Nomads

By participating in Nomad migration tours, you will join in on one of the greatest traditions of Iranian culture: the migration. Whatever activity they do, they have been doing for a long time. Whether it’s weaving the Qashqai rug, or playing Bakhtiari music, traditionalism is in the heart of it all.

Anything might happen: you can milk the cows in the morning with the nomads, sit around the bonfire at night and listen to the stories of these migrating people. You might witness the birth of a new calf. This lifestyle offers so much, deeply-rooted in human nature.

Migrating in the highlands of the epic Zagros mountains is like traveling into the past. It has been carried out like this for hundreds of years; therefore, it gives you the sense of a journey between centuries and decades, among people living with joy, simplicity, and warmth.

Sleeping in their tents and under the stars, while traveling with them on the road is as epic as it gets. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience you’ll have in Iran Nomad Tours, a memory you’ll keep in your diary as a souvenir for your own heart or a significant story to tell your children about.

One of Iran’s largest tribes, the Bakhtiari have been migrating over the Zagros mountains for hundreds of years. A humble tribe, they are an integral part of Iranian culture. Twice a year, the Bakhtiari nomads travel 300km across the mountains and highlands, to search for grass for their animals: it’s an epic adventure.

From Turkic origins of Central Asia, the Qashqai tribe chose Iran’s south-western desert lands as their home during the 11th and 12th centuries. Every year, they move between the pastures in the north of Shiraz to the south of the country, near the Persian Gulf, where it’s warmer for the winter. Their epic journey is about 480km.

Of unknown origin but most probably Azeri, the Shahsavan are a group of nomadic tribes living in the Mugan Plain. Whatever the origin story, one thing is certain: they are a free, traditional group of people, traveling in the highly-fertile plains of Mugan plains in the northwest of Iran.