Paying for Things Across a Whole Trip

Two things about money here are true simultaneously. The centre of the capital takes a card almost everywhere, and a village tea house does not.

Most trips cross between those two worlds inside a single week, so the useful question is never cards or cash. It is how much cash you are carrying, and where you were standing when you drew it.

The city runs on cards

In central Baku a card covers most of an ordinary day, because hotels, restaurants, supermarkets and the larger shops are all used to them.

Small kiosks and market stalls are the exception, and they are exactly where you want a few small notes. Keep a little cash for those and let the card carry everything else.

The regions run on cash

Outside the city the balance flips completely. A mountain guesthouse, a stall of fruit beside the road, tea at a stop along the way: all of them are cash places. None of that is unusual.

The common mistake is leaving town with an empty wallet and hoping. Draw what the day needs while machines are still easy to find. The roads north and west are genuinely good and genuinely short on banks.

How much to carry

Enough for food, entry tickets, tea and a souvenir you had not planned on buying. That is the honest shape of a regional day, and the amount varies with the itinerary itself.

We will not print a figure here, because what a day costs depends on where you go and how you eat. Our page on what things cost treats that question properly instead.

Break the big notes early

A large note is inconvenient in a small grocery, and it is a slow way to buy a bottle of water. Break them somewhere change is never a problem, which usually means a supermarket, a hotel or a busy place in the city.

After that the tea house, the market stall and the short taxi are all easy. It is a small habit, and it removes an irritation that otherwise repeats itself daily.

The currency itself

The country uses the manat, and prices are written in it everywhere you will be. You do not need to arrive holding a pile of it, but you do need a plan for the first afternoon.

We do not publish exchange rates or bank charges anywhere on this site. Those belong to your own bank and to the day you actually travel, not to a page that was written weeks earlier.

Bring a second card

Bring two cards from two different banks if you can, and keep them in different places. A single card that stops working is merely inconvenient while you are carrying another one.

The only card you brought, refusing on a Sunday evening in a small town, is a completely different sort of evening. Tell your bank your travel dates before you fly.

Paying us

You can pay us in cash, by card or by bank transfer, and all three are perfectly acceptable. The decision is entirely yours.

Say which one you prefer while we are still arranging the plan, rather than on the day itself. It is one additional line in the same message as your dates.

Tipping

Tipping here is a subject of its own and the etiquette page sets it out in full. The short version is that it is normal, it is not enforced, and nobody is going to chase you about it.

What matters more in practice is having small notes available to do it with, which comes back to breaking the big ones early.

What we will not tell you

We will not put prices, exchange rates or bank charges on this page. They move, and a number that has gone quietly stale is worse for you than no number at all.

What we will do is look at your actual route and tell you which days are cash days. That is a question about your plan rather than about the country, so we can answer it honestly.

The last day

Try to draw your final cash against a known list rather than a guess. A final dinner, a taxi and one souvenir is usually the entire list.

The markets are where the last of it usually goes, and they are a cash place rather than a card one.

Tell us the shape of the trip

Send us the dates and the route you have in mind. We will tell you which days want cash, so you can draw once and then stop thinking about it.