Sheki
Azerbaijan
A Silk Road town in the Caucasus foothills with a khan’s palace of stained glass and no nails, a caravanserai to sleep in, and a sweet the town is named for
Photo by Zaur Ibrahimov on Unsplash
Photos by FREEYORK 🌎, Etienne Dayer, FREEYORK 🌎 and Etienne Dayer on Unsplash
Best time to visit all of Azerbaijan
April to June, and September to October (summer is hot and the mountain villages are the escape; winter is snow on the passes)
Climate month by month
The next sixteen daysOpen-Meteo
Average high and low · °C
Rainfall · mm per month
Best months to visit This month · wettest 95mm in May
Where it is
41.19°N, 47.17°E Open in Google Maps
Things to do
A week easily- See the stained glass in the Khan’s Palace in the morning light
- Sleep in the caravanserai
- Eat piti in a clay pot
- Walk to the Albanian church at Kish
- Buy halva from the bazaar workshop
Sheki travel tipsthe general rules
Currency budget Azerbaijan
Good valueManat, pegged to the dollar at 1.7. Banks and the exchange booths in Baku change dollars, euros and roubles at a posted rate; outside the capital change before you go. Cards are taken everywhere in Baku and in the hotels and restaurants of the regions, less so at the bazaar.
ATMs & cards
Kapital Bank, ABB and Pasha Bank machines take foreign cards and mostly do not charge; decline the conversion. Withdraw in Baku before the regions, where the machine may be in the next town.
Avoid these
- the standalone machines in the old city, which charge and push conversion
Use these instead
- Kapital Bank
- ABB
- Pasha Bank
Bank machines mostly do not charge foreign cards; decline the conversion. Withdraw in the capital before the regions.
Wherever you are: if the machine offers to charge you in your home currency, decline. That is dynamic currency conversion and the rate is set by the ATM's operator, not your bank.
Safety all of Azerbaijan
Very safeVery comfortable and small. The mountain road to Ilisu has drops and the weather; the border zone with Russia begins beyond it and is not for wandering. That is the list.
Where to walk, and where to pay attention (3 areas)
Comfortable, including after dark
Worth more attention
- the road beyond Ilisu — the border zone with Russia; a permit and a guard
Our own assessment, not a sourced index.
Entry & visa Azerbaijan visa rules
e-Visa requiredup to 30 daysUSD 25
The ASAN e-visa, issued in three working days for USD 25 (or an hour for a fee), single entry, thirty days. A stay of over fifteen days must be registered with the migration service, which the hotel does. An Armenian stamp in the passport brings questions; a visit to Nagorno-Karabakh from the Armenian side is a refusal.
Other passports
No visa neededup to 90 days
e-Visa requiredup to 30 daysUSD 25
Most passports can use the e-visa portal; the rest go through an embassy.
How to get it: Apply at evisa.gov.az — the government portal — at least a week ahead, print it, and show it at passport control. Lookalike sites charge three times the fee.
Entry rules change often and depend on your passport, not where you live — the official page above is the authority, and the airline checks before you board.
Health & emergencies all of Azerbaijan
Good but costlyRequired to enter
No vaccinations are required for entry from Europe or North America.
Jabs worth having, and what happens if you need a doctor
Worth having
- Hepatitis A
- Tetanus up to date
- Rabies for the mountain villages
Getting treated
Good private clinics in Baku used to foreigners and paid in cash or by insurance; adequate in the regional towns; the mountain villages rely on a drive back. Insurance for the repatriation.
Tap water is not drunk in Baku; bottled is everywhere. The summer humidity off the Caspian is the thing that lays visitors low. Khinalug is at 2,300 m and the nights are cold in any month.
Orientation, not medical advice — entry rules change and what you need depends on your own history. Check with a travel clinic four to six weeks before you go.
Food tip
Very goodPiti — mutton and chickpeas cooked in a clay pot and eaten in two courses — is the town’s dish, and Sheki halva, layered pastry and nuts, is what everybody carries home. The bazaar tea houses, and the caravanserai courtyard at dusk.
Getting around
Limited- BoltWorks here
- YangoWorks here
- UberNot here
- GrabNot here
- From the airport
- From the airport to the centre 20–30 manat on the app, or the airport bus for 1.5
- Against a taxi
- Far cheaper than the purple London-style cabs, which are metered and charge for it, and than the airport kerb.
The apps work in the capital and thin out in the regions, where any car is a taxi and the fare is agreed first.
Time zone and your working day
Asia/Baku — 8 hours ahead of you
0 hours of overlap with a 09:00–17:00 day where you are — — your time, — theirs.
No overlap with a 09:00–17:00 day where you are. Working from here means one of you keeps odd hours — their day starts at 01:00 on your clock.
office hours both at once night
Their 09:00–17:00 is 01:00–09:00 on yours.
The difference from the UK, Europe, the US and ten more
Worked out against America/New York, which is where this request looks like it came from.
Internet speedall of Azerbaijan
Why these are Azerbaijan's numbers and not Sheki's
Home broadband — Fair. Video calls and streaming for one or two people — fine for a holiday, thin for a household working. Broadband here runs at 72% of the global median of 130 Mbps.
Mobile data — Fair. Maps, calls and streaming; tethering a laptop works for an hour, not a day. Mobile runs at about the global median of 109 Mbps.
Ookla publishes no separate figure for Sheki, so these are medians for all of Azerbaijan. Cities usually beat the national number and remote islands and national parks fall well below it — treat this as the country's shape, not as a measurement of the street you will be staying on.
A median is the middle of every connection tested there, old copper and new fibre together — so in a country part-way through laying fibre it sits well below what a fibre line actually delivers, and a rental on one can run several times this number. Half of the connections are slower; a fibre flat is rarely one of them. It says what a place can do, not what your rental does, so every listing on Holistay carries its own measured speed and the date it was tested.
Getting online: Airalo or Holafly — a data eSIM for Azerbaijan, installed before you fly and working the moment you land.
Source: Ookla Speedtest Global Index · measured June 2026
Must-see
Nearby day trips
Say a few words
Azerbaijani
- HelloSalamsa-LAM
- PleaseZəhmət olmasazah-MAT ol-ma-SA
- Thank youTəşəkkür edirəmta-shak-KUR e-di-RAM
- Thanks (easier)Sağ olsagh OL
5 more phrases
- Yes / NoBəli / XeyrBA-li / KHAYR
- Excuse meBağışlayınba-ghish-la-YIN
- How much is it?Bu neçəyədir?bu ne-cha-ya-DIR
- DeliciousDadlıdırdad-li-DIR
- GoodbyeSağ olunsagh o-LUN
A Turkic language in Latin script, close enough to Turkish that Turkish speakers manage; Russian is spoken by everyone over forty in Baku and is the fallback in the regions. English is common in the capital’s hotels and among the young.
Religion
Shia Muslim, in the most secular Muslim country there is
Nominally 95% Muslim and observance is light: alcohol is everywhere, the Baku bars are full, and headscarves are rare in the capital. The mosques are visited with shoulders and knees covered; the regions are a little more conservative than Baku, and the Mountain Jews of Quba are a community of their own.
Do's and don'ts
Do
- Accept the tea, in the pear-shaped glass, and the jam beside it
- Greet with a handshake, men to men; wait for a woman to offer
- Take your shoes off in a home and at the mosque
- Stand for the elderly on the metro; everyone does
Don't
- Do not raise Armenia or Karabakh; the war is recent and the feeling is deep
- Do not photograph the oil installations, the metro or anything military
- Do not blow your nose at the table
- Do not put bread on the ground or throw it away
Where to stay in Sheki
No Holistay rentals in Sheki yet — the platform is just opening up. Every listing here will have a video tour and the option to negotiate the nightly price directly with the host.
In the meantime, here is Sheki on the sites that do have the inventory — each search is already filled in:
- Booking.com hotels, guesthouses and apartments — the widest coverage almost everywhere
- Airbnb whole homes and apartments, and the better option for a week or more
How to get there
Fly into Gabala GBB
1h 15mfrom the airport· 70 km as the crow flies
1h 15 by road.
Also worth pricing: Heydar Aliyev, Baku GYD — five hours, and where the flights are.
Google Flights · Rome2Rio for the trains, buses and ferries as well as the flights
