Our recommendations and our ideal itinary

Our ideal agenda for Iran (15 days)

This would be our agenda after our great trip to Iran.  Our opinions on visited sites you can find in previous texts.

• Arrival by plane to Shiraz: with Persepolis 2 days stay
• Kerman: 2 day's stay with visit to Rayen and Shahdad Kalut desert. I would recommend taking a taxi/driver to Yazd to see many nice places (incl Varzaneh desert) on the road (plus 1 day).
• Yazd: 1,5 days stay.
• Isfahan: 2 day stay.
• Kashan: 1 day.
• Tehran: 1,5 days. Don’t miss Darband!
• Tabriz: 2 days.

This would be an agenda for non-budget travellers (using the taxi/car).

Some of our general recommendations and comments

• Getting in:
  • Iran is very safe (also for women).
  • For most of European countries buying the visa at airport works (but formal (registered) letter of invitation is needed.
  • In high season hotel reservations are needed (even off season recommended).
  • Buy local SIM card in airport.
  • Exchange rate on airport 1^st floor is not so bad for initial exchange.  But take benefit of Iranian tourist card as most of shops have card terminals.
• Getting around:
  • Night trains and inter-city buses are reliable and generally good quality. But it is advised to buy tickets some days ahead.
  • For local travel arrangements ask you hotel (very often they have some good deals). Travel agencies prices are usually ca 30 % higher (but you will get English speaking service).
  • Taxi or car with driver costs usually 50-60 eur per day. When you are 2+ it would make sense to use it going around (good time saver).
  • In Tehran metro is the best for going around (but without luggage – during pike hours metro is crowded and good metro map is recommended when using it).
  • The best for shopping is Isfahan, but bazaars in many places are worth to visit.

Our overall impression of Iran

Our overall impression of Iran is positive. We had been reading about it and listening other peoples experiences, so we were quite prepared for the trip. And everyone were saying how friendly and helpful locals are. This is exactly how it was. Even though there were some minor misunderstandings and annoying people, but you get that anywhere where you go. And there is also the cultural differences, but I guess as a male you won´t experience cultural shock there.

There are some things that drew our attention overall:

• When you go to the bazaars and stay looking something for a little longer, the traders are not trying to get to your head to sell you something, rather it happens more that you have to go ask yourself some help from the trader.

• When you talk to someone, even if they didn´t speak English, they would try to manage somehow or find someone who would speak. It is not always easy, but in the end you usually get the idea what they are trying to say. There are those who speak fluently as well, but the smaller the place, the lower the chances finding someone who speaks any at all.

• When you ask for some help on the street, can´t find a place and need some directions, even if they don´t speak English and you point the place on the map where you wanna go (preferably map has both Farsi and western names on them) they will point the way or even in some cases take you all the way there, without asking anything for return. But sometimes it happens as well that none of the locals know the place and the map is not so clear to them (their own maps tend to be little bit different as well, than the western ones, as they sometimes leave out small streets, alleys and you can´t measure distances). Lonely planet´s maps are usually quite good, but can be confusing as well. Local maps are unreliable, but tend to have more concentrated/extra information on them.

• When you are looking for a good place to eat, do not set your hopes high, if you are not in Darband, Esfahan or some parts of Tehran and Shiraz as well. This was probably one of the challenges on our trip, but this wasn´t culinary trip anyways, so we managed. And forget about our usual fast food, it is impossible to find. It is quite usual that the restaurants that you find in TripAdvisor do not exist anymore, so you can´t rely on that, especially if you are not in Tehran, Esfahan or Shiraz.

• When you are taking a taxi from the airport, make sure you do agree on the price on the spot, do not believe anything they say about taximeter or traffic or what ever, they will screw you. Probably the taxi drivers are the ones you need to be careful with during your trip or otherwise it will turn out to be more expensive than you hoped for. But then again travelling longer distances and if you are 2+, it is usually worth it to take a taxi instead of a bus, as you can have stops where you want, pass through places or even the taxi driver can suggest some places to visit sometimes.

• When you want to buy something from the bazaar, in our experience there is one place only for it and that is Esfahan, but if you have something specific, there are some area specific things in local bazaars, be sure to ask.

• Hotels in Iran are lacking. There is not enough of them and they are pretty poor quality (but usually clean and friendly). So this is somewhat disappointment. Always take a star or even two down from what the Iranian hotels are promising, to get to compare it to western standards. This is definitely one thing Iran needs to improve on if they are hoping for more tourism.

I general we are very happy with our trip and it was well worth the time and would be a place to return some future date, as the country is huge and there are still many more places to see.

Qom

We got very good deal with one taxi company and for 50 eur we got fast and safely to Qom. It is mentioned to be second holiest city after Mashad. You can see and feel it. Streets are crowded by women in black chador. The main reason is, it is required to enter Fatima-al-Massumeh shrine. In other places women could enter just in headscarves. It is very nice and really busy place. We saw people queuing to touch mausoleum of Fatima (and others). We also noticed more than usual handicapped people. As it is one of the holiest places in the region, there are many people also from neighbouring countries. We also talked to Bahraini family and Iraqi man. The father of the Bahraini family spoke good english, but others not so good, we managed though, using hands and google translate. The Iraqi man was doing his military service in there, as he had escaped from his country because of the war and living in Iran now. He was saying that he will not return to Iraq before the situation would go better in there. Until then he would help his country as much as he could, safely from Iran.


As it was almost the only site to visit, we just walked around and bought some herbal tea and plant essences. We didn´t find a hotel for our last night in Darband, Tehran, so we just spent one more night in Qom and took taxi in the morning to the airport. In general it probably took about as long going there from Qom as it would have from Darband. As we still wanted to go and see around the area there we just had a day trip there, visited the places we wanted to and came back for the night. This is also something to consider as hotels in Darband are not so cheap, though the quality would reach to the western standards probably.

Kashan

We took a taxi from Abyaneh to Kashan. This was a first town what was almost dead between 14 and 17. Even bazaar was closed.

Fin Garden (Bagh-e Fin) is average classical Persian garden. But for locals it is like amusement park. It was very crowded there. We took 1 hour walk around, looked into local bath (like museum) shot some photos and back to the centre.

Aqa Bozorg mosque and Abu-Lu'lu'ah shrine were quite usual - nothing special. Sultan Amir Ahmad bathhouse (hammam) was interesting - pretty big, nice architecture. Khan-e Abbasian house is good example how wealthy merchants lived that time. It is bigger than it looks at first glance. It was a first place is saw special cellar for "treasury" (actually 2).

Trip to Abyaneh

We decided not to waist our time to take a bus and we took a taxi (taxi is generally very cheap in Iran and you can usually also bargain) to Abyaneh. From different forums we got it is very special place. But we were disappointed - it was just a bit different half-empty Iranian village with mostly elderly people. In one and half hours everything is seen what is worth to see. One of the differences was there was in many places street sale - all kind of local pretty low quality handicraft.

We had a lunch in Abyaneh hotel. Hotel did not look better than ours, food and service were also poor. But we enjoyed shisha evening on terrace of Viuna hotel.  Nice people and service around and quite many all kind of tourists as well. Thing to bring up would be the view and location. It is located in the mountains/valley and it makes the climate much more tolerable when it is really hot everywhere else.

All in all it might be reasonable stop-over going to Kashan.