Before our trip

The idea to visit Persia has been in my head pretty long time - long history (it has been great empire), rich in culture and architecture, interesting nature. For different reasons it has been like hidden gem.  Many strange rumours in press did not help to make final decision. Several of my good colleagues made a trip in 2014/2015. In addition to confirming interesting sites to visit, they all assured Iran is more secure than Brussels (that's even before bombing).

We started preparation of the itinerary based on our friends' comments and recommendations. After reading also TripAdvisor forum and some other sites, we prolonged our stay in Iran – 2 weeks instead of 10 days.  We decided to leave Tabriz and trekking for next time and to add several smaller landmarks on our way back from Shiraz to Tehran.

Tips from several TripAdvisor forum posts were extremely useful to prepare and shape our trip. Unfortunately getting invitation/reference number (LOI) and visa took longer (maybe not always). At the very end Dutch travel company Alarco was very efficient (and good in communication) for invitation/reference number and key2persia was very good to book our hotels. Keep in mind that Iran is now "hot destination" for tourists, but according infra is behind the increasing needs/demand so during high season book hotels in main cities well ahead.

Getting visa seems to be pretty often quite a bit of hassle (first of all timing and trips where passport is needed). We followed advice to buy a visa on airport. For that you just need LOI (letter of invitation with registration number) and buy for some 15 EUR local insurance (for US and UK citizen it might not work). I made it in half an hour, for Markus it took longer.

We found LonelyPlanet book and TripAdvisor forum extreamly useful for setting up preparatory work and defining suitable hotels.