Hi! I'm going to Iran in August for around 5 days and wanted to visit Shiraz and Isfahan from Tehran... is it worth me taking a flight to each of these places or is there an easier/better way of doing this?
I will also be flying to Beijing from Tehran after my visit. Does anyone know of a cheap way or alternative of doing this?
Many thanks for you help!
Danny
If you only have 5 days in total, then you need to fly,. There are alternatives (bus/train), but those will take too long and eat away at your time. Essentially, with 5 days you only have one full day for each Shiraz/Persepolis and Isfahan, so there is no time to be lost sitting on trains.
Unfortunately, I don't think I can buy domestic flights in Iran from the UK. Iran Air has informed me that this is the case, because I am travelling to Iran by train. Can anybody help and give me an idea of how much I can expect to pay?
A flight bought locally in Iran will be around $30 per segment. If you pre-book it visa an internet flight booking engine or an Iranian travel agent, the price will be approx. $50 per segment.
Thanks George, that's very helpful!! Of course I'd like to save some money, so do you know how I can purchase them locally? Can I buy them on the day?
You can buy them locally at the airport or at a travel agent. The only problem is that flights are often booked out several days to week in advance, depending if you are travelling on a weekend or close to a major holiday. If you had lots of spare time, and had a flexible schedule, you could easily buy the tickets as you go.
When I went ot Iran all my flights were fully booked and they had even overbooked one flight, so they re-booked me on a later flight that day after I made some fuss (and probably kick someone else off that one).
As you only have 5 days in Iran and thus will have to adhere to a pretty strict schedule, you're better off buying them in advance rather than risk the chance of not getting to see the places you wanted because the flight there happend to be fully booked.
I checked on a flight booking engine and for random dates in May THR-SYZ-IFN-THR is € 88 ($134). Last year I paid € 61 for the same flights when I booked it directly with Iran Air, i.e. the difference is only about € 10 per segment.
