Curated Itinerary
Hyrcanian Forests: the Caspian Relict Woods
Two doors into the Hyrcanian relict forest: Azerbaijan’s Hirkan park near Lankaran and Iran’s Golestan, where Caspian rainforest meets steppe in one reserve.
Take this route into Google Maps
From Hirkan National Park to Golestan National Park, in the order we curated them.
➤ Turn on the navigator in Google MapsIt opens in the Google Maps app with every stop already loaded, in the order we put them in. From there the route is yours: pick how you travel — on foot, by bike, by public transport or by car — change where you start and where you end, drag the stops into a different order, and add places of your own along the way.
This itinerary enters the Hyrcanian Forests, the relict woodland arc along the Caspian’s southern shores — inscribed by Iran in 2019 and extended into Azerbaijan in 2023. Two doors open the property: Hirkan National Park in the Talysh mountains near Lankaran, and Golestan National Park, Iran’s oldest, where Caspian rainforest grades into steppe within one reserve.
The connecting idea is survival: these woods are refugia that carried Europe-type broadleaf forest through the Ice Ages, and their ironwoods and zelkovas are living versions of what the rest of the continent keeps only as fossils. The border between the two parks is administrative; the forest is one.
Treat the two sides as separate trips — Lankaran from Baku for Hirkan, Gorgan for Golestan, with local guides and current advisories checked. October, when the ironwood turns, is the month to aim for.
Before you go
A word from your host
This is a route for walkers who like their trees with a pedigree: the ironwood you touch has cousins only in the fossil record. Go in October if you possibly can — the Hyrcanian autumn is the quiet rival of New England's.
Getting around
Lankaran, a few hours from Baku, serves Hirkan's trailheads; Golestan is reached via Gorgan with local guides. Check current travel guidance for each country, and pack for humidity in every season.
Step by step
Hirkan National Park
A vast protected forest in Azerbaijan's Talysh Mountains, Hirkan National Park preserves one of the Caucasus's largest unbroken ecosystems and shelters…
Golestan National Park
A 919-square-kilometre protected landscape in northeastern Iran, spanning elevations from 450 to 2,411 metres with distinct ecological zones.
Download for tour navigation
PDF is the stop list with GPS, to print or keep on the phone. GPX for Garmin / Komoot / OsmAnd. KML for Google Earth and Maps.
Walk it with the navigator on
It opens in the Google Maps app with every stop already loaded, in the order we put them in. From there the route is yours: pick how you travel — on foot, by bike, by public transport or by car — change where you start and where you end, drag the stops into a different order, and add places of your own along the way.
To keep the route in the app instead of opening it once, download the KML above and import it into Google My Maps — Create a new map, then Import: the route then sits among your own maps in Google Maps, with the stops and our notes attached to each one.