Unpredictable hotels in Iran - challenges, divorces, discoveries, and exposures.

Blogger Stanislav Gorbunov writes:

Iran is quite suitable for independent travel. However, there are many nuances here that may seem amazing, absurd, and sometimes even unimaginable to a modern person. It is advisable to learn about them in advance to avoid getting into trouble.

For me personally, the most challenging part during our entire trip in this country was finding hotels and apartments. I am used to planning the route of my trips in advance, booking suitable hotels along the way. Since most of the time we travel either as a couple with my wife or with the whole family including kids, we take the issue of accommodation quite seriously. We read reviews in advance, determine the location, pay attention to small details. Over the past 10 years, we have developed our own algorithm in this matter.

So, in Iran, we had to abandon such a system and rely on chance. After all, global booking systems do not work here, and an Iranian bank card is required for orders on local search pages. You can work with travel agencies on this matter, but it will be expensive and cumbersome.

We took a different path, partly relying on luck and belief in ourselves. And we succeeded, although we experienced quite a few adventures. I will tell you more about everything, as this experience may be useful to someone, and for others, my story will brighten up their workdays.

At the first stage of planning a trip to Iran, I still tried to create a specific itinerary and book hotels. To search for hotels, I used the new system "TripAdvisor" for myself. Iranian hotels are quite well represented there, and you can also read many reviews. Perhaps it is the reviews from there that will help form some opinion about the proposed hotel.

The Iranian hotel business has several distinctive features. Firstly, it is more oriented towards the local population. The long isolation of this country reflects the fact that there are still few foreign tourists here.

Another detail is that almost all hotels provide minimal information about themselves. In Iran, it is not common to take photos of bathrooms or breakfasts. Instead, on the page of almost any hotel, there will be plenty of photos of the lobby and common areas. Only through comments could one still somehow navigate the situation. Moreover, in general, there are still few hotels in Iran, so God forbid you end up there during local holidays, then finding something without a prior reservation will be very difficult.

After selecting the options that interested me, I decided to try to reserve rooms for the necessary dates. And that's when the problems began. As I mentioned before, it is simply impossible to do this with our credit cards on Iranian websites, so I tried to contact the hotels directly. But it wasn't easy! I sent more than 30 emails to different hotels. Only a few responded to me, and I was only able to reserve rooms in two hotels. I had to go to Iran without a clear plan of action...

There were no problems with the first hotel, "Markazi," in Tehran. We found it quite easily based on the pre-printed reservation. By the way, it was on this basis that we were issued Iranian visas at the airport upon arrival from Istanbul. A simple printout of the email with the phone number turned out to be more than enough for this.

We got an epically awful room without a single window but with plenty of doors for 70 euros.

There were even two toilets and a wall cabinet behind them. Don't ask me why there were two toilets in the impoverished little room! I don't know!

Remember this hotel and do not order it under any circumstances. Yes, there is a beautiful lobby and polite staff here, but the plywood doors in the rooms and horrible rooms with poor sound insulation do not at all correspond to their cost.

The next two days we spent in Shiraz. In this city, we managed to pre-book a very decent hotel, Arg Hotel, just a few meters from the ancient bazaar. Both the location, amenities, and the price of 40 € completely satisfied us.

This hotel is originally aimed at foreigners, hence the high level of service. One of its undeniable advantages is the excellent city views from the hotel's roof, where there is a small café. I can confidently recommend this hotel to those planning to visit Shiraz. Just remember one thing.

You should pay for the room only in the local currency. If you decide to pay in dollars or euros, be prepared to overpay by 10-15 percent.

Next, our path led to the ancient city of Yazd, whose ancient center is entirely included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. I could not book a hotel here in advance, but printed out several addresses and decided to find an available room on the spot. But here we were met with disappointment.

The girl at the reception of the very first hotel informed us that there were no available rooms. She offered to help us and immediately called a dozen neighboring hotels, but everywhere we received the disappointing answer - no vacancies! In the end, it seemed like she found us two beds in one of the so-called "dormitories" or, in our terms, a hostel. When we found out their price, we were shocked. 80 euros for one bed in a hostel seemed like an unbelievable price to us. We took the address of that hostel and walked out onto the street in complete confusion.

Such expenses were not part of our plans, so we decided to continue searching. And just five minutes later, at the nearby information center, we were offered accommodation in a traditional Yazd house. We had nothing to lose, so we decided to explore this option. What we saw astonished us!

The entire old town here is built from clay. Many houses here are five to six centuries old. Externally, all the structures here do not look very presentable, but inside them, true masterpieces are sometimes found. Our traditional house also looked from the street like an ordinary clay wall with unusual wooden doors. Only a huge key to them was worth a lot!

Inside, there were several original two-story buildings in the recess. There was their own kitchen, a courtyard with loungers and a date palm, as well as a separate toilet with a shower.

Everything looked slightly weathered with time, but it only added charm.

We stayed in the largest room with many whimsical recesses in the walls and a beautiful stained glass window at the top. In the photo below, you can see my wife's genuine reaction to this true eastern wonder.

There were several more rooms nearby. They told us that there was a possibility that someone else might be accommodated here, but we were lucky, and we spent two days here in complete solitude.

Very unusual here was the access to the roof, which was right in the kitchen.

For this fascinating accommodation option, we were initially offered to pay 50 euros per day, but after a little bargaining, the price dropped to 40 euros. We had breakfast at the neighboring large hotel, which was located in a former traditional caravanserai.

There are quite a few hotels in Yazd like these. They deserve attention! Inside, you can usually see many antique items and original interiors. Foreign tourists are usually entertained here by a special guide. In our case, it was a man with luxurious mustaches and a parrot.

Needless to say, we had a wonderful time in Yazd and left reluctantly. We never understood whether the initial offer with the hostel was a misunderstanding or some kind of Iranian scam, but a similar situation occurred in the next city on our way - Isfahan.

This city is a major local center with plenty of tourist attractions. There are many hotels here, but none of them responded to all my emails requesting a reservation. As a result, we arrived directly in the city center from the bus station and once again decided to figure everything out on the spot.

In the very first hotel, they tried to scam us again. At the reception, they claimed that there were no available rooms in the hotel, there was some kind of holiday in the city, so it was pointless to look for something. However, to our luck, some guests decided to leave earlier today, and soon, some high-comfort apartments will be available in the hotel for just 90 euros per day.
By the way, I can say this price is quite normal for Iranian hotels in big cities. Moreover, we stayed in a four-star hotel.

The interiors of the common areas here amazed us with numerous elegant wooden details, and the breakfast was probably the best in all of Iran.

We decided to inspect the room, and it seemed to us to be truly worth the money.

However, our budget was not limitless. In Isfahan, we planned to stay for three nights, so it was decided to take this option for one day and look around locally for cheaper alternatives.

And again, it turned out that there were plenty of options. First, we found an available room in an aparthotel nearby for 70 euros. And just a hundred meters away, we were offered a price of 45 euros for a quite acceptable room with a balcony.

It suited us perfectly.

Yes, the hotel was budget-friendly, a bit run-down, but quite clean and comfortable. I recommend it! Moreover, it was convenient to take walks around the city from here.

Well, based on our experience, it can be said that in Iran, one should never jump at the first available option. It's worth looking around, walking around the surroundings. Perhaps in the next block, you will find an option much cheaper and better. The main thing is not to fall for scams that there is a holiday in the city and no places are available...

Oh, and one more thing! It's not worth sitting in hotels here. Alcohol is not sold here, and the TV shows complete nonsense! But incredible adventures may await you on the adjacent street.

Photos and text - Source