The best two-week route through Azerbaijan and Georgia
Two weeks inside Azerbaijan alone is more than the country asks for. Ten days covers it thoroughly, and the eleventh day onwards gets spent on Ganja in the west or Lankaran in the south, both of which are long drives for modest rewards on a first visit.
Two weeks across Azerbaijan and Georgia, over the open land border in the northwest, is one of the best fortnights in this part of the world. The two countries are genuinely different: a Turkic, Muslim, Caspian country with Persian layers, and a Christian mountain country with its own alphabet and a wine culture eight thousand years old. You cross between them in an afternoon.
One planning fact stated plainly, without any comment on the politics behind it: the land border between Azerbaijan and Armenia is closed, so there is no overland route between those two countries and no itinerary we build attempts one. Georgia is the connecting country in the Caucasus. Every multi-country route here goes through it.
Here is the route we argue for, and then the alternatives.
The shape in one line
Baku for three nights, the northern mountains for three, Lahic and Sheki for three, then over the border into Kakheti, Tbilisi and one mountain night in Georgia. Six bases in fourteen days, west to west, and no day with more than about four and a half hours of driving in it.
Day by day
Days 1 to 3, Baku
Day 1. Arrive, settle, walk the seafront boulevard in the evening. Nothing else.
Day 2. The walled old city, Icherisheher, early and on foot: the Maiden Tower and the fifteenth-century Palace of the Shirvanshahs before the heat and the groups. The Carpet Museum after lunch, which is better than it sounds and explains a craft you will meet for the next ten days. The Heydar Aliyev Center in the late afternoon, when the light does what Zaha Hadid intended. Dinner in the streets behind Fountain Square.
Day 3. Gobustan in the morning: thousands of rock carvings on the UNESCO list, then the field of mud volcanoes over a rough track, cold grey mud bubbling out of the ground and stranger than any photograph of it. The Absheron peninsula in the afternoon for the fire temple at Surakhani, built around a natural gas vent, and Yanar Dag, a hillside that has burned continuously for as long as anyone recorded it. The peninsula is industrial and we do not pretend the drive is scenic.
Three nights is right. Baku in three days sets out the alternative orderings.
Days 4 to 6, the northern mountains
Day 4. Baku to Quba, about two and a half hours on a good road. Quba is an orchard town on a gorge with a long-established Mountain Jewish quarter at Qirmizi Qesebe across the river, which is worth an unhurried afternoon and a guide who knows the families. Night in Quba.
Day 5. Quba to Xinaliq by 4×4, about 35 miles (57 km) up a gorge and two hours each way, to a village at roughly 7,500 feet (2,300 m) that speaks its own language and stacks its stone houses along a ridge. Its transhumance route to the summer pastures went onto the UNESCO list in 2023. Walk out along the ridge in the late afternoon and sleep in a family house. This is the night that makes the trip. The road to Xinaliq describes it properly, including the days when we cancel it.
Day 6. Morning above the village while nothing is moving, then down to Quba and out to Laza in the Qusar district under Shahdag, where the waterfalls at the head of the valley are the best short walking in the country. Night in Quba.
Days 7 to 9, Lahic and Sheki
Day 7. Quba across to Shamakhi, about four hours, with the Juma mosque and the Yeddi Gumbez mausoleums at the old Shirvan capital. Then the turn up the Girdimanchay gorge to Lahic: about 12 miles (19 km), single track in places with drops and no barrier, forty-five minutes. Night in Lahic, which is the whole point, because in the evening the day visitors have gone and it becomes a village again rather than a street of workshops.
Day 8. The coppersmiths in the morning, when the hammering starts. Then down and west to Sheki, about three hours, with a wine estate near Ismayilli on the way for lunch and a tasting of the local Madrasa red. Night in Sheki.
Day 9. Sheki, all day, the town we would defend most. The Palace of the Shaki Khans, an eighteenth-century summer residence with shebeke windows of coloured glass held in a wooden lattice assembled without nails or glue. The caravanserai, still a working building. Kish above the town, with a church associated with Caucasian Albania, the early Christian kingdom that preceded the Islamic period here. Piti for lunch. Night in Sheki.
Days 10 to 11, into Georgia and Kakheti
Day 10. Sheki to the border in the northwest and on into Kakheti, about three hours in total including the crossing. The formalities are straightforward and our two ground teams hand you over on the far side. Afternoon in Sighnaghi, the walled hill town above the Alazani valley. Night in Kakheti.
Day 11. A family marani, which is a Georgian cellar, where the wine is made in clay qvevri buried in the ground by the person pouring it. Lunch that goes on too long, which is the correct outcome. Alaverdi cathedral, then on to Tbilisi, about two hours. Night in Tbilisi.
Days 12 to 14, Tbilisi and one mountain night
Day 12. Tbilisi by district: the sulphur baths at Abanotubani, the stairwells of Sololaki, the flea market, the food. A different city from Baku in every respect, and the contrast is half the reason to do this route.
Day 13. Mtskheta on the way out, with Jvari on its hill and Svetitskhoveli in the town, then the Military Highway north to Kazbegi, about three hours. Night under the mountain.
Day 14. Up to the Gergeti Trinity Church in the morning for the view of Kazbek at 16,512 feet (5,033 m), weather permitting, then back to Tbilisi for the flight home.
We will say the unwelcome thing about day 13. Kazbek is behind cloud roughly half the time, and one night gives you one attempt. On a fourteen-day route that is the honest compromise. On sixteen days we give it two nights, and on twenty-one days we would take Svaneti instead and give it four.
Why this order and not the other one
North before west. Quba and Xinaliq sit on the coastal corridor north of Baku, and Sheki sits on the western one. Doing the north first and then cutting across to Shamakhi means you finish at the border, which is where you want to finish. Doing it the other way round adds a full backtracking day.
Lahic before Sheki, and a night in each. Both are day-trippable and both are wasted as day trips. Lahic empties in the evening. Sheki deserves a whole day rather than a stop between two drives.
One direction, no return leg. Fly into Baku and out of Tbilisi. An open-jaw ticket saves two days of retracing.
The alternatives, named honestly
Reverse it. Tbilisi in, Baku out, works equally well and is sometimes cheaper on flights. The only argument for starting in Baku is that Azerbaijan is the less familiar country and it lands better when you are fresh.
Drop Xinaliq. Outside roughly late May to mid October the high road is unreliable, and between late October and May we would not build it at all. The replacement is two nights in Qabala with the Tufandag ropeway and the Yeddi Gozel waterfall walk, which is comfortable and pleasant and not the same thing.
Take the sleeper. The overnight train from Baku to Tbilisi is comfortable enough in a two-berth compartment and saves a driving day. It is right for a traveller who wants the two capitals and less of the middle, and wrong for this route, which is built around the middle.
What we would leave out. Ganja and Goygol in the west, which is a long drive for something the north does better, and any thought of the Caspian beaches. Both are covered in what we would skip in Azerbaijan.
When to run this route
May, June, September and the first half of October. The border crossing works year round, and Kakheti in the second half of September is at its harvest peak, which is the single best fortnight for this itinerary and also the most expensive one on the Georgian side.
How we build it
This route is our fourteen-day Azerbaijan and Georgia itinerary, and we rebuild it around whoever asks. Your file belongs to one named person: our Head of Consulting Mai Est, or our Caucasus and Central Asia specialists Osnat Angerman and Paz Prosianoy. Groups go to Daniella Eitan.
On the ground, Azerbaijan runs through a Baku partner and Georgia through a Tbilisi partner, both of whom we have used for years. GO EAST staffs its own offices in Japan, Vietnam, India and the Philippines, and we would rather name who is actually meeting you than imply an office we do not have. The two teams hand over at the border and your consultant is on the same WhatsApp thread throughout.
Plan this trip
Tell us your dates and which of these two countries pulls harder, and a specialist will rebalance the fortnight around it. Free first outline, no obligation.
Keep reading
- Azerbaijan: the complete guide to planning your trip
- How many days do you need in Azerbaijan?
- The road to Xinaliq, honestly
- Baku in three days
- Azerbaijan and Georgia, 14 days
- All our Azerbaijan trips
Frequently asked questions
How long does the land border crossing take?
Can we add Armenia to this?
Is fourteen days enough for both countries?
What does this route cost?
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