Baku by breakfast. Fire and mud by noon.
Which Gobustan day includes the entry tickets. Whether Khinaliq is worth four hours of mountain road. What a homemade lunch in Quba actually means. Every tour in Azerbaijan, read and ranked.
The places a Baku base can reach
The Absheron37 tours
Gobustan82 tours
Khizi & the Candy Canes28 tours
Shamakhi32 tours
Quba46 tours
Gabala41 tours
Khinaliq25 tours
Sheki22 tours- Every tour in Azerbaijan →
Or by what you actually spend the day doing
Rock art, fire and mud: the Azerbaijan shortlist.
Six drives out of Baku carry most first trips: the carved plateau and its mud field, the two fire sites on the Absheron, the switchback road to Khinaliq, and the walled city you cover on foot before you fly home.
What Baku actually books.
Every review →The combined Gobustan-and-Absheron circuit runs away with this list, and it is not an accident: one day picks up the petroglyphs, the mud volcanoes, the fire temple and the burning hillside.
1
Gobustan, Mud Volcano, Fire Mount, Temple Lunch Entry
A packed day trip from Baku to Gobustan, mud volcanoes, and the Fire Mountain flames, plus the Bibiheybat Mosque and Heydar Aliyev Center.
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
Gobustan: decide how much of the plain you want.
All 82 Gobustan tours →
An hour south of Baku the coast road turns inland to a limestone plateau covered in carved figures, and past it a grey field of cold mud volcanoes that gulp and burp at ankle height. Most tours bolt the Absheron fire sites onto the same day. A few do not, and those are shorter and cheaper.
Gobustan and both fire sites in one sweep
Petroglyphs and the mud field in the morning, then Ateshgah and Yanardag on the way back into the city. This is the day most people mean when they say they saw Gobustan.
Half a day, the carvings and the mud
Straight down the coast, the museum and the carved rocks, the volcano field, straight back. Worth it if the Absheron already has a day of its own, or if the afternoon is spoken for.
A private car and nobody else’s timetable
The last stretch of track to the volcanoes needs high clearance, and the plateau rewards a slow hour rather than a fast twenty minutes. A private day buys both.
Azerbaijan prices, from ticket money to a private car.
Every reviewed tour sorted by what it actually costs. Most of the country’s best days sit under sixty dollars, and the cheap end is not the thin end.
Entry tickets, Old City walks, the short Absheron run and the half-day trips down to Gobustan.
The busiest band on the site: full-day Gobustan-and-fire circuits, with entry fees and lunch folded into the price.
The long drives — Quba, Khinaliq, Gabala, Sheki — usually with a homemade lunch built into the day.
Private cars, two-day runs to Sheki, and the multi-region days that cross most of the country.
- 1Sheki Tour 2 Days, 1 Night (All Inclusive)from $190
- 2Full Day Trip in Baku (Gobustan & Absheron)from $180
- 3Private Gabala Tourfrom $120
Quba, Khinaliq and the striped ridges at Khizi.
The northern road leaves the Caspian at Khizi past hills banded red and white, climbs to Quba among the apple orchards, then turns up a river gorge to Khinaliq at 2,300 metres. It is a long day and the last hour is switchbacks. Almost every version puts a homemade lunch in the middle of it.
Baku is two cities and they are ten minutes apart.
Inside the walls: the Shirvanshahs’ palace, the Maiden Tower, caravanserai courtyards and lanes too narrow for a car. Outside them: the Flame Towers, the white curves of the Heydar Aliyev Center, and a boulevard that runs along the Caspian. Most walking tours take both in an afternoon.
Why Azerbaijan is called the Land of Fire.
Gas seeps up through the rock right across the Absheron peninsula. In two places it has been alight for a very long time. An hour south, the same geology pushes cold grey mud through the plain instead.
Yanardag
A ten-metre stretch of hillside half an hour north of the city has been burning for as long as anyone has bothered to write it down, fed by natural gas working up through porous sandstone. At noon it is a modest orange smear against a scorched bank. After dark it is something else entirely, which is why the better tours go late and pair it with Ateshgah on the way.
- 1Gobustan, Volcanoes, Fire Temple and Yanardag Day Trip★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 433 reviews
- 2Gobustan & Mud, Fire Temple, Burning Mountain (Group & Private)★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 418 reviews
- 3Gobustan, Mud volcanoes, Fire temple, Fire mountain PRIVATE TOUR★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 47 reviews
Ateshgah
At Surakhani a pentagonal courtyard shaped like a caravanserai grew up over the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries around a natural gas vent, used by Zoroastrian, Hindu and Sikh worshippers who left inscriptions carved above the cells. Industrial extraction exhausted the vent in 1969, so the flame you see is piped in now. The building and the inscriptions are the reason to go.
- 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
The mud volcanoes
Azerbaijan has several hundred mud volcanoes, more than any other country, and the largest cluster sits on the Gobustan plain. They are cold: pressurised gas shoves grey clay up through vents that swell and pop at ankle height. The last kilometre of track needs high clearance, which is why most tours hand you over to a battered Lada for the final run in.
- 1Gobustan, Mud Volcano, Fire Mount, Temple Lunch Entry★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 3,246 reviews
- 2Gobustan Mud Volcanoes Temple & Entry tickets included★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 178 reviews
- 3Half-Day Gobustan and Mud Volcanoes Tour with Entry★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 144 reviews
Sheki and Shamakhi: the long way across Azerbaijan.
Shamakhi was the Shirvan capital and still keeps the Yeddi Gumbez tombs, with Diri Baba cut into a cliff face on the road out. Hours further west, Sheki holds a khan’s summer palace whose shebeke windows are assembled from thousands of pieces of coloured glass and hand-cut wood without a single nail. Day trips stitch three or four regions together; two days lets you stop.
- 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
The towers light up at nine and the Old City empties.
All Baku night tours →
Baku Lights: the Night Tour illuminated by Baku lights
Read our review →Four things that decide a day out of Baku.
Nothing in this country needs booking months ahead. What changes the day is what the price covers, how long the road is, and whether you are in a minibus or a car.
- 01Gobustan Absheron Tour Entry Tickets includedGobustan, Ateshgah and Yanardag each charge at their own gate. Some days cover every ticket in the headline price; others collect at each stop.
- 02Candy Cane, Guba, Khinaliq village with Homemade LunchThe northern villages are three hours out and three hours back. A day with lunch arranged is a day you do not spend looking for it.
- 03BEST Gobustan, Volcanoes & Absheron Fire Tour (Group or Private)The roads to Khinaliq and Laza are narrow, slow and worth stopping on. A private car sets the pace; a shared minibus sets the price.
- 04Sheki Tour 2 Days, 1 Night (All Inclusive)Sheki and Gabala in a single day means most of it through a windscreen. Two days gives the khan’s palace an actual morning.
Baku earns its nickname two or three days a month.
The Khazri comes down off the Caspian and turns the boulevard into a wind tunnel; out on the Gobustan plateau it is worse, and the mud field stops being fun. Those are Old City days. The lanes inside the walls are sheltered, the caravanserai courtyards are covered, and lunch can run as long as you like.
Everything in this country is measured from Baku.
The newest Azerbaijan tour reviews.
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Gobustan Magic of Mud Volcanoes and Ancient Petroglyphs
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A Full Day Adventure: Khinalug, Guba & Candy Mountains Tour
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All destinations included Baku city tour for 1 day
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Small-Group Day Trip to Gobustan, Mud Volcanoes, Ateshgah & Yanar Dagh
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Private Sheki Tour – Four Regions of Azerbaijan in one day
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