What it is
The Afar depression in the north-east, dropping to more than 100m below sea level. Erta Ale is an active volcano with a lava lake in its crater. Dallol is a field of yellow and green sulphur and potash formations. Lake Asale is a salt pan where Afar men still cut slabs by hand and load them onto camels.
Why go
There is nothing else like it anywhere. Standing on the rim of an open lava lake at night is a genuinely rare thing to have done.
When to go
November to February only, and even then be clear about what you are signing up for. Daytime temperatures regularly exceed 45C and this is among the hottest inhabited places ever recorded. You sleep outside on a rope cot. There is no plumbing. The drive to Erta Ale takes hours over broken lava and the last stretch is walked in the dark. You travel in a convoy with escorts, arranged through an operator. The region was directly affected by the conflict in northern Ethiopia from 2020 and access has opened and closed since; confirm the current situation before you pay anybody. Not for children, not for anyone with a heart condition, and not a first trip to Ethiopia.
Most people stay 3-4 nights.