Azerbaijan with children in 8 days
Azerbaijan is an easier family destination than its reputation suggests, and the reason is unusual. Most of the memorable things here are physically odd rather than culturally demanding. A hillside that has been on fire for centuries, a field of small volcanoes that burp cold mud, a temple built aro
- Duration
- 8 days
- Pace
- Relaxed
- Hotel changes
- 3
- Best months
- May, Jun, Sep, Oct
- From
- $1,480 per person
What Azerbaijan does not have is much purpose-built children’s infrastructure outside Baku, and what it does have is drives on two-lane roads. So this route uses three bases, keeps the longest single leg to about three hours split with two stops, and puts something tactile in almost every day.
Who it suits: families with children roughly five to fifteen. Longest drive about three hours, broken. Two optional walks of under an hour.
Your specialist: a named Azerbaijan specialist here, with our long-standing Baku partner running the ground.
Day by day
Day 1: Arrive Baku. Flights land at civilised hours here, which is worth saying because it is not true of every capital in the region. Private transfer, forty minutes, with the room held from the previous night so you go straight in rather than sit in a lobby with tired children. Nothing scheduled. Evening on the seafront Boulevard, which has a long flat promenade, a small funfair, boats and ice cream, and is the easiest possible first evening.
Day 2: Baku, gently. A late morning start in the walled old city. Icherisheher is a maze with a fortress wall you can walk on, and children navigate it better than adults do. The Maiden Tower has a stair to a roof with a view over the bay. Lunch in the old city, then the funicular up Highland Park in the afternoon for the view across to the towers. Free time at the hotel. If yours is a swimming family, we choose a Baku hotel with a pool and use it in the late afternoon.
Day 3: Fire, mud and rock art. The best day of the trip and we put it early while everyone is fresh. South to Gobustan first: the rock carvings are interesting for about forty minutes at that age and the museum is genuinely well made with things to touch. Then the mud volcanoes, reached across a rough flat in an old Lada, which is itself part of the entertainment, where cones a few feet high push out cold grey mud with a noise children find extremely funny. Back north to Yanar Dag, a hillside burning out of the rock, which is best in the late afternoon when the light drops and you can actually see the flames, and Ateshgah, the fire temple at Surakhani, where a flame burns in the middle of a stone courtyard. A long day, but not a driving day.
Day 4: The Heydar Aliyev Center, then west. An hour and a half at Zaha Hadid’s white curved building in the morning, which children like more than their parents expect because there are no corners in it and the model exhibits are hands-on. Then west out of the city, with a stop at the Diri Baba mausoleum built into a cliff at Maraza, which involves a stair up a rock face, and lunch at Shamakhi. On to Qabala for two nights, about three hours in total with the stops.
Day 5: Qabala. The easy day. The Tufandag ropeway climbs to about 6,200 feet (1,900 m) in two stages, with a summer alpine slide at the top station and walking on the ridge. Afternoon at the Yeddi Gozel waterfall, which is a short walk on a made path with steps and handrails and a good deal of splashing, or at Nohur lake with pedaloes. Back to the hotel with a pool. Qabala is a resort town rather than an atmospheric one, and on a family trip that is exactly what you want in the middle of the week.
Day 6: Lahic, then Sheki. Up the Girdimanchay gorge on a narrow road, forty-five minutes, to the coppersmith village. The workshops on the main street are open to the street and the smiths will hand a child a hammer and let them strike a piece of copper, which is the single most photographed moment of most family trips here. There is also a small carpet and craft museum in a mosque building. Then on to Sheki, about two and a half hours. Two nights.
Day 7: Sheki. The Palace of the Shaki Khans in the morning, which we do in forty minutes because it is one room after another and the shebeke windows are the part that lands: thousands of pieces of coloured glass in a wooden lattice with no nails and no glue, and a workshop in the town where you watch someone assemble one. Lunch is piti in a clay pot, which arrives sealed under bread and gets opened at the table. Afternoon up at Kish for the old church and then a halva kitchen, where the layers are made in front of you and everyone eats too much. Free late afternoon.
Day 8: Back to Baku and out. Four and a half hours east on the main highway, broken with a proper lunch stop rather than a service station. Afternoon at the hotel or the Boulevard, and the airport. We hold a day room if your flight is in the evening.
What is included
Seven nights of accommodation with breakfast in rooms that genuinely fit a family, a private car or minibus with an English-speaking driver on every day of travel, the local vehicle for the mud volcano track, licensed English-speaking guides on four days chosen for being good with children, the Tufandag ropeway, the copper workshop session in Lahic, the shebeke workshop and halva kitchen in Sheki, the piti lunch, all site entries, a day-by-day document with honest drive times, and a WhatsApp group with your consultant and our Baku partner team for the whole trip.
What we would change, and when
- Children under five? Cut Gobustan and Lahic, add a second Qabala night and stay four nights in Baku. Eight days becomes a much gentler seven and nobody misses the gorge road.
- Teenagers who walk? Replace Qabala with two nights at Quba and a 4×4 day up to Laza and Xinaliq. It is a bigger trip and a better one for that age.
- Travelling in high summer? Baku is humid and around 90°F (32°C). We shift nights out of the capital and into the mountains and swim more.
- Travelling in winter? Shahdag and Tufandag are real ski areas with modern lifts and low prices, and a family ski week here is a legitimate and cheap alternative. It is a different itinerary and we will write it.
Honest notes
The Lahic road is narrow with drops and no barrier. Most children think it is exciting and some adults do not. Tell us at the enquiry stage if it is a problem and we will drop it without argument.
Car seats are not standard here and rear belts in older vehicles are occasionally missing. We specify vehicles with working belts and we can supply seats, and we would much rather you asked when you enquire than discovered it on day one.
Baku is not the country and the hotels outside it are simpler. On this route Qabala and Sheki are comfortable, and Lahic, which we visit rather than sleep in for exactly this reason, is not.
Playgrounds and child-specific attractions are limited outside the capital. What you get instead is that children are genuinely welcome everywhere, including restaurants at ten at night, and nobody will look at you.
The land border with Armenia is closed and this route does not approach it. Azerbaijan pairs overland with Georgia only.
Built by your named Azerbaijan specialist, checked against notes our founder made in the field.
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