Visiting Azerbaijan: Worth It and Safe for Tourists?
Browse more guides: Azerbaijan travel | Asia destinations I went to Azerbaijan with low expectations and came back rearranging my mental map of the Caucasus. People I trust kept telling me it was complicated, that the country had just come out of a 2020 war and a 2023 operation, and that I should be careful about where I pointed my camera. Some of that was true. A lot of it was not. This is my honest assessment after close to three weeks split across Baku, Quba, Sheki, Lankaran, and drives toward the high villages near the Russian border. I'm not selling you Azerbaijan. I'm also not warning you off. The reality is more interesting than either of those takes, and the safety picture changes depending on which corner of the country you're in. What Azerbaijan Actually Feels Like When You Land I flew in to Heydar Aliyev International on an overnight from Istanbul. The terminal is glass and curves, closer to a small Gulf airport than to anything I had pictured for a former ...