hey all,
me and my girlfriend will be cycling into Iran next week from turkey and were wondering about the exchanging money. we haven't any Euro or dolla, but have accsess to loads of turkish lira. does any one know if turkish lira is an ok base currency to exchange in Iran? i know Euro or dolla would be better, but getting some of those would in tail exchanging lira to dolla, then dolla to rial. which might bring down the total value. Or does anyone know of an ATM in Van which had multiple currencies? any help would be most greatly appreciated.
thank you,
sam and charlie
samgriffiths64
2
TheMohammad
You can change it of course, but not all exchange offices would accept turkish lira, you might find someone that could change around the border, but rates would not be good
You could find shops around Ferdossi Square and Ferdossi st. in Tehran
3
emmeff
You'll need to change your money long before you get to Tehran.
Which border crossing will you use? On the route from Doğubayazıt (Turkey) and Bazargan (Iran) there is a major international border crossing, with exchange offices and other facilities. Bazargan itself is a regional centre and you should have no trouble finding several exchange offices at which you can compare rates.
However, I would hedge things by trying to exchange some currency at the border before leaving Turkey and then some after crossing into Iran. Otherwise, Tabriz is the first major city you will encounter that will offer several exchange offices.
Don't exchange money on the street. As far as I know, it is illegal but also there is no way of checking whether the wad of notes you receive is genuine or not.
When checking the available rates, it's a good idea to have a benchmark. This site seems to give a much better indication of the current rate in Iranian exchange offices than Xe.com does:
5
zafermac
If you plan to stop in big cities like Erzurum or Agri, or even Dogubeyazit, go to regular change office "doviz burosu" and change your Turkish Lira to US Dollars. (Always take recent design notes, later than year 2006, and take big notes as 100 USD, smaller notes have smaller exchange rate) When you cross border, change Dollars to Iranian Toman. I think Tehran rate is better, but you have to negotiate.
check for current rates. دلار denotes US Dollars
7
zafermac
Exchange rate for Turkish Lira to USD dollars will be reasonable, because both the currency is much demanded and everyone can use locally. Iranian Riyal has no market value or very low value in Turkey, it can be sold and buy only Iranian people. Same as Turkish Lira has no market value in Iran. But US Dollars is everywhere accepted as hard currency.
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