AZERBAIJAN

Planning our trip here was unusually complicated. We initially intended to arrive by land, from the border with Georgia. However, long after most of the world had lifted Covid travel restrictions, Azerbaijan continued to keep its land border closed. With air travel being the only option, booking a flight presented another hurdle. Azerbaijani Airlines would not accept any of my credit or debit cards. (More about this later!) Third-party vendors booking vendors such as Expedia and Booking.com were selling their tickets but priced about 50% higher. I ultimately had to use one of those 'services.' The final surprise came when I applied for an Azerbaijani electronic visa. Although it is a government website, it too did not accept my foreign credit card. I tried using a debit card and was relieved when that payment went through.

However, it would be wrong to conclude from these inconveniences that the country does not make much effort to attract tourists. The oil industry accounts for such a large fraction of their economy that tourism is not a high priority. Nevertheless, the tourist infrastructure is top-notch. We conclude that visiting Azerbaijan is worth all its hassles. In addition to the unique sites and cuisine, the locals are very hospitable to their foreign guests. It's hard to imagine any visitor being disappointed.

Travel Tips:

Post offices in Baku have currency exchange services. The exchange rates they offer are unbeatable and near the fair market value. Many of the ATMs require you to enter a local telephone number, which of course, we did not have. However, all ATMs that did not require a phone number accepted our cards. We found some ATMs that accept foreign bank cards at the north end of Fountain Square.

You cannot rely much on credit cards in Azerbaijan. Many restaurants and shops advertise that they accept Visa and Mastercard. However, their credit card machines frequently decline foreign credit cards. Foreign debit cards are a better bet, but they are also not guaranteed to work. Our credit cards did work consistently in grocery stores and international franchises such as Starbucks.

Transportation

We booked a rental car through Expedia, only to find out when we arrived to pick it up that there were 'no cars available.' The lesson learned was to never rely on Expedia. That is in addition to the fact that you can often get things cheaper by cutting them out as the middleman. Other websites correctly reported there were no rental cars currently available in Baku.

The short supply of rental cars in Azerbaijan did not prove to be too big a problem because their public transportation network is excellent and incredibly inexpensive. For example, a fare on the Baku metro is less than 20 cents. To travel to Qusar, we took a marshrutka from the International Bus Terminal near the Avtovaghzal metro station. Buses between cities are very frequent.

Taxi drivers often quote unreasonably high fares. We had no idea how much we were overpaying until we took a Bolt taxi. (Azerbaijan's Uber equivalent. We did not have the app, but we discovered that hotel concierges were happy to book them for us.) The taxi fares from the airport are particularly exorbitant compared to the Baku Airport Express bus. We took the bus to the city center where we found a taxi to take us to our hotel. One odd quirk about the taxi drivers in Baku is that they do not seem to recognize many street names. Also, some of them do not have GPS. If you are not staying in a well-known hotel, be ready to provide the phone number. Our taxi driver scolded us for not having it! It took him numerous inquiries before he found somebody who knew how to get to the address we provided.

If you obtain a rental car, a big word of caution is to avoid exceeding speed limits.

There are speed cameras everywhere, and the risk of getting fined is very high. In sharp contrast to what we experienced in neighboring Georgia, our taxi and marshrutka drivers diligently adhered to the posted speed limits.

Air-conditioned waiting room for the airport bus

Baku

Azerbaijan's capital city is worth a few days' visit. The city is clean and spacious. It has preserved a lot of its old architecture while adding many new unique modern buildings and structures. Although there are communist-era buildings in the outer neighborhoods, if you wander around the city center, it can be hard to imagine this city was once a part of the Soviet Union.

For accommodation, we would recommend booking something near Fountain Square. It is centrally located and has a good selection of restaurants within a short walking distance. It is also the starting point for a free daily city walking tour of Baku's Old City. https://bakufreetour.com/

The following are among the city's highlights:

Fountain Square - A large public square filled with shops and restaurants.
The Old City - Baku's Old City is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Apart from wandering through its street maze, you can visit the Palace of the Shirvanshahs for a moderate admission. The Maiden Tower is also open to tourists, however, all you get for your admission is a view. You can get a great view at the highest point in the Old City near the palace.
Baku Promenade - The waterfront area in front of the Old City is a pleasant place to take a walk. Attractions here include a Mini-Venice and Azerbaijan's Carpet Museum. Kids especially might enjoy the Caspian Waterfront Mall. The peculiar-looking building contains more than just shops; it also has a lot of fun activities such as a race car track and multi-story slides.
Shikhov Beach - Although Baku is a coastal city, there are no beaches near its center. If you want to swim in the Caspian Sea, the closest beach is about a 15-minute taxi ride south along the coast. It is beyond the scope of the Baku metro, although there is a city bus that goes there. Just offshore at the beach are a few tall oil rigs. That made us a little reluctant to enter the water. However, the water is clean enough that you might spot schools of small fish in the shallow water. Shikhov also has a water park.
Baku Funicular - The only funicular in Azerbaijan that can take you to the upper part of the city. It drops you off next to Martyr's Lane and the Flame Towers. There is also a long stairway adjacent to the funicular if you prefer some exercise.

Restaurants

Baku is a great food city. There is a wide selection of international cuisine options, but we stuck with restaurants that serve local dishes. Three restaurants we ate at stood out. By coincidence, these picks also accepted either credit or debit cards. (Our foreign bank cards got rejected at several places.)

Nergiz Restaurant, Fountain Square, 9 Tərlan Əliyarbəyov, https://nergizrestoran.az/ This was our favorite restaurant in Azerbaijan. Their menu speaks for itself (see their website.) We especially enjoyed their "Pomegranate Govurma." The restaurant is in a cavern underneath the street level. In hindsight, we might have considered dining here every evening of our stay.
Fisincan Cafe Restaurant, 63 Nizami St. We had a little trouble finding this restaurant. It is on the corner Mirza Ibrahimov Street.
Borani Restaurant: This is actually a restaurant chain. It has an extensive menu of good, very inexpensive meals. It is also a good place for just dessert.

The Fire Temple at Ateshgah

There are a few unusual attractions near Baku on the Absheron Peninsula. On our last day in Baku, we visited the Ateshgah of Baku. At the center of the complex is a fire temple. In the past, this was a place of worship for local Zoroastrians and visiting Hindu merchants. (Fire is considered sacred in both religions.) The peripheral walls of the complex contain many small rooms. These rooms now hold exhibits that explain the history of the temple and the surrounding area. Overall, we spent about an hour here.

The Ateshgah is in Sarakny, a suburb 10 miles from the center of Baku. Because of its remoteness, online sources such as Viator offer expensive, overpriced tours that combine visits to Ateshgah and Yanar Dag. However, both places are very trivial to reach by public transportation. To get to Ateshgah, we took the metro to Koroglu station and then got onto the 184 bus. There are many buses at Koroglu. The 184 bus boards by the car overpass. Take the bus to the last stop. It drops you off within about 100 meters of the temple entrance. (If you are a foreign tourist, the bus driver will make sure you know where to go!) Adults pay a nominal fee to enter the sites, while kids enter for free. The ticket office sometimes offers English-speaking tours for an additional charge. However, there are so many signs and videos that it is not essential to have a tour guide.

A different bus from Koroglu can take you to Yanar Dag, a burning mountain. Natural gas seeping up to the earth's subsurface causes this phenomenon. Note, however, that the bus from Koroglu to Yanar Dag takes nearly an hour. Since the site is only worth about a 10-minute look, the most practical choice is to hire a round-trip Bolt taxi. Unfortunately, we did not have time to fit a stop at Yanar Dag into our schedule.

Qusar

Qusar is the name of both a city and district in the northeast. Although the many popular tourist destinations in Azerbaijan (e.g., Ganja, Shaki, Gobustan) overshadow Qusar, it is a unique part of the country that we think merits at least a 2-night visit. With frequent direct marshutkas from Baku, it is also more accessible. The journey takes only about 3 hours.

The majority of the people who live here are Lezgins. While they are predominately Muslim, like the Azeri majority, their language and culture are very distinct. The majority of tourists to the area visit the nearby Shadag Mountain Resort during the winter ski season. Another major draw is the Laza-Kuzun hiking trail, which is best to trek during warmer months. Although it is not a large city, because the layout runs along a river, distances between points can be far. However, taxis are plentiful and inexpensive if you are here without a rental car.

Food and Restaurants:

The most distinctive Lezgin dish to try in Qusar is "chkan." It is a type of pie stuffed primarily with meat, potatoes, and a few other ingredients. Eat is easy to find since most restaurants in Qusar serve it. Cornelian cherry juice is another local specialty. Unlike the bright red color of the unusual fruit, the juice is dark brown. We found it for sale in a supermarket, bottled by a local company.

Because it is a tourist city, there is a good selection of restaurants. If you want something quick, Turkish-style doner kebab sandwich shops are everywhere. For a bigger meal, we chose Xidir Restaurant on Qusar-Laza Road. (On some websites, it is listed as "Khydyr Restaurant.") Not having experienced the competition, we cannot verify that this is the best restaurant in Qusar, but we were very impressed!

Laza and Kuzun are small remote mountain villages about 20 miles east of Qusar. One of the best things to do here is a hike. We chose the trail that leads from Laza to Kuzun. Classified as "medium hard," this trail is about 4 miles long and can be completed in less than three hours. Of course, the scenery is magnificent.

We hired a taxi to take us from Qusar to Laza. The same driver agreed to pick us up from Kuzun, which was very convenient. The cost was about $35, including a tip. A rental car would have been impractical. (I doubt we would have the energy to make a round-trip hike on the trail to return to our car!) Additionally, the final stretch of the road to Laza is unpaved and rugged. I would have been very nervous about damaging the rental car.

We recommend starting in Laza. It has a higher elevation than Kuzun, so hiking toward Kuzun is less strenuous. The Lezgin locals have a reputation for being very warm and hospitable. In our experience, this proved true. After finishing our hike, a Kuzun resident took the time to chat with us for quite a while!

Extensions to Our Itinerary

One week was not enough time to see everything we wanted to see. The following were the top places we considered including on our itinerary:

Gobustan: This national park can be an easy day trip from Baku. It is about an hour's drive along the southwest coast from the capital. The park is famous for both its mud volcanoes and prehistoric petroglyphs.
Candy Cane Mountains: We intended to visit these as a detour on our way to Qusar. Without a rental car, these were not easily accessible. The colors are so dramatic that these mountains are conspicuous from a daytime airplane flight into Baku from Georgia.
Shirvan National Park: Africa is not the only place where you can find gazelles living in the wild. This park is less than a two-hour drive southwest of Baku and is an excellent place to spot native wildlife.
Ganja: Azerbaijan's second largest city also has a history that dates back more than a millennium. Had the land border between Azerbaijan and Georgia been open, we would undoubtedly have stopped here for one or two nights. Ganja lies roughly halfway between Baku and Tbilisi.

Fantastic Family Trips