Tours to neighbouring countries

Borders, visas and documents

Each of the three neighbours has its own rules, and they depend on your nationality. Citizens of many countries enter Armenia without a visa. Azerbaijan often requires an e-visa, which has to be obtained in advance. Turkey is a separate matter again.

Two points matter especially. First: the land border between Armenia and Azerbaijan is closed - you cannot cross directly from one to the other and have to come back through Georgia. Second: the regime on Azerbaijan's land borders has changed repeatedly in recent years, so we always verify the current status before planning anything.

How the route is built

The shortest option is Haghpat and Sanahin - an hour from the border, and they work as a day trip. Yerevan asks for two or three days; Baku for at least three, because the drive is 550 km. For Baku we often suggest flying or taking the train instead.

The transport is ours for the whole route, and so is the driver. You have a guide on both sides of the border: ours on the Georgian side and a local partner on the other, because the law restricts foreign guides from working. None of that logistics is visible to you - it is a single booking.

Armenia: Yerevan, Geghard and Garni

Tbilisi to Yerevan is about 270 kilometres and five to six hours including the border. The main crossing is Sadakhlo-Bagratashen and it is the busiest point on the Georgia-Armenia stretch.

Geghard monastery is 40 kilometres from Yerevan and on the UNESCO list. Its distinction is that part of it is cut directly into the rock - chambers, columns and a dome. The main church dates from 1215.

Garni is nearby and belongs to an entirely different era: a colonnaded temple of Hellenistic type, first century AD. An earthquake in 1679 brought it down and it was rebuilt between 1969 and 1975. Both fit into one day and you are back in Yerevan by evening.

Lake Sevan and Dilijan

Sevan lies at about 1,900 metres and is one of the largest high-altitude freshwater lakes in the world. Because of that altitude it stays cool even in summer and the water is cold for swimming.

Sevanavank monastery stands on the peninsula and dates from 874. From there the panorama of the lake fits into a single frame - it is the most photogenic point on the route.

Dilijan is half an hour from Sevan and is a completely different landscape: forested mountains, mist, greenery. It is often called 'Armenian Switzerland' and after the lake it makes a good contrast. A night in Dilijan is worth it if you have two days.

Haghpat and Sanahin: the monasteries of Lori

These two monasteries are a few kilometres apart, in the Lori region, and are listed together by UNESCO. Both are 10th century and count as key monuments of medieval Armenian architecture.

The practical advantage is that they are close to the border - about 180 kilometres from Tbilisi. So this is a day-trip route and needs no overnight in Yerevan.

Which is exactly why we offer Haghpat and Sanahin to anyone interested in Armenia who does not have two or three days. It is the shortest introduction to the country, and you are back in Tbilisi the same evening.

Azerbaijan: Baku and the old city

Tbilisi to Baku is about 550 kilometres. There are two crossings: the Red Bridge near Marneuli and Lagodekhi-Balakan from the Kakheti side. The second is more convenient if you are coming from Kakheti.

Baku's old city - Icherisheher - is on the UNESCO list. Inside it are the Maiden Tower and the Shirvanshahs' Palace, and around it the Baku of the 21st century: the Flame Towers and contemporary architecture.

That contrast is itself the subject of the tour - a medieval city inside a metropolis built with oil money. Baku needs a minimum of two full days on top of the travelling. In a single-day format Baku is physically impossible.

Gobustan and the mud volcanoes

Gobustan is 60 kilometres from Baku and is on the UNESCO list for its rock carvings. The petroglyphs are tens of thousands of years old and depict hunting, dancing and boats.

The mud volcanoes are in the same area. Azerbaijan has one of the highest concentrations of them in the world - a significant share of all the mud volcanoes on the planet are in this country, and some of them are right around Gobustan.

They are cold rather than hot - that is the commonest mistaken expectation. The mud bubbles slowly and occasionally spits every few seconds. Getting there needs a 4x4, because the last stretch is unpaved. Wear shoes you do not mind dirtying.

Sheki and Lahij

Sheki lies on the southern slope of the Caucasus and its historic centre entered the UNESCO list in 2019. The principal building is the Khan's Palace, from 1797.

The palace's distinction is shebeke - coloured glass set in a wooden lattice assembled without a single nail or any glue. Thousands of elements are simply locked into one another, and it is still made the same way today, by hand and with the same technique.

Lahij is up in the mountains, in a narrow gorge, and is known for its coppersmiths. The streets are cobbled and the workshops are open - the sound you hear there is hammering. The road to Lahij is narrow and full of switchbacks, so the middle of the day goes on getting there and back.

Kars and Ani

Ani is a historic Armenian capital that today lies in Turkish territory and has been on the UNESCO list since 2016. It is an abandoned city on the edge of a gorge, along the border.

It is reached only from Kars - about 400 kilometres from Tbilisi, via the Vale-Türkgözü crossing near Akhaltsikhe. There is no direct route to Ani from Armenia, because the Armenia-Turkey border is closed.

That gives the route a particular shape: Ani is approached from Georgia and not from Armenia, even though the map makes Armenia look closer. Two or three days are needed, with a night in Kars.

Closed borders: what that means in practice

Two borders in the region are closed and that determines directly how a route is built. There is no land crossing in operation between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

The Armenia-Turkey border has also been closed since the early 1990s. So you cannot go from Yerevan to Kars directly, even though on the map it is two hundred kilometres.

The consequence is that Georgia is the transit hub of this region. If you want two neighbouring countries in one trip, the route will necessarily pass through Tbilisi - and that is exactly why we build it from here rather than from Yerevan or Baku.

Visas and documents by country

Three countries mean three different regimes and it depends on your nationality. Armenia is visa-free for many countries or issues a visa at the border.

Azerbaijan has an electronic visa system and the application is filled in online. Processing usually takes a few working days, so we start it as soon as the route is planned.

For Turkey the rules are separate and again depend on nationality. We check all three against your passport and write it into the offer - the decision to admit you is always the border service's. Your passport needs more than six months of validity left; that applies in all three.

Entry restrictions you should know about

There is one specific matter we warn about directly: Azerbaijan has historically restricted entry for travellers with evidence of having visited Nagorno-Karabakh.

That is not our assessment - it is practical information we check before planning a route. The situation in the region changes, so we confirm it again for each specific date.

Our principle is simple: we do not promise what we do not decide. If there is a risk we explain it beforehand and build the route so that a refusal does not collapse the rest of the plan. In practice that means the trip into the neighbouring country sits at the end of the route rather than in the middle.

Transport: one vehicle or two

You cross the border on foot rather than in the car - that is standard procedure. Our driver leaves you on one side and a local driver meets you on the other.

The reason is administrative: taking a vehicle into another country requires additional documents and insurance, which lengthens the process. Two vehicles is faster.

You carry your own luggage for a few hundred metres at that point - it is the only stretch on the whole route where the suitcase is in your hands. The guide is with you and helps with the formalities. Have a case on wheels; the crossing is asphalt, which makes it easier.

How many days each one needs

Yerevan with Geghard and Garni is two or three days. It technically works in one, but that is ten hours of driving with two hours left for the city - we do not recommend it.

Baku is a minimum of three days and five is comfortable: two days for the city, one for Gobustan and the volcanoes, two for Sheki and Lahij on the way. Distance is the governing factor here and there is no way round it.

The shortest options are Haghpat-Sanahin and Sheki - each one or two days, and both attach naturally to a Georgian route because they are close to the border. Neither needs a plan of its own; they fit into days you already have.

Language and currency in the neighbouring countries

The currency differs in all three: the dram in Armenia, the manat in Azerbaijan, the lira in Turkey. The lari works nowhere, and it is better to change money after the border, in town - the rate at the crossings is usually worse.

Cards work in the cities of all three countries, less so in the regions. In Lahij and the small villages cash is essential.

On language: our guides work in English and Russian in the neighbouring countries too. Russian is still widely spoken in the region, particularly among the middle and older generations. Armenian and Azerbaijani are entirely different languages from each other and have no relation to Georgian either - all three belong to different language families.

How we join this to a Georgian route

A neighbouring country is almost never a tour of its own - it is a continuation of a Georgian route. That is not a marketing formulation but a consequence of geography: Tbilisi is the junction for all three directions.

The typical scheme is: five to seven days in Georgia, then two or three days in Armenia or three to five in Azerbaijan, and back to Tbilisi before departure. That way you use one airport.

Kakheti with Haghpat, or Lagodekhi with Sheki, work together particularly well, because they are physically close. We often propose those pairings when the time budget is tight.

How the character of a tour differs between the three

All three are in the Caucasus, but the rhythm of the tour is completely different. Armenia is compact: from Yerevan to the main sites is an hour and you cover two or three places a day without difficulty.

Azerbaijan is the opposite - a country of distances. Baku is 550 kilometres away, Sheki 300, Gobustan another 60 from Baku. Here most of the day goes on the road and the route has to be built around that.

The Turkish direction is concentrated on a single site - Ani. Everything else is the road towards it. It is the case where two days are spent on one ruined city, and it is worth it.