Galdogob Airport

When you think of airports, you might picture busy terminals, flight boards, and long security lines. But Galdogob Airport, a small airstrip serving a remote town in Somaliland’s Awdal region. It’s not on most maps, but for the people who live there, it’s one of the few links to the outside world. This isn’t a hub for tourists or business travelers. It’s a lifeline. Planes here don’t carry hundreds of passengers—they carry medicine, food, cash remittances, and sometimes, just enough fuel to keep the lights on in a town with no grid power.

What makes Galdogob Airport meaningful isn’t its size, but its context. It sits in Awdal, a rural region in northwestern Somaliland where government services are scarce and roads are often impassable. In places like Gerisa, just a few hours away, families survive on livestock and aid. When someone gets sick, or a child needs urgent care, or a family needs to send money home from abroad, this airport is often the only way out. It’s also tied to Somaliland, a self-declared state that operates independently but isn’t internationally recognized. That lack of recognition means foreign aid and investment rarely reach here—and when they do, it often comes by air.

There’s no terminal building. No jet bridges. Just a dirt strip, a few storage sheds, and locals who know when a plane is coming by the sound of its engine. Pilots who land here don’t fly for fame or profit—they do it because someone needs them to. And that’s why Galdogob Airport matters. It’s not about luxury or efficiency. It’s about access. About dignity. About keeping people alive in a place where the world has mostly moved on.

Below, you’ll find stories from places just like Galdogob—towns with no electricity, no hospitals, no roads, but still connected by the quiet, stubborn will of people who refuse to be forgotten. You’ll see how infrastructure like this airport becomes the backbone of survival in regions where governments can’t, or won’t, reach. And you’ll see how even the smallest airstrip can change everything.