Azerbaijan for the first time

Baku is a wealthy, restored, well-run capital: glass towers, marble pavements, a walled medieval core in very good repair, a nineteenth-century oil-boom quarter of stone mansions, and one of the better restaurant scenes in the region. Two hours out of the city you are on two-lane roads, in towns with one decent hotel, eating better food in worse rooms.

Travellers who understand that trade before they book have a very good week. Travellers who expect Baku standards in Ismayilli are disappointed, and they are disappointed in a way that no amount of money fixes, because the alternative does not exist to be bought.

Everything below follows from that.

What surprises people

The capital is more European than they expected. People arrive braced for something austere and find pavement cafes, a seafront promenade, a Zaha Hadid building and young people speaking English. Then they assume the rest of the country will be a slightly quieter version of that. It is not. It is a different order of place.

The provinces are where the trip lives. Almost everything our travellers describe afterwards happens outside Baku: a coppersmith beating a tray in an open workshop in Lahic, an eighteenth-century khan’s palace in Sheki with stained glass held in a wooden lattice assembled without nails, a village at 7,500 feet (2,300 m) that speaks its own language. The skyline is the least interesting true thing about Azerbaijan.

The summer is humid, not just hot. Baku in July and August sits around 90°F (32°C) with heavy humidity off the Caspian, and the city’s famous wind is warm rather than cooling. Visitors who have read that Baku is a windy city assume that means cool. It does not.

The roads to the good places are slow. The main highways out of the capital are genuinely good. The road up from Quba to Xinaliq is about 35 miles (57 km) and takes two hours each way. The turn to Lahic is 12 miles (19 km) of single track in places, with drops and no barrier, and takes forty-five minutes. Nobody regrets either drive. Everybody underestimates them.

Food is better and cheaper than expected. Consistently the biggest positive surprise. See what to eat in Azerbaijan.

Tea is a whole social system. Black tea in a pear-shaped armudu glass, with jam eaten from a spoon alongside rather than stirred in, is how conversations start, end and get interrupted. Accepting the second glass is the correct answer.

What we would do differently on a first visit

Give Baku three days, not five

Three days is right: the old city on foot early in the morning, the Heydar Aliyev Center as a proper half day, the Carpet Museum, an evening around Fountain Square, and one full day out to the Absheron peninsula for the fire temple at Surakhani and the burning hillside at Yanar Dag.

A fourth day works if you love cities. A fifth almost always comes out of Sheki, and that is the wrong trade. It also costs more, because Baku hotel rates are the one line in this country priced for an international business market.

Take a driver, and do not self-drive

We run essentially every Azerbaijan trip with a private car and a driver. Driving standards on the two-lane roads are assertive, livestock on the carriageway is normal outside the cities, and signage in the mountains is thin. A driver here costs $70 to $110 a day for the vehicle, which split between two people is less than most travellers spend on lunch, and it removes the largest single source of stress in the country.

We will also not put you on the track to Laza in a rental car, and no rental agreement covers it anyway.

Sleep in the mountains rather than day-tripping them

The single change that improves a first Azerbaijan trip most. Lahic in the middle of the day is a street of workshops with visitors in it. Lahic in the evening, when the day traffic has gone and the gorge has cooled, is a village. The same is true of Xinaliq, which is a bad day trip and an excellent overnight.

Build three bases, not five

Baku, Sheki, and one more. The country is small enough to tempt you into a night each in Shamakhi, Ismayilli, Qabala, Sheki and Quba, and that is five packing mornings in a seven-day week. Our classic route is built the other way.

Do not guide every day

Three or four guided days out of seven is our normal pattern: Baku on foot, Gobustan, the Sheki palace and one mountain day. Guides here cost $60 to $100 a day and are genuinely good value, and the rest of the week works better with a good driver and a good document.

Practical things that catch people out

Entry. A number of nationalities enter without a visa and many others use the online e-visa system, which is a short application, a modest fee and a document by email within a few working days. Both the eligible list and the fee are set by government decree and change, so we confirm the current rule for your exact passport in writing before we quote.

Cash. Cards work in Baku and the larger provincial towns. In Lahic, Laza and Xinaliq, carry manat. There is no cash machine in the high villages.

Language. Azerbaijani is Turkic and close to Turkish. Russian is widely understood, particularly by older people and in Baku. English is common among young people in the capital and thin outside it. A driver who speaks some English is worth asking for and we specify it.

Photography. Avoid photographing military installations, border infrastructure and government buildings. This is taken seriously and it is not a formality.

Mosques and shrines. These are working religious sites. Shoulders and knees covered, shoes off, and a headscarf for women at some.

Alcohol. Available and normal. Azerbaijan is a secular state with a majority Muslim population and a functioning domestic wine and beer industry. The reds made from Madrasa, a local grape, around Ismayilli and Shamakhi are worth your attention.

Shepherd dogs. In the northern pastures these are working animals guarding flocks. Do not approach a flock, and do not run.

Altitude. Nothing on a normal itinerary is high enough to cause problems.

The border question, answered plainly

The land border between Azerbaijan and Armenia is closed. That is a practical planning fact rather than something we comment on, and it has one consequence for you: there is no overland route between those two countries, and no itinerary we build will attempt one. Georgia is the connecting country in the Caucasus. Azerbaijan and Georgia over an open land border is an excellent two or three weeks, and it is the pairing we recommend to anyone making this journey once.

One related practical note: Nakhchivan, the Azerbaijani exclave, is reached by air from Baku only.

When to come on a first trip

April to June and September to October. May and the second half of September are the two best fortnights of the year. July and August work provided the trip is built around the mountains rather than the coast, and winter is a Baku, Gobustan and skiing trip rather than a country-wide one. Azerbaijan month by month has the detail, including two dates to plan around: Novruz around 20 to 21 March, and the Formula 1 street race, which closes central roads and puts Baku hotel rates up two or three times.

Who this country suits

It suits people who like craft, food, small towns and mountain roads, and who are not looking for a beach. The Caspian beaches on the Absheron peninsula are functional at best and we say so before anyone asks.

It suits families better than most people expect. Mud volcanoes, a hillside that has been burning for as long as anyone recorded it, a fire temple, a cable car and a copper workshop make a strong week for anyone between six and fifteen. The drives are the constraint, which is why our eight-day family route is built around shorter legs.

It suits a first-time Caucasus traveller who is willing to be told what to skip. What we would skip in Azerbaijan is the list.

How we run it

Your itinerary is written by a named person: our Head of Consulting Mai Est, or our Caucasus and Central Asia specialists Osnat Angerman and Paz Prosianoy. Groups and business travel go to Daniella Eitan. Our founder Doron Reichman has led trips in the Caucasus himself.

On the ground we work through a Baku partner we have used for years rather than an office of our own. GO EAST staffs its own offices in Japan, Vietnam, India and the Philippines, and we would rather tell you that than let you assume otherwise. In practice it means the driver who meets you and the mountain 4×4 team are theirs, briefed by us, with your consultant on the same WhatsApp thread from take-off to landing.

Plan this trip

Tell us what you want out of a first Azerbaijan trip and a specialist will build you a first outline, with the honest notes about which nights are simple. Free, and with no obligation.

Start planning

Keep reading

• Azerbaijan: the complete guide to planning your trip
• Azerbaijan month by month
• What to eat in Azerbaijan, and how the tea works
• What we would skip in Azerbaijan
• Classic Azerbaijan in 7 days
• All our Azerbaijan trips

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