Everything worth booking in the Land of Fire.
Which Gobustan day also takes in the mud volcanoes. What the drive up to Khinaliq really costs. Whether Gabala or Sheki is the better second day out of Baku. Reviews of every tour you can book in Azerbaijan.
Fire, petroglyphs, a mountain village and the city after dark.
The four days out a first week in Azerbaijan is usually built from. What each costs, and what the travellers who took it say.
01The first day outGobustan, Mud Volcano, Fire Mount, Temple Lunch EntryRock carvings, a field of cold mud volcanoes, the fire temple at Surakhani and Yanar Dag, all on one loop south of the city.
02North to the snowGuba, Shahdag, Laza & Lunch w/ Free City & Night TourUp through Quba to Laza and the Shahdag ridge, back on the Caspian highway in time for dinner in Baku.
03The green interiorShamakhi And Gabala Tour (All inclusive)The old Shirvan capital at Shamakhi, then Gabala, its cable car and the lake under Tufandag.
04Baku after darkBaku Night tourThe Flame Towers lit, the boulevard along the water and the walls of the old town once the tour buses have gone.
South of Baku the ground carves, bubbles and burns.
An hour out of the city there are four thousand year old carvings at Gobustan, a plain of cold mud volcanoes above them, a Zoroastrian fire temple at Surakhani and a hillside at Yanar Dag that has never gone out. Most operators sell them in one loop. These are the ways that loop is put together.
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · Gobustan, Mud Volcano, Fire Mount, Temple Lunch Entry
The carvingsThe petroglyph reserve and its museum above the Caspian.
The mud plainCold grey cones that burp, usually reached by old Lada.
Fire temple and burning hillAteshgah at Surakhani, then the hillside alight at Yanar Dag.
The whole peninsulaOil country, Mardakan, the mosque at Bibi-Heybat.
All 86 days in the fire country →
Baku first, then pick a direction out of it.
Almost every tour in the country leaves the capital in the morning and is back by dark. South to the carvings and the fire, north to the high villages, west to the wine country and the silk town. Six starting points, and the best day out from each.
Baku: the walled town before the heat, the boulevard after it.
The whole Baku shelf →
Icherisheher is small enough to cross in twenty minutes and dense enough to lose an afternoon in. Then the Caspian promenade, the carpet museum, and a Zaha Hadid building that photographs better than anything else in the Caucasus. These three carry more travellers than anything else in the city.
Icherisheher, the Maiden Tower, the Shirvanshahs
The old town is free to walk into. The money goes on the Maiden Tower and the Palace of the Shirvanshahs, and on somebody who can tell you which of the carved stones came from where.
The Flame Towers, lit and moving
The three towers run fire animations across their faces after sunset, and the best angles on them are from the boulevard and the upland park above the city. Go late; nothing happens until the light drops.
Plov, qutab and tea with cherry jam
Saj cooked at the table, dumplings the size of a thumbnail in broth, and pots of tea poured over jam rather than into it. The food here is Persian, Turkic and Caucasian at once, and nobody rushes it.
The days out more travellers take than any other in Azerbaijan.
Every day out in the country →Ranked by how many people have actually been on them, with what each costs and what earns it the slot.
1
Gobustan, Mud Volcano, Fire Mount, Temple Lunch Entry
Travel from Baku to Bibiheybat Mosque, Gobustan’s rock carvings and mud volcanoes, Ateshgah Fire Temple, and Yanar Dag. Guides such as Nabat, Yashar, Islam, Rza, and Mehri are praised for clear storytelling. Choose the ticket-included option to simplify entry fees and receive a complimentary Baku city tour.
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
Striped ridges, a village above the clouds, snow into May.
Two hours up the Caspian highway the land tips into the Greater Caucasus. Red and white rock stacked in bands near Khizi, orchards and carpet looms around Quba, then the long climb to Khinaliq, where a thousand people live at 2,300 metres and speak a language of their own.
From Yanar Dag to Khinaliq, what the day costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. Shared minibus seats here are among the cheapest in the region, and the gap between a seat and a private car is smaller than you would expect.
Shared seats south to Gobustan and Absheron, old-town walks, city entry tickets and the airport run.
The long ones: Khinaliq and the Candy Cane ridges, Gabala and Shamakhi, Sheki in a day.
Your own car and driver, two-day runs to the north-west, and the Caucasus crossings.
Burning hillsides, mud that moves, a village at 2,300 metres.
Mountains and old towns are everywhere in the Caucasus. A hillside that has burned since before the mosque beside it was built, a gallery of Stone Age carvings above a mud plain, and a village above the clouds with its own language are not.
Yanar Dag and the Ateshgah
Natural gas seeps through the sandstone on the Absheron peninsula and has been alight at Yanar Dag for as long as anyone has written about it. Twenty minutes away at Surakhani, a pentagonal caravanserai of a temple was built over another vent by Indian and Persian traders, who kept its central flame going for pilgrims. The gas fields took the pressure out of it; the temple burns on a pipe now, and is still the strangest courtyard in the country.
- 1Gobustan, Volcanoes, Fire Temple and Yanardag Day Trip★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 433 reviews
- 2Gobustan & Mud, Fire Temple, Burning Mountain (Group & Private)★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 418 reviews
- 3Mud Volcan-Fire Temple and Mountain Tour/Entrance inc★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 267 reviews
Gobustan
Six thousand rock carvings sit on a limestone hillside an hour south of Baku: hunters, reed boats, a line of dancing figures that Azerbaijanis will tell you is the yalli they still dance. A Roman centurion cut his name into a stone here too, the furthest east that inscription has been found. Below the reserve the plain is dotted with cold mud volcanoes, and the country holds more of them than anywhere else on earth.
- 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
The road to Khinaliq climbs to 2,300 metres and stops, because the village is the end of it. Stone houses stand on each other’s roofs on a spur between two gorges, sheep come down the mountain in autumn in a river of dust, and the people speak Ketsh, which is related to nothing else you will hear on the way up. Winter can shut the road for days.
- 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 and Khinaliq Village Tour including Homemade Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 241 reviews
Four Azerbaijani days that will not wait for a late decision.
Most of this country can be arranged over breakfast for the same morning. These four run on one long road, a mountain forecast or an opening time, and none of them cares what your plans are.
- 01Candy Cane, Guba, Khinaliq village with Homemade LunchOne mountain road, most of a day each way from Baku. It goes as a single early departure, not on demand.
- 02Full Day Tour to Five Regions of AzerbaijanSheki is three hundred kilometres north-west. The day either starts at dawn or turns into an overnight.
- 03Guba, Shahdag, Laza & Lunch w/ Free City & Night TourSnow and fog decide the Laza and Shahdag stretch on the morning, so the seats move around in winter.
- 04Gobustan, Mud Volcano, Fire Mount, Temple Lunch EntryThe petroglyph reserve and its museum keep fixed hours, and the mud plain beyond them needs daylight and a driver willing to go.
November to April, the high villages come off the table.
Snow closes the climb to Khinaliq and the Laza valley for days at a time, and the Khazri wind makes the Caspian front unpleasant long before it makes it cold. Baku answers for all of it. The walled town is compact, the museums are warm, the tea houses are open late, and the city looks better lit than it does in daylight.
West of Baku the towns are older than the oil.
Shamakhi was the Shirvan capital and buried its shahs under seven domes. Lahij is one cobbled street of coppersmiths hammering on the doorstep. Sheki keeps a khan’s summer palace whose windows are built from thousands of pieces of coloured glass held in wood without a single nail.
- 1Shamakhi And Gabala Tour (All inclusive)from $39
- 2Gabala and Shamakhi Tour (Free Baku City Tour)from $28
- 3Full Day Tour to Five Regions of Azerbaijanfrom $75
By place, city and mountains
By kind of day, carvings, ridges, table or road
Baku, the fire country, the high north, then west to the silk towns.
Reviewed most recently in Azerbaijan.
Further down the Azerbaijan list →
3-Day Hiking & Trekking Tour Remote Villages in Guba Azerbaijan
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Tour to the North part of Azerbaijan Forests and Mountatin Quba
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Small-Group Day Trip to Gobustan, Mud Volcanoes, Ateshgah & Yanar Dagh
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ancient and beautiful Land ( All Inclusive Tour )
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Azerbaijan tour in 2 days/Sheki+Lahij+Gabala up to Georgia Border
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Private Sheki Tour – Four Regions of Azerbaijan in one day
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Gabala,Shamakhi, Caucasus mountains Day Trip Tour
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