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Ramsar is probably the most beautiful city along the Caspian coast in Mazandaran province, with long stretches of beaches and the nearby Alborz Mountain range covered with lush green vegetation. Since the other parts of Iran are getting too hot during summer, Tehrani people escape in masses to the north to enjoy the cooler temperature, making Ramsar one of the popular holiday resorts at the Caspian Sea for locals. Though, humidity remains high. For real refreshment, they head to one of the mountain villages. This travel guide gives you some useful advice on how to spend one day and the best things to do in Ramsar.
The Ramsar Convention of 1971
If you type Ramsar in the google search, you find more information about the famous convention than about the city itself. Since it was signed in 1971 and adopted in 1975, almost all UN member States have become a “contraction partner to the Ramsar Convention”. 2nd February, the day it was signed in 1971, is marked as World Wetlands Day in the calendar.
The agreement’s main purpose is to conserve the wetlands of international importance through international cooperation, including by transferring technologies and creating standard management policies.
44 important things to know before traveling to Iran
The Ramsar Convention qualifies natural and man-made habitats as wetlands, including coral reefs, rivers, lakes, marshes, mangroves, peat bogs, or fens.
It adds the wetlands that have a unique biological diversity or are crucial for some reasons to the list of Wetlands of International Importance. These wetlands are managed in an international framework by the partner countries.
There are currently over 200 sites on the list; Bolivia is the country with the biggest territory wetlands.
The convention has great importance as the collapse of biodiversity and ecosystems and water crises are considered the biggest threats to humanity.
Read more about the Ramsar Convention here.
Read this travel guide about a 2 weeks north Iran itinerary
Where to sleep in Ramsar?
Locals offer private rooms or entire houses for rent. At the entrance of Ramsar, people stand along the road with boards indicating the rooms for rent. Walking around the center along the coast, you can easily find something on the spot too. However, if you are looking for a hotel room to book in advance, the following ones can be good options.
Gileboom ecolodge: a simple low-budget accommodation in the surroundings of Ramsar in Gileboom village. It is a perfect place to enjoy nature and go hiking.
Bam-e Sabz (4 star): located on top of the mountain and you can reach it with the cable car
Nayestan Apartment hotel: it is located near Casino boulevard.
Ramsar Persian hotel (4 star): one of the oldest and most renowned hotels in Ramsar
Eskan hotel (2 star)
How to plan your trip to Iran
Book your flight to Iran: I always use Google Flights, Skyscanner or Wayaway to find the cheapest flight tickets worldwide. To get an extra 10% for your Wayaway Membership Plus program use my discount code VOG
Important: Booking.com and other common platforms do not work due to international restrictions in Iran. The only exemption is Skyscanner, where you can book both your international flight and accommodation in Iran!
Book your accommodation in Iran: Hostelworld.com offers a limited number of hostels. All other services are only available through local travel agencies, like 1st Quest.
Get your visa to Iran: 1st Quest or Tap Persia local companies can easily arrange your insurance for Iran
Book domestic flights, hotels, transfers, bus and train tickets, and local tours, all in one place via 1st Quest travel agency.
Another good thing is that by using my discount code, you get an extra 5% off your bookings: VOG%1stQ
Virtual Private Network (VPN): Use VPNExpress, the fastest and best Virtual Private Network to get access to blocked sites in Iran and to prevent hackers from stealing your private information.
Insurance to Iran: 1st Quest or Tap Persia local companies can arrange for you visa to Iran
Book local guides and local tours: Pirsik is specialized in offering tour guides and local tours in less touristic countries, including Iran.
How to go to Ramsar?
There is a flight between Ramsar and Tehran, but it takes only 45 minutes. It is better to go by bus from Tehran, which takes around 4. 5 hours. Ramsar has a connection to every other city in northern Iran.
What are the best things to do in Ramsar?
Ramsar is not multi-day unless you plan to enjoy the beaches and have some rest. It is a smaller town with around 34 000 inhabitants, although it gets multiplied during the summer season by holidaymakers, which is the best time to travel to Ramsar. The peak season also means that prices are higher. In general, the Caspian Sea region is more expensive than other parts of Iran. However, it is still affordable for foreign travelers due to the high inflation and devaluated Iranian rial (1 EUR~530 000IRR, 1 USD~ 510 000 IRR).
The following attractions, apart from the cable car, you can even cover on foot, but it will take a couple of hours. Or, you can always get a taxi on the way if it seems too tiring.
1. Ramsar telecabine – the best thing to do in Ramsar
The Ramsar Telecabine is the main attraction of the city, offering a stunning view of the coastline. The telecabine station is located along the highway in a park with a small shopping complex, restaurants, and an amusement park that you can reach within a short drive from the city center.
After a sharp ascent over the highway and over the forest, you reach the top within only 15 minutes. When you arrive, there is a restaurant and a lookout terrace, but you still have the best view from the cable car, where you can view the entire coastline. Once you reach the top, a hiking trail in the forest takes you to picnic places and an adventure park.
It is a good option to take the hiking trail from the cable car’s station to get down on foot if you have the time to enjoy nature.
Cost of telecabine: 3 million rials for two ways for foreigners, or 1 417 000 rials if you decide to walk down.
2. Walk along the Caspian Sea
A series of beaches stretch along the Caspian Sea, although you cannot always walk along the coast. However, it is not where you find the most memorable beaches of your life. They are usually not so clean.
The most famous beaches are the Golden beach, the Silver Beach, the Lido with sandy beach, and the Tuska Sara beach, an entertainment center with water sports facilities. You can have a boat ride or rent a jet ski and try other water sports.
Walking along the coast, you come across the long narrow reef before Silver Beach. If you walk till its end, you get the best view of the coastline.
Although this is not where you find the most picturesque beaches in the world, I was excited to walk along the Caspian Sea, the largest lake in the world.
3. Casino Boulevard and Old Ramsar hotel
The boulevard connects the coast with the forest area and is very popular for locals to walk among the symmetrical tree lines. It was called Casino Boulevard before the revolution, after which it was renamed Moallem (teacher) Boulevard.
If you start from the Caspian Sea, you get to the Old Ramsar Hotel, also called the Grand Ramsar Hotel or Ramsar Azadi Hotel. It was a prestigious hotel during the Pahlavi era and is still one of the landmarks of Ramsar. There were 160 luxury rooms inside and a garden with sculptures. At the Pahlavi times, it was one of the iconic hotels in the Middle East, and a popular place for film shootings.
4. Ramsar Parsian Hotel
The Parsian Hotel Ramsar is one of the historical hotels of Ramsar. The old part was opened in the 1930s with a view of the sea and the forest in European Art deco style. It is a mix of German, French and British architectural styles. A new part was added in the 1950s to that.
5. Ramsar Palace Museum – a must-see in Ramsar
The Ramsar palace museum (locals call it Tamashagah Khazar) is the former summer residence built by Pahlavi Reza Shah in the 1930s and later used by his heir, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. He came here on his honeymoon with his second wife, Soraya Esfandiary. After the Islamic revolution and the dethronement of the shah in 1979, the palace complex was opened for visitors, with each building converted into a museum. The complex, including the main Marble Palace and other mansions, is in an attractive park covering 60 000 m2.
This is where the Ramsar Convention, an international treaty for the protection and conservation of wetlands, was signed in 1971. The foundation document of great international importance is displayed in one of the museums.
The Marble Palace, with a white marble facade, is the most beautiful part of the complex. The entrance columns are reflected in the pool in front of the palace, with huge fish swimming around. The palace is a one-story building with luxurious interior decorations, Persian carpets, crystal chandeliers, mirrors, and stucco decorations, mainly the work of Iranian artists. The luxurious palace was furnished with elegant furniture imported from France. The reception room with a wooden floor is the most spacious and most attractive part of the palace where the tour starts.
The visitors are let inside in groups to avoid crowds. Each group gets a guided tour inside the palace in Farsi. I was alone as a foreign traveler, so I joined the Iranian group, but I think if there were more tourists, they would give a guided tour in English. When the English-speaking staff noticed I was a foreigner, they came to me and kindly offered to answer all my questions.
It is one of Iran’s most visited museums, also declared National Heritage.
Other museums to visit in the complex that are equally worth the visit:
International Ivory Museum: this is an amazing collection of decorative items made of ivory.
Historical ware museum: the history of ware displays items of pottery, stone, wood, ceramic, porcelain, glass, crystal from 3000 BC till modern times in the old kitchen.
Traditional Bath Museum: This is the bath that was solely used by the first Pahlavi ruler, Reza Shah. One of the pools was heated with a traditional furnace, which was removed when the Marble Palace was constructed with modern cooling and heating system. However, the tiles are still original from the 1930s.
Anthropology museum
Bamboo garden to walk around
Entrance fee: 2 500 000 IRR (~8$), but it is definitely worth it.
6. Ramsar traditional and seafood market
Ramsar does not have a historical bazaar, but it is still something you visit to check out local fruit, vegetable, sweets and textile. Close that, the seafood market is open till early afternoon where they sell fresh fish.
7. Javaherdeh village
Tip: from Ramsar, you can head to the mountains and enjoy the time in a mountain village, like Javaherdeh at 200 meter above Ramsar.
I hope this travel guide about the best things to do in Ramsar was useful for planning your trip to northern Iran. Ramsar is the most beautiful city along the Caspian coast and is a must-stop for every traveler. Taking the cable car to enjoy this stunning view is one of the highlights, and you should also not miss visiting the Ramsar Palace Museum.
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by Agnes Simigh
I’m a passionate tour guide and travel writer, who is curious to discover places that seldom catch the attention of the media or that are misrepresented. My goal is to inspire you to choose off-the-beaten-track destinations by sharing objective and detailed information. I believe that it is mainly the lack of “intel” that keeps us away from incredible places. And that just shouldn’t be the case.
by Ramin Paknejad
A tour guide in Iran for cultural and cycling tours with ten years of experience who jumps on every opportunity to bike long distances. After the start of the Syria war, he and his team completed the 5900km Tehran-Istanbul-Tehran “cycling for peace project”. His big dream is to bike from the North Cape of Norway to Cape Town in South Africa as soon as visa restrictions are eased.