Istanbul to Baku bus

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<hr>I know i will have to bribe border officials <hr></blockquote>

???!!! I'd be interested to learn how you "know" this, particularly as I've crossed the Georgia / Turkey border a great many times without incident. Do you customarily try to bribe border guards, or will you actually be smuggling something?

There's a daily direct bus from Istanbul to Tbilisi that takes something like 30 hours if all goes well; I've never taken it, but the cost of Istanbul to Hopa (closest town to the Georgian border) is $50 and the cost of Batumi to Tbilisi is $10, so I'd guess the uninterrupted trip would set you back about $60. Googling suggests there's also a bus that will take you all the way from Istanbul to Baku (again, via Georgia, since that's the only way) but you'd really have to be a masochist to be contemplating that, since it's another 13 hours on the road plus whatever amount of time at the border and at stops along the route. Spend at least a day stretching your legs in Georgia... which is a very great deal more interesting than Azerbaijan anyway.

Why do you assume that you will need to bribe officials?

Without indicating your passport, we can't offer an advise about border crossings.

Ruth

Check out airbaltic.lv They fly to Baku for as little as 75€ one-way from Riga and London to Riga is easily done with Ryanair. Even if this costs 140€ altogether, it will be much cheaper than the plane-bus option. Also consider flying with airbaltic to Tiflis and take the train from there to Baku.

Thanks to everone for their replies. I am a British passport holder. I said about the bribes because i have read many a time on here that they would be needed for border posts. I was just explaining that i knew i would have to consider this when it came to costs.

Thanks again all information was extremely helpful

Happy travelling

Phillip

i did the istanbul to baku trip a few weeks ago.

ostensibly there are buses direct from istanbul to baku but in reality nobody will sell you a ticket, just laugh. trust me.

there are plenty of buses to tbilisi, and for some reason all of them (around 5 or so) leave at 7:00 pm, from istanbul (from a particular autogar - i forget the name but ask people for the autogar with buses to tbilisi. the autogar itself is the single worst place in istanbul, so be prepared and preferably bring a turkish speaker or you'll probably get conned)

the bus gets to tbilisi at something like 2:00 in the morning. there's no way you will get a bus or train at this time, so either arrange accomodation in advance or do what i did and meet an absurdly generous georgian on the bus who'll give you a place to stay, feed you, take you around tbilisi in the morning, not let you pay for anything, then put you in the right share-taxi.

the way i got from tbilisi to baku was to take a share-taxi to red bridge, then a bus to baku. i met people taking the share-taxi while i was waiting at the bus station for a minibus. train is probably more convenient, particularly if you don't speak turkish or russian. even if you do speak turkish you may have problems (as i did) with the provincial azeri dialect.

buses from the border to baku leave between 6pm and 8pm only and arrive early the next morning (around 6 am).

you won't get asked for bribes. you may be asked for "tea money" by some azeri conscript at the border, as i was, but this it's strictly forbidden for them to do this so if you just say no and walk through you'll be fine.

as for prices, the istanbul to tbilisi was 60 bucks for me. the share taxi to the georgia/azerbaijan border was a couple of bucks and the bus to baku was 4 shirvan, which is 40,000 old manat, which is 8 new manat, which is around 10US.

don't expect anybody to speak english between tbilisi and baku. in fact, you'd be lucky to find more than 1 or 2 english speakers on the bus from istanbul.

the turkey/georgia border is confusing... you have to get out of the bus, do some customs stuff, wait for the bus to drive a bit, find it, do some more customs stuff, have your bag inspected, then get back on the bus. when you get off, don't walk out the gates or you'll cause lots of problems for the people on your bus, and could very well just lose your bag. the process takes 3 or 4 hours if you're lucky. the azeri border is comparitively a delight. you'll get your passport checked 4 or 5 times by people who really don't need to. the head inspector will take you in to his room and "interview" you which basically consists of being asked if everything is "yaxsi" (good) in your home country.

oh, and make sure that the bus you take from istanbul isn't being loaded with a whole bunch of cargo. this will double or triple your customs time.

and this probably sounds obvious but make sure you have your visa to azerbaijan and your transit visa to georgia in advance. neither can be obtained at the border.

hope this all helps, let me know if you have any questions, and enjoy your 3 fun-filled days on the road!!

oz

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<hr>the turkey/georgia border is confusing... you have to get out of the bus, do some customs stuff, wait for the bus to drive a bit, find it, do some more customs stuff, have your bag inspected, then get back on the bus. when you get off, don't walk out the gates or you'll cause lots of problems for the people on your bus, and could very well just lose your bag. the process takes 3 or 4 hours if you're lucky.<hr></blockquote><blockquote>Quote
<hr>oh, and make sure that the bus you take from istanbul isn't being loaded with a whole bunch of cargo. this will double or triple your customs time.<hr></blockquote>

Just for the record, this is why it makes sense to take one of the frequent Istanbul-Hopa buses, then take a shared taxi to the border, walk across to Sarpi, take another shared taxi to Batumi, and then yet another shared taxi to Tbilisi.

This may sound like a lot of hassle, but by using this method I've crossed the border in less than 10 minutes--particularly easy to do in the middle of the day when there's comparatively little traffic. It would also obviate the problem of arriving in Tbilisi in the middle of the night. The only challenging portion of this might be finding the bus station in Batumi, which is about 1/2 a kilometer from where the shared taxis drop you off, but he'd only need to ask passers-by "gde avtovokzal?" (Russian) or "sad aris avtosadguri?" (Georgian) for them to point the way.

The OP, as a British passport holder, wouldn't need any kind of visa for Georgia, but would for Azerbaijan.

I fully agree with the Air Baltic tip.
London-Riga-Baku for $200 which is a real bargain.
Baku-Brussels via Riga cost me $220 with just a 20 min stop in Riga (luckily no bags to check or they'd never have made it but the airport is small so I and many others did make such tight connections)
If going overland doing the trip in hops is the best idea. Istanbul - Hopa (or Trabzon with minibus Trabzon-Hopa) then in the steps explained by Zabishis.

Just a note re No 6 "take a shared taxi to the border, walk across to Sarpi, take another shared taxi to Batumi."
This is good advice. Last year i walked accross the border at Hopa and it was a bit complicated as explained by No 5 but it didn't take too long. You need your elbows when getting the visa stamped at the desk by the guard (you can't see through his window at the booth).

After I got through the border to Sarpi the fun started. I was pounced on by a group of taxi drivers offering for $20 to take me to Batumi.
I made my way through them looking for a shared taxi. This i didn't find. I did find the tourist office. The guy in charge opened up for me, & said a couple of lines about the sights in the country referring to 3 obviously free tourist maps. A batumi town plan he gave me for free, but hte 2 others he wanted money for. He introduced his friend (standing next to him the whole time) and recommended i use him to go to Batumi, for $20. The door of the tourist office was by the way locked! I decided to go and approached the door saying i'd think about the taxi. The tourist guy insisted that i leave my suitcase with him while i went for a stroll around. It took me a minute or so to convince him that was not going to happen. No threats were made to me, but the situation did not feel at all pleasant. Me being stubborn though convinced him to open up & let me out,maybe cos i did not say no & sort of grunted that i would keep his taxi man in mind.

I walked around & was approached by an old fellow and offered $10 ride to Batumi. The tourist office guy gave me a sour look when he saw me with the guy i was choosing.

The guy was absolutely adamant that i not use the seat belt. Of course the ride to Batumi was a bit of a hell raiser. The fellow wanted more money once i told him i wanted the centre of Batumi. I ended giving him 10 Euros.

Coming back from Batumi to Sarpi crossing i was approached by a tout for a waiting bus to go to Trabzon. I got on the bus & it did take a couple of hours to clear the border then.
It was an interesting experience though. There were some very clued up Georgians who while the rest of us waited in line to be checked, they slowly edged up to the customs man as if also waiting to be checked and when his attention was diverted with his checking, they slipped through to without having their bags being checked.
The customs man was not even on his own, there were 3 other customs men in a huddle having a chat, obviously finding the tedium of the job too much.

" Emniyet garaji".
the Istanbul bus station to Tbilisi and Baku is called " Emniyet garaji", 5 minutes walk from Aksaray square. To get to Aksaray There are trams, plenty of buses and a direct metro from the airport and the main bus station.
A metro ticket costs 1,30 YTL -less than a dollar-.
A bus ride Istanbul-Tbilisi costs 30 or 35 dollars, there are several bus companies. Leave at 19.00. You wait at least one hour at the border. You get to Batumi around 16.00/18.00 and to Tbilisi late at night.