How to See the Gobustan Mud Volcanoes in Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan is a country of contrasts with modern architecture, historical buildings and a mixture of cultures. You’re likely to start your adventure in the capital city of Baku and there are a lot of interesting things to see there. One of the more unique places to visit while in Baku is the mud volcanoes in Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan is known as the ‘Land of Fire’ due to its large supply of oil and gas. ‘Azer’ means fire and because of the country’s rich natural gas, there are continuous fires that burn across the land in certain areas. This also led the locals to become fire-worshippers back in the day.

Mud volcanoes are an indicator of oil rich lands and Azerbaijan has the world’s largest concentration of mud volcanoes with over 300 being found within the country.

What are Mud Volcanoes?

If you don’t know what a mud volcano is, I didn’t either. But it’s pretty much what you would expect it to be.

The gases underneath the earth’s surface can build up with pressure and push towards the surface causing mud volcanoes. It can also cause the gases at the surface to ignite and continue burning. While some can erupt like what you would associate with a volcano, a lot of them bubble at the surface.

The mud isn’t hot–we saw lots that were bubbling and some that had spewed over causing mud ‘lava’.

There are three types of mud volcanoes:

• Salse – volcanoes have more water and gas inside of them.
• Sopka – they have a smaller hole but a lot of mud inside
• Gryphon – have a larger hole with non-stop bubbling mud

If I had to guess, I’d say some of the one’s we saw were gryphons. No scientific knowledge to back that up, they were just bubbling ha.

The Mud Volcanoes in Azerbaijan

There’s several ways to see mud volcanoes as they are located around Azerbaijan. A large concentration of them are outside of Gobustan National Park. You can go to a more remote area in the middle of the desert where you’re free to walk around and get up close. Or you can go to a newly built complex to see some from a boardwalk.

If you’re on a tour of the Caucasus, it’s likely that Gobustan is on your itinerary as well as the mud volcanoes.

Middle of Nowhere Mud Volcanoes

Here’s the thing. The mud volcanoes are located out in the desert and there are only dirt roads that lead out there. However, there’s not really just one road out there, it’s more of a free for all with roads being made wherever tracks have been before (or so it seems). There’s also zero signage. It’s more of an off-roading type experience.

With that being said, I highly recommend doing what our tour group did. While we were in a van and had to swap out for smaller cars, I’d recommend doing the same so 1. you don’t beat your own car up and 2. so you go with someone who knows how to get there.

We jumped into some old, beat up Soviet cars (about 3) with drivers that didn’t speak English and they all took off into the desert along different paths. It was like a race to see who could get there the fastest.

We were rip-roaring through the desert at high speeds when all the sudden another car comes out of nowhere and leaves us in a dust trail. There were no seatbelts, our windshield had a massive crack in it and when we arrived our driver pulled out a jug of water to throw on our burned up engine. It was great haha.

The mud volcanoes there are literally in the middle of nowhere and you’re free to walk around wherever. You can climb all over them and get right up close to see the bubbling mud.

Driving in the Desert

If you have a guide and want to drive a Soviet car in the desert, have them try and work that out beforehand. Our guide told us it was a possibility and to give them a few manats on the way back. Looking back, I should have tried to do it even though I have no business trying to drive a stick. But an old beat up car in the desert would have been a great place to learn!

At one point, our driver said something in either Azeri or Russian and we assumed it was about someone else taking a turn behind the wheel. One of the women in my car decided she would try it and forked over several bills to him. We assumed he would pull over eventually but he never did. Evidently he was just asking us for a tip instead lol.

Our tour group was in three different cars and of those three, only one guy successfully got to switch seats.

Mud Volcanoes at a Complex

If you don’t really want to go the adventurous route (though I will say it was a highlight for our group!), you can go to the newly built Mud Volcanoes Tourism Complex. It opened in the summer of 2024 and has a Natural History Museum and Information Center.

There are several exhibits to see inside and you can walk through and an outdoor circuit that takes you around some of the mud volcanoes. You’ll be constrained to the walkway right out from the complex. But you can also rent quad bikes of golf carts if you want to take them out in the desert to see some mud volcanoes closer up.

Things to Know

• Can you touch the mud volcanoes? Yes! The mud isn’t hot, just messy.
• There’s no fee if you go see the mud volcanoes in the middle of nowhere–just a taxi fee (which I’m not sure how much we paid since it was technically part of our tour)
• General tickets to the Tourism Complex are 15 AZN ($9 USD)

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