Khartoum Hotel

Rooms and decor

Picture a small old building in central Asmara, a plain hallway inside that still carries the feel of the era when Italy laid out this city a century ago — that's Khartoum Hotel, a tiny budget guesthouse of about 20 rooms in the CBD of a UNESCO World Heritage city most people have never heard of. Rooms are as simple as a real 1-star gets: a single or twin bed, clean sheets, an old wooden wardrobe, one desk and chair by the window, a ceiling fan to take the edge off the heat, and white-painted walls kept tidier than you'd expect. All bathrooms are shared by floor, none private. But the reason this name gets passed around among travelers is simple: those shared bathrooms are reputed to be the cleanest in Eritrea — a small thing that means everything when you're moving through a country with thin lodging options. Reviewers confirm you can shower in the morning without a second thought, with enough hot water in the early hours and evening. The rooms won't dazzle, but the feeling you walk away with is clean and tidy well beyond the price.

Food and amenities

The heart of the place is the small ground-floor restaurant serving home-style Sudanese-Eritrean food. The dish to order is Ful Medames — Sudanese stewed fava beans with olive oil and lemon, served with fresh round bread — or Injera, the sour Eritrean fermented flatbread, scooped through Zigni, a hot spiced beef stew. This isn't a room staged for tourists; it's a genuine mix of locals and travelers at plain wooden tables, Tigrinya and Arabic crossing the room. Prices are tiny — a full plate runs under $3. The hotel's own amenities are minimal: no lift (the building is only two or three floors), no air-con, no TV, no fridge, and Wi-Fi that's spotty at best, since internet is slow across all of Eritrea. There's a small lobby and a shared sitting area where overlanders trade notes on the road ahead — whether to cut east to Massawa on the Red Sea or push on toward Ethiopia is a conversation you'll hear often. Anyone wanting lots of gadgets should reset expectations. Anyone wanting the real texture of East Africa travel, in a place tourists rarely reach, gets a full plate of it.

Location and getting there

Location is the trump card. The hotel sits in the middle of the Asmara CBD, just one block south of Harnet Avenue (the old Liberation Avenue). Step out and within a minute you're on the main street, lined with Italian colonial coffee bars like Cafe Royal and Pasticceria Moderna, still pulling espresso and macchiato in small glasses every morning — a charm you won't find outside this city. A few minutes further is the Cattedrale di Asmara, the red-brick Lombard-style Catholic cathedral that became a city icon, and the Asmara Cinema, a 1937 Art Deco building that helped earn Asmara its UNESCO listing in 2017. For arrivals, Asmara International Airport (ASM) is about 6 km away, 15-20 minutes by taxi — agree the fare before you get in. There's no metro or tourist bus, and the entire center fits inside a few walkable kilometres, which makes this a near-perfect base for exploring the city on foot.

Things to know before booking

Straight talk, because this isn't a hotel for everyone. The thing reviews mention most is the language barrier — staff speak very limited English, so you'll lean on hand gestures, a translation app, or a few words of Tigrinya or Italian. If you expect the responsiveness of a hotel in a tourist city, it can feel like a struggle. Second is the bare-bones amenities: no reliable Wi-Fi, no lift, no air-con, no free breakfast. Anyone used to a 3- or 4-star chain will need to dial expectations down a fair bit. Third, weigh the shared bathrooms — cleanest in the country, sure, but still shared, and you walk out of your room to use them. Fourth, and important: payment. Eritrea runs on cash, ATMs and credit cards barely function, so carry Nakfa or USD to change at a bank or official exchange. You'll also need a travel permit to leave Asmara — that's a national rule, not the hotel's.

Our take

After reading through real reviews from travelers who've crossed Eritrea, Khartoum Hotel sells one honest thing: budget price, central location, and the cleanest shared bathrooms in the country — no luxury upsell attached. If your trip in your head is overlander-style, running the route from Khartoum to Addis Ababa with a stop in Asmara to soak up a quiet World Heritage city — espresso in a colonial coffee bar at dawn, a full day photographing Art Deco facades, then back to a plain, cheap room in the center — this is the most sensible pick at this price. But if you want air-con, fast Wi-Fi, an en-suite bathroom, and staff who speak fluent English, this isn't your answer, and you'll likely leave disappointed. Overall we give it 7.0/10 — best for backpackers, overlanders, and solo travelers who value location and the real experience over amenities.