Baku is where you sleep. The rest of Azerbaijan is a day trip.
Which Gobustan run actually reaches the mud fields. What a day up to Khinaliq costs. Whether Guba or Gabala is the better mountain day when you only have one to spare. Reviews of every tour you can book in Azerbaijan.
Gobustan, the Shahdag road, Gabala, and the walls of Icherisheher.
The four bookings a first week in Azerbaijan hangs off. What each one costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The first day outGobustan, Mud Volcano, Fire Mount, Temple Lunch EntryRock carvings, the cold mud fields and the fire sites in one run, entries and lunch included. The day almost everyone books first.
02Into the mountainsGuba, Shahdag, Laza & Lunch w/ Free City & Night TourNorth to Guba, up towards the Shahdag range and the Laza waterfall, with a homemade lunch on the way back down.
03The western runShamakhi And Gabala Tour (All inclusive)The old Shirvan capital at Shamakhi, then the forests and cable car at Gabala. Three hours out, back for dinner.
04The city on footBaku Oil Heritage & Old Town Walking TourInside the walls of Icherisheher, then the oil-boom mansions that paid for the streets around it.
Mud volcanoes, rock carvings and a hillside that has burned for centuries.
Everything Azerbaijan is famous for sits within an hour of Baku, on flat brown ground nobody photographs on the way in. Four kinds of day out there, what it costs to join each, and how they differ.
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · Gobustan, Mud Volcano, Fire Mount, Temple Lunch Entry
Gobustan and the mud fieldsSix thousand years of carvings, then a track out to the cold cones.
The Absheron circuitThe whole oil peninsula in one loop, fire sites included.
Ateshgah fire templeA walled Zoroastrian temple built over a natural gas vent.
Yanar DagA hillside that has been alight since long before anyone measured it.
All 375 tours in Azerbaijan →
Six roads out of Baku, and the best day at the end of each.
A desert of petroglyphs and cold mud an hour south, a fire temple on the oil peninsula, striped red hills to the north, apple country under the high Caucasus, forest and a cable car in the west, and one village above the clouds.
Baku: walled city below, glass towers above, and a boulevard between them.
Everything in Baku →
The old town is small enough to cross in twenty minutes and dense enough to lose an afternoon in. Above it the oil money went up in sandstone, then in glass. These three carry more travellers than anything else in the city.
- 1Old and Modern Baku Tour ( Day & Night Time)from $29
- 2Baku Oil Heritage & Old Town Walking Tourfrom $70
- 3Baku Night tourfrom $30
Icherisheher on foot
The Maiden Tower, the Shirvanshahs’ palace and the caravanserais between them, all inside one set of walls. Small enough that a guide is about the stories, not the navigation.
Old town and the towers in one go
The walls, the boulevard along the Caspian, Heydar Aliyev Centre and a stop under the Flame Towers. The run that makes sense of how the city is laid out before you start walking it.
When the towers start burning
The Flame Towers run fire animations across their facades after sunset and the whole bay reflects it. Best seen from the upland park, or from the water.
The days out more people book than anything else in Azerbaijan.
Every Azerbaijani tour we have reviewed →The tours that fill up before the rest, and what earns each one its place.
1
Gobustan, Mud Volcano, Fire Mount, Temple Lunch Entry
Review of Baku’s Gobustan and Absheron tour, covering mud volcanoes, rock art, fire sites, mosque, costs, guides, lunch, and practical tips.
From · $6
Read our review →
2
Guba, Shahdag, Laza & Lunch w/ Free City & Night Tour
from $5
3
BEST Gobustan, Volcanoes & Absheron Fire Tour (Group or Private)
from $33
4
Gobustan and Absheron tour (All inclusive)
from $85
5
Shamakhi And Gabala Tour (All inclusive)
from $39
6
Gabala and Shamakhi Tour (Free Baku City Tour)
from $28
7
Candy Cane, Guba, Khinaliq village with Homemade Lunch
from $55
8
Guba & Sahdag Tour Lunch included and Laza Waterfall
from $15
North to the Shahdag wall, west into the forests.
Two directions, both long days. North runs through apple orchards to Guba, the Laza waterfalls and a village at 2,300 metres. West goes through Shamakhi’s mausoleums into the wooded hills around Gabala and, on the longest day of all, to Sheki.
What a day out of Baku actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. Azerbaijan is cheap in a way that surprises people: a shared minibus to Gobustan costs less than lunch.
Shared minibuses to Gobustan and Absheron, old-town walks, entry tickets and the group runs north.
The all-inclusive days with lunch, private cars for two, and the long hauls to Khinaliq, Gabala and Sheki.
Multi-day loops, a driver and guide to yourselves, and the trips that take in three regions at once.
Nobody arrives expecting Azerbaijan to be this loud.
Red and white bands across the Khizi hills, a lake the colour of watermelon flesh, and a green so hard it stops the car on the way up to Khinaliq. All three are day trips out of the same city.
The full list of days out →
Three things that happen in Azerbaijan and nowhere else.
Mountains and old towns exist all over the Caucasus. Six thousand years of carvings above a mud desert, a village at the end of the last road, and a town that still beats its own copper do not.
The Gobustan Petroglyphs
Roughly six thousand carvings are cut into the limestone above the Caspian plain: boats with rowers, dancing figures, aurochs, and the long ships that made Thor Heyerdahl argue Scandinavians came from here. They cover twelve thousand years of people living on the same ridge. Beyond the museum the ground turns to grey clay and dozens of cold mud volcanoes bubble away at ambient temperature, which is why the last few kilometres need a high-clearance car.
- 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
A village of flat-roofed stone houses stacked up a mountainside at 2,300 metres, where the roof of one house is the yard of the next. The people speak Khinalug, a language related to nothing much and spoken nowhere else. Until the road was cut in 2006 it was a day on horseback from Guba; the drive still climbs through gorges for two hours, and snow closes it without much warning.
- 1Candy Cane, Guba, Khinaliq village with Homemade Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 519 reviews
- 2Guba Khinalig & Candy Cane Tour with Homemade Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 447 reviews
- 3Guba Khinalug & Candy Cane Mountains tour (by Old City Tours)★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 208 reviews
Lahij
A cobbled street in the Ismayilli hills where coppersmiths still work at open shopfronts, hammering trays and jugs the way the town has since it supplied the Silk Road. The workshops sit over a medieval drainage system built from stone and river gravel. You hear the place before you see it, and it stays audible the whole way along the main street.
- 12 days 1 Night Shamakhi – Gabala – Lahij – Sheki Tour ( Northern Route)★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 18 reviews
- 2Shamakhi & Lahij Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 12 reviews
- 3Private Tour to Shemakhi & Lahij From Baku★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 7 reviews
Four Azerbaijani days that run on somebody else’s calendar.
Most of this country can be arranged over breakfast the day before. These four cannot: they depend on a mountain road, a season, a track and a departure time.
- 01Candy Cane, Guba, Khinaliq village with Homemade LunchOne road goes up and it is the same road back down. Snow shuts it from late autumn, and it reopens when it reopens.
- 02Guba, Shahdag, Laza & Lunch w/ Free City & Night TourThe mountain runs to a season rather than a timetable: skiing through winter, walking and the gondola in summer, and a quiet gap between the two.
- 03Full Day Tour to Five Regions of AzerbaijanFive hours each way through three regions. The minibuses leave Baku early and get back after dark, which makes it the one day you cannot slide by an hour.
- 04Gobustan, Mud Volcano, Fire Mount, Temple Lunch EntryThe cones sit off the sealed road past the museum, so the last stretch needs a high-clearance car and firm ground. Heavy rain takes the mud fields off the itinerary.
The desert is open all year. The mountains are not.
Baku sits at sea level and the Caucasus behind it goes over four thousand metres, so the country runs two calendars at once. Gobustan, Absheron and the old city work in any month. The high roads to Khinaliq and Laza are a summer proposition, Shahdag flips to skiing from December, and the forests around Gabala are at their best in autumn.
By place — the city and everything a day away
By kind of day — desert, mountain, old town or table
Baku, the desert, the north road, the western forests: the week almost everybody does first.
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