Gobustan & Mud Volcanoes Half-Day Private Tour

Highlights

Inclusions

Itinerary

1. Whenever we reach to Gobustan area, we go to the Mud Volcanoes. Home to nearly a third of the world's mud volcanoes, Azerbaijan features a messy, bubbling, and sometimes explosive landscape. Mud volcanoes are closely associated with hydrocarbon and petrochemical stores underground, hence the gas trying to escape to the surface. A few of these gas leaks are constantly on fire, shooting small perpetual flames into the air, and some believe that these perpetual flames are strongly connected to the appearance of the Zoroastrian religion in Azerbaijan some 2,000 years ago. Every 20 years or so, one of these mud/gas volcanoes will ignite deep below the surface and create a massive explosion. While generally not dangerous to people, as they are far outside of most city centers, it is believed that six shepherds and over 2,000 sheep were killed by a mud volcano in Bozdagh, Azerbaijan.

   30 min

2. After coming back from Mud Volcanoes, we go first to the Gobustan museum, and after spending some time there, we go to the Gobustan Rock Art (open-air museum). Gobustan State Reserve, located west of the settlement of Gobustan, about 40 miles southwest of the centre of Baku, was established in 1966 when the region was declared a national historical landmark of Azerbaijan in an attempt to preserve the ancient carvings, mud volcanoes, and gas-stones in the region. Gobustan State Reserve is very rich in archeological monuments, the reserve has more than 6,000 rock carvings, which depict primitive people, animals, battle-pieces, ritual dances, bullfights, boats with armed oarsmen, warriors with lances in their hands, camel caravans, pictures of sun and stars, on the average dating back to 5,000-20,000 years.

   1.5 h

3. On the way back from Gobustan, we will stop at the site of the World’s First Industrially Drilled Oil Well, an important landmark in the history of the global oil industry.

   15 min

Cancellation

Free cancellation up to 24 hours before the experience starts, for a full refund.

Reviews

Ratings come from 4 reviews collected by our booking partner. They are travellers' own words, in the order they were written — never reordered to flatter the experience.

Know before you go

How it compares in Baku

• Its from-price is 31% below the median of the 783 experiences we list in Baku.
• It is shorter than most of them.
• By number of reviews it ranks 265 of 783.
• The operator lists free cancellation on it.

About Baku

Baku is Azerbaijan's capital on the Caspian Sea, where a walled medieval old town sits beside oil-era mansions and glass towers shaped like flames.

The walled Old City, Icherisheher, is a UNESCO-listed maze of lanes with the Maiden Tower and the Palace of the Shirvanshahs, both medieval. Beyond the walls, grand mansions from the oil boom of the late nineteenth century line the streets, and a long boulevard runs beside the Caspian. The three Flame Towers glow on the skyline, and Zaha Hadid's curving Heydar Aliyev Centre is a landmark of modern architecture.

Top-ranked sights in Baku: Bibi-Heybat Mosque (Bibiheybet Mescidi), Yanar Dag, Baku Old City (Icherisheher).

See all 783 experiences in Baku