Travel in Iran: pilgrims, heritage cities and a country at war

Who visits Iran and why

Britannica dates the growth of a tourist trade to the years 1964 to 1978, when the last shah's government paved highways and built hotels, and records that the turmoil of 1978 all but destroyed it. The Islamic Republic discouraged visitors from non-Muslim countries, and since then, by the Tourism in Iran article's account, most foreign arrivals have been religious pilgrims and business travellers. The two great Shia shrines, of Imam Reza in Mashhad and of Fatimah al-Masumah in Qom, receive millions of pilgrims a year from Iran and other Shia countries. Official arrival figures make no distinction between pilgrims, business travellers and Iranians of the diaspora visiting family, and they should be read as all three.

The same article puts tourism at about 3% of GDP in 2023 and records that arrivals fell sharply after 2023 because of security concerns, among them the detention of foreign nationals. It lists the obstacles: missing infrastructure such as roads and hotels, the enforcement of Islamic law, the dress code for women above all, and the difficulty of changing money or getting online. Domestic tourism is far larger: Mazandaran province on the Caspian counted more than 100 million visits in the first nine months of 2023, according to the article.

What the cities of the plateau hold

UNESCO lists 30 World Heritage sites in Iran, 28 cultural and 2 natural, and several of the cultural ones are in the old cities of the plateau. Isfahan has two. Meidan Emam, the Safavid square inscribed in 1979, measures 560 by 160 metres and is closed on its four sides by two mosques, a palace pavilion and the gateway of a bazaar that UNESCO describes as two kilometres long. The Masjed-e Jame, the city's congregational mosque, was inscribed in 2012.

The south-west holds the Achaemenid sites. The terrace of Persepolis, begun about 518 BC, lies at the foot of Kuh-e Rahmat, and Pasargadae was inscribed in 2004. The Sassanid archaeological landscape of Fars followed in 2018. In Shiraz itself the tomb of Hafez stands in gardens, and the Persian Garden listing includes gardens in several provinces built on the fourfold plan.

The historic city of Yazd was inscribed in 2017, and the qanat, the underground channel that supplies towns and fields on the dry plateau, was listed as a system of eleven sites in 2016. Kashan gives its name to a carpet-weaving tradition and lies near the Qalishuyan rite of Mashhad-e Ardehal, inscribed as intangible heritage in 2012. In Tehran, Golestan Palace was inscribed in 2013; the city also holds the National Museum of Iran, opened in 1937.

What lies beyond the cities

The Tourism in Iran article names the Alborz and the Zagros for hiking and skiing and the Caspian and the Persian Gulf for beaches. Kish Island in the Gulf drew around a million visitors in 2012 and 2013, most of them Iranian, with separate beaches for men and women. The Caspian coast is the domestic holiday shore, green and humid against the dry south, as the geography article describes.

The desert has its own listings. The Dasht-e Lut, inscribed in 2016, is a field of wind-carved ridges and dunes in the south-east. Bam and its cultural landscape were inscribed in 2004, the year after the earthquake that destroyed the town's historic fortress. The cultural landscapes of Maymand, inscribed in 2015, and of Hawraman, inscribed in 2021, were inscribed as cultural landscapes. The Persian Caravanserai was listed in 2023, and Alamut Castle and its related fortifications were added in 2026. The Hyrcanian Forests on the Caspian slopes are the second natural site.

The rest of the list runs through every period of Iran's history. The oldest entries are prehistoric: the Prehistoric Sites of the Khorramabad Valley, inscribed in 2025, and Shahr-i Sokhta, inscribed in 2014. Susa, the Elamite capital, was listed in 2015, and Tchogha Zanbil among the first three sites in 1979. Bisotun, the site of the Achaemenid inscription of 522 BC, followed in 2006, Takht-e Soleyman in 2003 and Hegmataneh in 2024. From the Islamic centuries come Gonbad-e Qabus (2012), Soltaniyeh (2005), the shrine of Sheikh Safi al-din in Ardabil (2010) and the Tabriz Historic Bazaar Complex (2010). The Shushtar Historical Hydraulic System, inscribed in 2009, belongs with the qanats as a record of how water was moved on dry land.

What Tehran holds for visitors

Most journeys by air begin in the capital, at Imam Khomeini International Airport, with Mehrabad Airport serving domestic flights. Tehran sits at the foot of the Alborz, and the city's own explanation of its name, quoted in the Tehran article, reads it as "the bottom of the mountain slope". The record gives its population as 8,693,706 in 2016. The city has been the capital since 1786, and the article records that after fifty years of Qajar rule it still had barely 80,000 inhabitants.

Its sights are mostly royal and modern. Golestan Palace, rebuilt and enlarged in 1865 with its Mirror Hall and Edifice of the Sun, opened as a museum in 1894 and is a World Heritage site. The Sa'dabad and Niavaran complexes were palaces of the Qajar and Pahlavi shahs. The Azadi Tower, designed by Hossein Amanat, was completed in 1971 for the 2,500th anniversary of the Persian Empire, and the Milad Tower in 2007. The National Museum of Iran, opened in 1937, holds the archaeological collections. The city has a metro, a bus rapid transit system and trolleybuses, and the Tehran article records plans, none approved, to move the capital because of air pollution, earthquakes and water scarcity.

What laws and customs visitors live under

The FCDO describes Islamic codes of behaviour and dress as strictly enforced. In public women must cover their heads with a headscarf and wear trousers or a floor-length skirt with a long-sleeved tunic or coat reaching to mid-thigh or knee; men wear long trousers and long sleeves. Religious sites may ask women to put on a chador, the garment that covers the whole body except the face. It records that the authorities have arrested and detained women and girls, and in some cases used serious violence against them, for not following the dress code.

Alcohol is illegal to import, sell, make or drink, with exceptions only for certain recognised religious minorities. During Ramadan eating, drinking and smoking in public during daylight are forbidden. Sex outside marriage and same-sex relations are illegal and carry the death penalty, and hotels may ask couples for a marriage certificate. Photography near military and government sites is prohibited, and the FCDO notes that sensitive buildings are often hard to identify. Drones and satellite phones need official permission.

Money is the practical obstacle. Foreign debit and cash cards do not work in Iran, travellers' cheques are usually not accepted, and changing money on the street is illegal; euros and US dollars are easier to exchange than pounds. The FCDO also records that the authorities have blocked, slowed or shut down landline, mobile and internet services without warning, nationally or locally.

When the seasons suit a journey

The country is large enough to hold several climates at once. In the north and west, Britannica describes four distinct seasons, with cold winters and snow in the mountains; towards the south and east spring and autumn shorten until only a mild winter and a hot summer remain. The average summer daytime temperature in Abadan on the Gulf exceeds 43 °C, while the average winter high in Tabriz barely reaches freezing. More than half of the year's rain falls in the three winter months, and outside the Caspian strip summer is dry.

The Iranian calendar shapes travel as much as the weather. Nowruz, at the March equinox, is followed by about a week of holiday and ends on the thirteenth day with Sizdah Bedar, a day of picnics in the countryside, and the whole country moves at once. The lunar religious days move against the solar calendar from year to year; Tasua and Ashura, the ninth and tenth of Muharram, are public holidays given to the commemoration of Karbala. Friday is the weekly day of rest. The holidays page lists the dates for this year and next, including the days of mourning added in 2026.

How visitors get in and move around

The Tourism in Iran article records that Iran issues week-long visas on arrival at airports to nationals of 68 countries, and that citizens of the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada must by law be accompanied by a tour guide at all times. The FCDO advises that a passport bearing stamps from Israel, or from its border crossings, may lead to refusal of entry. Iran does not recognise dual nationality and treats dual nationals as Iranian citizens.

There are road crossings from Iraq, Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and rail lines enter from Turkey and Turkmenistan. Britannica lists international airports at Tehran, Abadan, Isfahan, Shiraz and Bandar Abbas, and buses and lorries carry most people and goods inside the country; the state railway runs from the Caspian to the Persian Gulf with branches to many provincial capitals.

What the war changed for travellers

The British advice, last updated on 13 August 2026 and confirmed as current on 2 October 2026, is against all travel to Iran. It records that the United States and Israel have struck infrastructure across the country, with reports that ports, roads, railways, bridges, airports, energy sites and water systems have been affected, that Iranian airspace may close at short notice and that communications and internet access are disrupted. The Tourism in Iran article records that the US State Department issued a Level 4 "do not travel" advisory during the unrest of late 2025 and 2026.

Both governments name the risk of detention as the reason. The FCDO states that British and British-Iranian dual nationals face a very high risk of arrest, questioning and detention, that a British passport or a perceived connection to the United Kingdom can be enough, and that Iran executed foreign national detainees in 2023, a British-Iranian among them. It lists the photographing of sensitive sites, contact with civil society groups and any link to Israel or the American government as factors that increase the risk. It also advises British nationals already living in Iran against all travel within 100 kilometres of the Afghan border, within 10 kilometres of the Iraqi border, to Sistan and Baluchestan and to the area east of Bam and Jask.

Land routes out have been governed by each neighbour's rules. The FCDO records in October 2026 that the Turkish border remains open visa-free for travellers on British or Iranian passports for stays of up to 90 days, with facilitation by the British embassy in Ankara; Azerbaijan requires advance registration and a visa, Turkmenistan requires special permission and an onward flight, and Armenia admits British nationals without a visa for up to 180 days a year.