Trip Info
Your desert adventure tour starts early in the morning from your hotel. Drive around 100 km to the Varzane Desert. First visit Salty Lake and volcano mountain with an off road car, then have lunch. Go to see some sightseeing in Varzane city. At the end go to sandy hills for safari and laying down on amazing hills and enjoying the wonderful scenery of the desert. Then go back to your hotel.
Varzaneh is located 105km southeast of Isfahan and 240km away from Yazd. It has a population of 14,000 sprawling over 23,000km² at an altitude of 1477m above sea level. Like most parts of central Iran, it has a quite dry desert climate where, in July, temperatures can reach 40°C. The temperature sometimes drops below zero in January and February after midnight.
Varzaneh was the last civilization on the Zayanderud river since 5,000 years ago. The Zayanderud river ends at Gavkhouni which is 30km east of Varzaneh. Within the lands between the wetland and Varzaneh, signs of very ancient civilization are unearthed. Further investigations on some pots that have been discovered, confirms the fact that the district of Varzaneh has been inhabited for 5,000 years.
Varzaneh is famous regionally and all over the world for its spectacular desert, which ranked as one of the most accessible deserts of Iran, in particular for tourists coming to Isfahan. Many travellers like their desert close to civilization – that way they have food and water easy to reach by car, and access to medical centres in the case of any problem. Although, Varzaneh desert is ranked as one of the safest deserts of Iran, it’s only 15km away from its desert.
Unique to Varzaneh, are the local women’s costumes. They wear completely white chadors, while women in the rest of Iran, mostly wear black chadors.
Many local people speak an ancient Pahlavi Sasani dialect, a quite similar dialect to that spoken by the Zoroastrians in Yazd today. According to some of linguists, the word Varzaneh, has a connection to the verb Varzidan (ورزیدن), which means farming in old Persian.
The best times for the desert are spring, fall, and winter. Summer is too hot.
