Baku is where you land. The day out is where the country is.
Which Gobustan trip actually reaches the mud volcanoes. What a day to Guba and Khinaliq costs. Whether Gabala or Shamakhi is worth the drive when you have one spare morning. Every tour sold out of this city, reviewed and priced.
Four days out of Baku that decide the trip.
The ones a week here gets planned around. What each costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The classic runGobustan, Mud Volcano, Fire Mount, Temple Lunch EntryRock carvings, the cold mud field, the burning hillside and the fire temple, in one long loop south and east of the city.
02The mountain dayGuba, Shahdag, Laza & Lunch w/ Free City & Night TourUp the north road to Guba and the Shahdag foothills, with the Laza waterfalls and lunch in a village house.
03The green dayShamakhi And Gabala Tour (All inclusive)West into the Caucasus foothills for Gabala and Shamakhi, forest cable cars at one end and old tombs at the other.
04The high villageCandy Cane, Guba, Khinaliq village with Homemade LunchThe striped ridges near Xizi, then the climb to Khinaliq, where the roof of one house is the yard of the next.
South to the rock art, north to the snow, west to the forest. Pick a bearing.
Nearly everything worth seeing in this country is a day trip from one city, and the three roads out of it go to completely different places.
Six drives out of Baku, and the best day in each.
A desert of carved boulders an hour south, gas flames on the peninsula that nobody lit, a village at two thousand metres above Guba, and forest towns strung west along the Caucasus foothills.
The tours Baku sells more of than any others.
The full Azerbaijan list →These carry more travellers than anything else leaving the city, and this is what each one earns the slot with.
1
Gobustan, Mud Volcano, Fire Mount, Temple Lunch Entry
Travel from Baku to Bibiheybat Mosque, Gobustan’s ancient rock carvings, mud volcanoes, Ateshgah Fire Temple, and Yanar Dag. Guides such as Yashar, Nabat, Islam, Rza, and Mehri are praised for clear storytelling. The day ends with photos at the Heydar Aliyev Centre and I Love Baku sign.
From · $6
Read our review →
2
Guba, Shahdag, Laza & Lunch w/ Free City & Night Tour
from $5
3
Gobustan and Absheron tour (All inclusive)
from $85
4
Shamakhi And Gabala Tour (All inclusive)
from $39
5
Gabala and Shamakhi Tour (Free Baku City Tour)
from $28
6
Candy Cane, Guba, Khinaliq village with Homemade Lunch
from $55
7
Guba & Sahdag Tour Lunch included and Laza Waterfall
from $15
8
Guba Khinalig & Candy Cane Tour with Homemade Lunch
from $54
The flames on the Absheron peninsula have never been put out.
Gas seeps up through the ground here and catches on its own. At Surakhani a five-sided courtyard was built around one vent, with pilgrim cells along the walls. Twenty minutes further on, a stretch of hillside at Yanar Dag has simply been alight for as long as anyone has bothered to write it down.
Baku: the walled town in the morning, the towers after dark.
Everything in Baku →
Icherisheher and the Maiden Tower take a morning on foot and no more. The oil-boom facades and the ridge above the bay are an evening thing, once the Flame Towers start their light run.
Icherisheher, gate to gate
Caravanserai courtyards, the Maiden Tower and the Shirvanshahs palace sit inside a walled square kilometre you can cross in twenty minutes and lose a morning in.
The bay when the towers light up
The Flame Towers run their fire animation after sunset and the boulevard fills up. Most of these finish on the upland park with the whole bay underneath you.
Oil money, then and now
The barons of the first oil boom built the streets around Fountains Square. The last twenty years built the Heydar Aliyev Center and the towers on the ridge. This takes in both.
What a day out of Baku comes to, in dollars.
Every tour on the site, grouped by what it costs. A seat on one of the big group runs south comes in under the price of lunch.
Group minibuses to Gobustan and the fire sites, walking mornings inside the walls, and the night runs along the bay.
The long ones: Guba and Khinaliq with lunch, Gabala and Shamakhi in a single loop, Sheki and back.
A car and a driver for the day, and the two-day runs that reach the far northwest.
Three things Azerbaijan has and its neighbours do not.
Old towns and mountain roads run the length of the Caucasus. A desert of Stone Age carvings, ground that burns without being lit, and a village above the cloud line do not.
The Gobustan petroglyphs
Thousands of figures are cut into the boulders on Beyukdash and Kichikdash: reed boats with rowers, hunting lines, and rows of dancers holding hands. One of the same rocks carries a Latin inscription left by a Roman legionary who got this far east. Out past the ridge the ground turns to grey mud that bubbles cold out of low cones you can walk right up to.
- 1Gobustan, Mud Volcano, Fire Mount, Temple Lunch Entry★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 3,246 reviews
- 2Gobustan and Absheron tour (All inclusive)★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,014 reviews
- 3Gobustan, Volcanoes, Fire Temple and Yanardag Day Trip★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 433 reviews
Ateshgah and Yanar Dag
Natural gas works its way up through the Absheron and catches at the surface. At Surakhani a pentagonal caravanserai went up around one vent, cells for travellers off a courtyard and the flame in the middle of it. Yanar Dag is cruder and better: a bare slope near Mehemmedi that has burned continuously, and reads far stronger once it is dark.
- 1Gobustan, Volcanoes, Fire Temple and Yanardag Day Trip★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 433 reviews
- 2Mud 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
Khinaliq
Khinaliq stands at roughly two thousand three hundred metres on a spur above the Guba valley, the houses stacked so that one roof is the next yard up. The village speaks a language of its own that is spoken in no other place. The asphalt road is recent; for most of its history the trip up was a day on horseback.
- 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
Lunch in a mountain house, and the wine out of Shamakhi and Gabala.
The long drives north and west nearly all stop for a home cooked lunch, and it is usually the part people describe afterwards. Dolma, saj cooked at the table, bread out of a tandir, tea poured from a samovar into pear-shaped glasses.
Four bookings in Azerbaijan that will not wait for you.
Most of Baku can be arranged over breakfast. These four are long drives, high roads and small vehicles, and they fill up well before the morning you want them.
- 01Candy Cane, Guba, Khinaliq village with Homemade LunchThe village sits above two thousand metres and the road up is the first thing bad weather takes out. Winter dates go when the pass does.
- 02Full Day Tour to Five Regions of AzerbaijanSheki is the far end of a very long drive through the foothills. It eats a whole day and there is no shortening it.
- 03Gobustan, Mud Volcano, Fire Mount, Temple Lunch EntryThe reserve and the mud volcano field are an hour south of the city with nothing scheduled running that way. The seat in the vehicle is the trip.
- 042 days 1 Night Shamakhi – Gabala – Lahij – Sheki Tour ( Northern Route)Lahij is reached by one narrow road along the Girdiman gorge, and the last stretch is not a drive anyone does twice in a day.
When the passes shut and the wind comes off the Caspian.
From late autumn the high roads to Khinaliq and Laza start closing without much notice, and the wind that gave the city its name makes the boulevard hard work for weeks at a time. The city gets easier as the mountains get harder: the walled town empties, lunch indoors turns into the whole afternoon, and the towers look better against a black sky anyway.
Baku, the fire hills, Gobustan, then north into the mountains.
Baku
AbsheronBaku first, then the road that leaves it
Rock, fire, mountain and table: the four Azerbaijani days
The newest days out of Baku and the mountains behind it.
The rest of the recent ones →
Tour to the North part of Azerbaijan Forests and Mountatin Quba
Read our review →
Small-Group Day Trip to Gobustan, Mud Volcanoes, Ateshgah & Yanar Dagh
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ancient and beautiful Land ( All Inclusive Tour )
Read our review →
Private Sheki Tour – Four Regions of Azerbaijan in one day
Read our review →
Azerbaijan tour in 2 days/Sheki+Lahij+Gabala up to Georgia Border
Read our review →
Gabala,Shamakhi, Caucasus mountains Day Trip Tour
Read our review →