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Welcome to Avis
Why choose Avis for your Armenia car hire?
Our Armenia car rental services are centred on Yerevan and Zvartnots International Airport, the country’s main gateway, with onward locations in the regional towns. Armenia is small — you can cross it in a day — but the roads climb, wind and reward every hour you give them.
A flight of around three hours from the UAE brings you to monasteries carved into gorges, alpine lakes at two thousand metres and mountain roads with almost no traffic on them. Few countries this size hold this much.
Because distances are short, most visitors base themselves in Yerevan and drive out on day trips — though a one-way route south to Tatev and back through the wine country makes an excellent week.
YOUR TOP RENTAL LOCATIONS IN ARMENIA
Zvartnots International Airport · Yerevan · Gyumri · Vanadzor · Dilijan · Sevan · Jermuk · Goris · Vagharshapat (Etchmiadzin) · Ijevan · Alaverdi · Areni · Tsaghkadzor · Kapan
WHERE TO IN ARMENIA?
Armenia adopted Christianity as a state religion in the year 301, before anywhere else, and much of what you drive to is a consequence of that decision — monasteries placed deliberately at the ends of gorges, on cliff edges and in high valleys, where they have stood for a thousand years.
Yerevan is one of the world’s oldest continuously inhabited cities and one of its pinkest, built in local tufa stone around the circular Republic Square. Climb the Cascade, a vast limestone stairway hung with sculpture, for the view south to Mount Ararat rising across the Turkish border — the national symbol, visible from the city on a clear morning but no longer within it. The Matenadaran holds a collection of medieval manuscripts that is a UNESCO Memory of the World register entry, and the Vernissage weekend market is where the city trades everything from carpets to Soviet cameras.
Within an hour east lie Garni and Geghard — the only Hellenistic temple left in the former Soviet Union, and a monastery cut directly into the rock face above the Azat gorge, where the basalt columns of the Symphony of Stones line the riverbed below. West of the capital, Vagharshapat holds Etchmiadzin Cathedral, arguably the oldest cathedral in the world and the seat of the Armenian Church.
The road northeast climbs to Lake Sevan, one of the highest large freshwater lakes anywhere, with the Sevanavank monastery on a peninsula above it. Beyond, the forested valley of Dilijan has earned the nickname Armenian Switzerland, with the monasteries of Haghartsin and Goshavank hidden in the woods. Further north still, in the Debed canyon, the UNESCO-listed monasteries of Haghpat and Sanahin sit above the gorge.
The south is the long drive and the best one. Khor Virap, at the foot of Ararat, gives the country’s most photographed view; Noravank sits at the end of a red-rock canyon; the caves at Areni produced the oldest known winery and the village still makes the wine. The road ends at Tatev, a fortified monastery on a cliff edge above the Vorotan gorge, reached either by a series of hairpins or by the Wings of Tatev, the longest reversible cableway in the world.
Main highways are in reasonable condition; secondary roads deteriorate quickly and mountain passes demand care, with snow affecting some routes from November to March. Plan by driving time rather than distance, and travel between May and October for the best of it.