Iran - Vanlife in Iran

Travelling in Iran is a bit of an adventure, not to be compared with travelling through Italy or Sweden. If you still want to try it out, here are a few ideas and tips. Important: As always here, these are all absolutely subjective contributions. Everyone should please inform themselves and make their own decisions. Self-responsibility and all that.

Security

The political situation must be viewed on a daily basis and, above all, not exclusively through the lens of Western media. As a traveller, you are less in the focus of the "bad guys" than as a politician, businessman or member of the military. Iranians have been living with the news about their country for years and are much more relaxed. Bomb attacks by neighbouring countries are (unfortunately) part of the daily routine and are less likely to cause unrest.

We have never felt threatened in any way. Neither politically nor from bad guys, robbers, violent criminals, etc. But: we are also travelling as a couple. We were never afraid of wild animals either, with the exception of a small spider in the camper.

As soon as we got stuck at any point, someone came and helped us (usually even before). The People here are simply incredibly friendly and helpful.

We are on the day before the "retaliatory strike Iran > Israel" departedbecause the border situation was too unsafe for us, not because we were afraid of attacks. It was important to us to leave the country while the borders were still open. Unfortunately, we have had to discuss this border issue far too often in recent years due to Covid. And why take a risk when it was almost time for us to leave anyway?

The Federal Foreign Office and the FOPH (Switzerland) have been warning against travelling to Iran for years. However, these authorities always issue warnings that are somewhat overambitious. Therefore, the same applies here as everywhere else in life: Make your own decisions. Don't shift responsibility and bear the consequences yourself. And everyone must know and recognise their own limits and risks.
We do not give advice, we only report on our travels.

Car papers

If you want to enter Iran with your own vehicle, you need the Carnet de Passage, which are the so-called customs documents for the vehicle. Not to be confused with the normal vehicle documents, which you will of course also need.
The CdP can be obtained in your home country (or in other countries; the Czech Automobile Club is currently very popular because it is cheaper). You pay a deposit, pay an annual fee and receive a block of sheets, one sheet is then used for each country subject to Cdp. More information e.g. here.

Licence plates

Several travellers had their European number plates stolen - probably as souvenirs. (It was also attempted with us, but we were able to save our plates.) Next time I would take a set of Swiss replacement plates with me and drive with the not quite official, but sensible replacement. On the return journey, I would then mount the originals again.

Diesel & AdBlue / Road maps

Please also read it here, I already had it in the Category Transport mentioned.

Car wash

There are different strategies: you never wash your car or you wash it all the time and after 20 minutes you wonder why you just washed it. At the beginning, we tried the "car wash" strategy and later the "I don't care" strategy. If you decide in favour of the first strategy, you have to be aware that the quality of a car wash is different to ours. And often a van doesn't fit into the hall. Sometimes only the dust is removed, sometimes the underbody is washed for hours. The fact that the foam is always simply disposed of in the ditch: no problem. (My eco-ideal world has been shaken to the core here).

We've been in Turkey for days now and our Felix is still dirty. Why should we wash him? We are noticing a high level of our own neglect. And vow to do better. Before we come to Switzerland, yes, we'll have him polished to a shine. Hopefully. Maybe. Definitely. Or will we?

Police checks

There are police checks at every regional border, which we would call cantonal or federal state borders. Traffic is slowed down by bumps and snakes and every now and then we have to show our passports. Sometimes even our visa, which is not in our passport but on a separate piece of paper. The Iranian border police have not been stamping European passports for a few years now. Otherwise, entering the USA at a later date would be a problem. A solvable but unnecessary one.

Campsites

As far as we know, there are no campsites in the European sense. However, there are many car parks or family pitches. These are a mixture of playgrounds, toilet blocks, sometimes even mosques and showers. There is always plenty of space for the cars and of course for the carpets, tents and tea kettles. This is also where we often park our Fekix.

It should be noted that Iranian life takes place at night. So if, like us, you like to lie in your nest at 10 o'clock and want some peace and quiet, you may be unintentionally entertained by noise.

Hostels often offer a mixture of service and camping. Depending on the location, you can drive into the courtyard with your campervan or park right outside the door on the street. And then use everything as you would in a hostel: breakfast, toilet, shower, washing machines, kitchens, fridges, internet, lounge, excursions, company. A great option if you can still sleep in your own bed.

Free standing

You can actually be free everywhere. But it's loud almost everywhere where there are people. The cars roar, the exhausts stink and people drive day and night. It's really great when the 8 to 18-year-olds do their nightly laps on their rattling sewing machine motorbikes on the rear wheel. You just have to like that.

Of course, it is easier to stand somewhere outside the towns and villages. The only thing that can get in the way is the fear of the Iranians. Because we have the feeling that they don't like the dark and always think it's dangerous. But what is supposed to happen is a mystery to us. In large parts of the country, there are no trees to hide behind either. So we stand somewhere and hope that people will ignore us. We were never afraid in Iran, really never! If someone knocked on the door, it was always someone who wanted a selfie, brought fruit or tea or invited us to their home.

Putting out the table and chairs: never a problem. As everyone here immediately rolls out their carpet, we don't see any problem in sitting down with a table and chairs. So everything is easy.

From time to time we have the apps iOverlander and Park4Night used. The former is much better in Iran, the latter probably more for Europe. But due to the small number of travellers, many entries are out of date and you have to look them up. And for us, it's always a good idea to have found a pitch by 4 o'clock at the latest. It gets dark at half past five and then we want to know what it looks like around us.

In the mountains and by the sea, it is much more pleasant in hot temperatures (and in the south it is already very hot in February!) because there is often a gentle breeze. Snow can fall in the north and desert sand can blow in the south. But no matter where: outside the cities, a sky with a million stars is guaranteed. And Iran has thousands of dream pitches!

Privacy

Let's move on to the next topic: privacy. This is respected here, but only if you ask for it. There are so few tourists in the country - the Federal Foreign Office speaks of a small three-digit number of German tourists - that it is understandable that people are happy to engage in conversation with them.
We are happy to do that, but sometimes, very sometimes, for example when we are on the phone or simply have something to discuss ourselves, I wish we had the Swiss restraint.
Based on our experience in the country, we suspect that "together" is much more normal than "individually", as is common in Switzerland or Germany.

Water/drinking water

We never had any problems with drinking water. Many mosques have good to very good water. iOverlander helps a lot. We always test the flavour of the water, sometimes it tastes a bit chloriney or salty. Then we leave it. It would be fine with a filter system, but the water pressure is often too low to use our Albfilter. Then we drive on to the next region and fill up with water there.

In rural areas, we often see people carrying water canisters or travelling with them on motorbikes. We follow them or ask where the water source is. They often lead us to wells with fresh spring water. This is our favourite place to fill up.

And: In areas with little drinking water, such as the Persian Gulf, you can also buy water. These are known as drinking water filling stations. Our 100 litres then cost around 2 euros, which is fine. We only did that two or three times. On the island of Queshm, for example. The machines are available day and night, but only work with a card. But even there we would certainly have been helped if we hadn't had an Iranian debit card.

Waste disposal

This is the most unfortunate issue imaginable. For us, not for the Iranians. We are used to the Grey water to special disposal centres. Not so in Iran. We simply leave our grey water tank open. (Please don't tell anyone, we don't like it ourselves.) Not in the city, but in the country. We use little to no washing-up liquid and our showers only need organic soap, and only a little of that. But yes, even that little ends up in the environment. Because there are simply no waste disposal stations. We always wash up immediately so that we can rinse with clean water whenever possible.

Toilet: Urine & solids. As we have a dry separation toilet, disposal is not a problem for us. Our urine is not contaminated with any medication (no hormones, no other medication except perhaps some vitamin C and so on). So we can empty it every two to three days into a ditch along the kilometres of country roads. We empty the solids, which are composted, every 4 weeks. Mostly in public rubbish bins or when we find a piece of forest in the mountains. But normally we empty it in a plastic bag in the normal rubbish. And no, for anyone who can't imagine: it doesn't stink. It smells about the same as buying a fresh bag of soil.
However, we know from other travellers who are travelling with a "normal" water toilet that they can manage without or with few chemicals and are allowed to use the toilets at petrol stations and mosques. There are plenty of them in the country!

Electricity

As always: we have no idea. We charge via solar and charging boosters while travelling. But in many cafés we see travellers charging their mobile phones and laptops. But whether you can charge your motorhome anywhere: no idea!

Refuelling with LPG / gas

First of all, please note: There is LPG and CNG. CNG is for cars for driving. It is not the gas that is normally used for heating or cooking. For that you have to look for LPG. You don't get it at petrol stations, but in small garages. Or you can follow a motorbike on the road to fill up the gas bottle.

Unfortunately blurred, but perhaps it clearly shows what we mean...

It's best to have a few adapters with you. But in our case, and we filled up with gas three(?) times, the operators of the small gas shops always had some kind of adapter for us. Or they made one for us. Of course, you don't fill up yourself. That is done. Highly professional, even if it doesn't look like it.
Important here: Take your time. Even if there are only one or two cars in front of you, there may be 20 gas cylinders in their boots. They all want to be filled one after the other. There is always a cay for this during the waiting time.
We found some on iOverlander, but you can also ask. It's best to show a photo of a gas bottle, then the people will know and usually come round and organise everything. Sometimes they even pay so quickly that we can fill up again for free. Which we never intended to do, but I had written another report on the subject of hospitality.

Waste disposal

The most important thing (for us ecologists) is to buy with little waste. Less packaging = less waste. This doesn't always work, because at the markets they're quick as a flash to pack everything, even the smallest things, in a plastic bag. But: I'm trained and usually even quicker with my jute bags.
Nevertheless, rubbish still accumulates, and in cities there is even something like waste separation: glass, paper, residual waste. As soon as we see such bins, we throw our rubbish in them. Otherwise, there are large rubbish bins everywhere on the streets, into which everyone throws their rubbish. Unfortunately, many people also dispose of rubbish on the beach, at the roadside, everywhere in fact. Well, I don't need to write any more about that now. It's just like this. We dispose of rubbish in bins.

Laundry

There are a few laundries where you can drop off your laundry and pick it up again a day or two later. Please always ask about the price beforehand! In Kashan, we were in for a surprise: they wanted 62 dollars for an Ikea bag full of laundry! We thought that was a bit much. Even in Switzerland we would have paid less.
Thanks to the many invitations to families, we always had the opportunity to wash everything there. Almost all families have really good to really old washing machines and long washing lines right through the garden.

Shopping

You can shop in supermarkets, smaller shops or at the bazaars. As the prices are so low in comparison, we honestly don't know where it's cheapest. And as we pay by card, it's also more difficult to tip. In the towns, you can get almost everything you need to live. We took some (German?) specialities such as brown bread, almond paste or crispbread with us in larger portions. But you don't actually need to bring anything with you, everything is available here.

All or most products are of Iranian origin, imports are often only available via the Arab Emirates. The quality can vary and I doubt whether the food is organic or ecological.

There are lots of fruit and vegetable stalls by the roadside, but we never buy anything there because of the food pollution caused by the scary exhaust fumes and the fine dust / abrasion from the tyres. We don't mind a little organic health quirk like that. And now, as I'm writing this, I remember: Yes, we do buy melons there. Because we haven't seen them anywhere else and they tasted so good. Well, that's how you can denounce yourself.

Internet

We have a WLAN router that we equip with standard local SIM cards. Here in Iran with a sim card from Irancell. You can always buy 15 GB packages, top them up and control them via an app. We almost always had good to very good internet.
If you do not have a Böxli and insert the SIM card into your mobile phone, you must expect that the SIM card or mobile phone will be deactivated for Internet use after 30 days. The Wifi boxes are not yet available. If you stay longer than 4 weeks, buy a router (box) somewhere in Iran or bring an old mobile phone with you to extend your stay.
VPN is essential. Iran blocks many services such as WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook and many websites. So you need a VPN service. It's good to have it installed BEFORE you enter the country. We had NordVPN (which didn't work for us at all), Proton (absolutely reliable on all devices) and Surfshark (our backup, if...) Current information on this and all other questions can be found at Fan enquire.

General costs

The costs are low. We spent around CHF/Euro 1,500 in just under 3 months. For two people. Including Carnet De Passage (just under 300 CHF/Euro) and visa (140 CHF/Euro). We did a lot of sightseeing, paid entrance fees en masse and tipped generously whenever possible.
Here are a few examples:
Diesel & AdBlue for 9000 km = 22 CHF/€.
Internet (a lot!) = 60 CHF/€.
Gas / LPG = 14 CHF/€
Gifts for the home 71 CHF/€.

Route through Iran

There are several options, one is the classic fast route through the centre, where you have already seen a lot. Then the coastal road, which is really long and every kilometre (apart from the area around Busher with its many gas works) is a dream! Turquoise blue water, turtles in the water, karla by the roadside, fascinating landscapes and secluded beaches. Or you can just do the northern route, which we shortened due to the political situation but will definitely want to do again.
You can skirt the big cities and go on great excursions from there. Or you can avoid the cities and immerse yourself more in nature.
We won't be publishing our itinerary this time as we've stayed with families too often and don't want to publicise these addresses to protect ourselves from the current government. Understandable, isn't it? But if you would like details, please feel free to contact us. We will be happy to provide information about the individual locations.

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Merci for "travelling with us

Our first lectures in Switzerland are planned. Others in Germany could follow. We'll see. We would love to take you into the Persian world somewhere in western Germany and also in the Berlin area. We are still looking for venues. If you know anything, please write to us.

Lecture & Persian tea time
Camels, cultures & many contrasts
Life-pure travelling with the camper through mysterious Persia

Two dates:21.06.24 or 28.06.24; 7 pm Muri/Bern
21 or 28 June 2024 - start 7 pm, doors open at 6:45 pm RoomZoom - Thunstrasse 162 - 3074 Muri b. Bern

We are happy about 20 CHF per person. Kids are free of charge.Please register by e-mail: andrea.kormann@dakor.ch

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