Baku takes two days. The Absheron burns for the rest.
Which Gobustan day also reaches Yanar Dag before dark. What a seat in the minibus to Khinaliq costs. Whether the Candy Cane Mountains are worth three hundred kilometres of road. Reviews of every tour you can book in Azerbaijan.
The mud, the mountains, the walls and the water.
Four bookings that between them cover most of what people come to Azerbaijan for. What each costs, and what the travellers who took it say.
01Day one out of BakuGobustan, Mud Volcano, Fire Mount, Temple Lunch EntryPetroglyphs, a cold mud volcano and the fire temple, on one minibus with lunch in it. The day almost everyone books first.
02North to the snow lineGuba, Shahdag, Laza & Lunch w/ Free City & Night TourGuba apple country, the Shahdag road and the waterfall at Laza. Twelve hours, and the lunch is somebody's front room.
03Inside IcherisheherBaku: Stunning Walking Tour of Historical and Modern CityTwo hours inside Icherisheher, then out into the oil-boom streets that paid for the rest of Baku.
04Off the BoulevardCaspian Sea Boat Tour with City Skyline ViewsThe Caspian from a deck, with the Flame Towers doing their thing behind you. Best in the last hour of light.
One road out of Baku collects the carvings, the mud and the flames.
See the full list →Gobustan is an hour south, the Absheron gas fields an hour north, and almost every operator sells them as one long day. The difference is what gets skipped when the light goes. Three shapes of the same trip.
Baku sits on a peninsula. Everything else is a day trip off it.
A walled city on the Caspian, a rock-carving plain, a peninsula that leaks gas, the apple country up north, two Silk Road towns in the foothills and the palace at Sheki. Six places, and the best day out in each.
North of Baku the map goes vertical.
Four hours of flat semi-desert, then the Greater Caucasus stands up out of it. Quba for the orchards, Shahdag for the snow, Laza for the waterfalls, and Khinaliq at 2,300 metres where the language is nobody else's. These are long days and the road decides them.
Baku: inside the walls first, then the century that oil built.
Baku, wall to wave →Icherisheher is fifteen minutes end to end and takes half a day if you let it. Outside the gate the city turns into oil money, then into Zaha Hadid. Three ways through it, and they suit different legs.
Icherisheher on foot
The Maiden Tower, the Shirvanshahs’ palace and the caravanserais between them, in a square kilometre you cannot get lost in. Cobbles the whole way, so wear something sensible.
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What came after the oil
Baku was pumping half the world’s oil by 1900 and spent it on facades. What came next spent it on shapes: the Flame Towers, a museum built as a rolled carpet, and Zaha Hadid’s white wave up the hill.
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The Boulevard when the towers light up
The Flame Towers run fire animations across three sides of the skyline, the Boulevard fills up and the old walls get lit from below. It is the best hour of the day in this city and it is also the cheapest.
See the full list →Azerbaijan’s most-travelled days out.
The full catalogue, Gobustan to Sheki →The perennial sellers, with what earns each its slot.
Gobustan, Mud Volcano, Fire Mount, Temple Lunch Entryfrom $602
Guba, Shahdag, Laza & Lunch w/ Free City & Night Tourfrom $503
BEST Gobustan, Volcanoes & Absheron Fire Tour (Group or Private)from $3304
Gobustan and Absheron tour (All inclusive)from $8505
Shamakhi And Gabala Tour (All inclusive)from $3906
Gabala and Shamakhi Tour (Free Baku City Tour)from $2807
Candy Cane, Guba, Khinaliq village with Homemade Lunchfrom $5508
Guba & Sahdag Tour Lunch included and Laza Waterfallfrom $15 The real cost of an Azerbaijani day out.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. Azerbaijan is cheap in a way that surprises people: a full day with lunch and entry tickets often lands under the price of a taxi home.
- 1Gabala-Sheki Tour 2 Days, 1 Night (All Inclusive)from $190
- 2Full Day Trip in Baku (Gobustan & Absheron)from $180
- 3Private Gabala Tourfrom $120
Three things Azerbaijan has and nowhere else quite does.
Mountains and old towns are everywhere. A hillside that has burned continuously for centuries, a plain of cold mud craters, and a village above the cloud line with its own language are not.
The fires that never went out
Natural gas seeps through the Absheron rock and has been catching light here for as long as anyone has written things down. Yanar Dag is a low hillside with a ten-metre wall of flame at its foot; Ateshgah is a pentagonal caravanserai built around a vent, where Zoroastrian and Hindu pilgrims kept a fire going for centuries. The country calls itself the Land of Fire and means it literally.
- 1Gobustan, Volcanoes, Fire Temple and Yanardag Day Trip★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 433 reviews
- 2Gobustan-Mud Volcan-Fire Temple and Mountain Tour/Entrance inc★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 267 reviews
- 3Gobustan, Mud volcanoes, Fire temple, Fire mountain PRIVATE TOUR★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 47 reviews
Mud volcanoes, and the carvings above them
Azerbaijan has roughly a third of every mud volcano on earth, squat grey cones that burp cold slurry instead of lava. They sit on the same semi-desert as Gobustan, where six thousand rock carvings of dancers, boats and aurochs were cut into the limestone over twelve thousand years. Getting between the two takes a high-clearance car, which is why almost nobody does it alone.
- 1Gobustan, Mud Volcano, Fire Mount, Temple Lunch Entry★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 3,246 reviews
- 2BEST Gobustan, Volcanoes & Absheron Fire Tour (Group or Private)★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,254 reviews
- 3Gobustan and Absheron tour (All inclusive)★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,014 reviews
Khinaliq, and the road that gets there
A stone village at 2,300 metres where the houses are built on each other’s roofs and the residents speak Ketsh, a language shared with nobody. The road up from Quba was a track within living memory and is now asphalt to the edge of the village. Sheep still outnumber everything, and the wind arrives without asking.
- 1Candy Cane, Guba, Khinaliq village with Homemade Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 519 reviews
- 2Guba and Khinaliq Village Tour including Homemade Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 241 reviews
- 3Guba Khinalug & Candy Cane Mountains tour (by Old City Tours)★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 208 reviews
When the north wind gets up, move the day indoors and inland.
Baku is called the windy city in Azerbaijani for a reason: the Khazri comes off the north Caspian and takes the boat trips and the Boulevard with it. Winter does the same to the mountain roads above Quba. Both have the same answer, which is to go where there is a roof, a table or a wall.
The latest reviews, Baku to the mountains.
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