are potential targets. You can’t go off radar in Mogadishu.”
Still, he added, the fierce preventing of earlier many years has drastically declined. Among these profiting from that relative stability was Peter Bullock, a retired sewage engineer from the United Kingdom who visited Somalia in November 2024 with Untamed Borders as a part of a private quest to go to all 52 African nations.
Accompanied by armed guards, Bullock toured town’s fish market, waterfront, and ruined cathedral. “I must admit, it was a totally different travel experience from anything I had previously experienced,” he advised NCS. “But as I enjoy travelling to destinations on the edge, I never at any time felt unsafe,” he added. “Airport security on leaving the country was impressive. It flowed smoothly. A much more pleasant experience than going through London Heathrow.”
The nation’s humanitarian challenges stay stark. According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), battle, political stress and climate-related disasters displaced greater than 550,000 individuals throughout Somalia in 2024, including to almost 3 million already internally displaced. Piracy, whereas lowered, is nonetheless thought-about a menace in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.
“Some parts of Somalia are incredibly dangerous,” mentioned Willcox. “There are places where it would be incredibly foolish for an international person to go.”
To the northwest, the self-declared republic of Somaliland — functioning autonomously since 1991 — presents a very completely different expertise. With its personal armed forces, democratically elected authorities and forex, it’s lengthy been seen because the “safest” solution to go to the better Somalia area.
“People have a lot of misconceptions about Somaliland, because the country gets mistaken for Somalia,” mentioned Deke Hassan Abdi, one among Somaliland’s first feminine tour guides. She needs guests to know that her “country” is very completely different from Somalia. “Some people think it is not safe, which isn’t true, so tourism is a great way to help distinguish between the two.”
She needs Somaliland to achieve worldwide recognition, and believes tourism might help put the area on the map. “Somaliland offers a rewarding experience for travelers seeking something different,” she mentioned. Ancient rock artwork, nomadic tradition and pristine seashores are amongst her really useful highlights. “My favourite place to take tourists is the local downtown market in Hargeisa. I love engaging them with local people. They see how welcoming my people are, and how safe it is to walk around the city, where you don’t need a guard.”
Outside of Hargeisa, Somaliland’s capital, vacationers want an armed police escort and the area’s “borders” with Somalia are sometimes listed as no-go zones by Western governments. But for Dylan Harris, founding father of Lupine Travel, who has operated right here since 2013, Somaliland is at all times a safer wager than Somalia.
“For Somaliland, the big highlight is the 5,000-year-old cave paintings at Laas Geel,” Harris mentioned. “But individuals are additionally in the deserted ships on the outdated port metropolis of Berbera.
“There are less people interested in Somalia, likely because of the fact Somaliland is currently a lot safer to visit and most of the region is possible to travel around.”
Claire Makin, who enjoys travelling to hard-to-reach locations and visited each areas with Untamed Borders, agreed. “Somaliland will get on the tourist map long before Somalia,” she mentioned. In Mogadishu, she felt too restricted by safety to speak to locals. “In Somaliland, the people were welcoming and could not believe we had chosen to visit their country. Somalia, though, is not for the faint hearted.”
In November 2025, Untamed Borders and Lupine Travel have been working a number of journeys to Mogadishu timed to coincide with the Most Traveled People’s Summit, an annual gathering of maximum vacationers happening in November 2025 in neighboring Ethiopia. For many summit individuals, a brief facet journey to Somalia can be a sizzling ticket.
But Somalia is prone to stay a area of interest vacation spot for the foreseeable future. Even with its new eVisa, the nation’s tourism panorama stays fragmented. The central authorities’s system at present applies solely to Mogadishu arrivals; Somaliland and Puntland, one other semi-autonomous area, have rejected it, sustaining their very own entry necessities.
Still, Willcox mentioned his first visitors have used the brand new eVisa system efficiently. And the actual fact that Somalia has launched an eVisa might show a vital step ahead for the nation’s fledgling vacationer business.
“I’ve seen a lot of eVisa systems go into place over the years, in countries like Pakistan and Tajikistan where we work,” he mentioned. “So far, I’d say this Somali one has been the best. No one’s done a better implementation.”