Road to 90: Azerbaijan, Kuwait, Bahrain and Armenia in 8 Days

Baku and Yerevan are about 450 km apart. I went from one to the other through Kuwait, Bahrain and a night in Sharjah — and that detour is how my country count went from 86 to 90 in a single week. Four new countries, 8 flights, 8 airport lounges, between October 14 and 21, 2026. This post covers the whole route and the bits between the countries; each country has its own post.

It started as a business trip that got cancelled. I went anyway.

Every flight is on my travel map, which replays them in order. Google Maps Timeline used to keep that kind of record for me, until Google deleted 10 years of my location history.

#The route

Dates	Where	Country	Read more
Oct 14	Kraków → Budapest	—	12 hours in the city
Oct 15	Baku, Azerbaijan	#87	Baku
Oct 16–17	Kuwait City, Kuwait	#88	Kuwait City
Oct 17–18	Manama, Bahrain	#89	Bahrain
Oct 18–19	Sharjah, UAE	—	A night at the airport hotel
Oct 19–21	Yerevan, Armenia	#90	Armenia
Oct 21	Larnaca → Kraków	—	Self-transfer in Cyprus

#12 hours in Budapest, from the other bank

The trip started with a 12-hour gap between Wizz Air flights in Budapest — too long for an airport bench, so I took the bus into the city.

I'd been to Budapest before, in December 2021, and spent that trip on the Pest side, right next to the Parliament. This time I crossed to Buda and looked back at it. Honestly, the Parliament is much more interesting from across the river: you see the whole 268-meter façade at once, with the Danube in front.

I started on Castle Hill, where the view takes in the Chain Bridge, the Parliament and half of Pest in one frame.

Then up to Fisherman's Bastion — the white neo-Romanesque terraces next to Matthias Church. Its arches frame the Parliament almost too neatly.

After that I walked down and along the Buda embankment, more or less all of it, and stayed by the river until it got dark. Fun fact: the Parliament's dome is 96 m tall, a nod to the year 896, when the Hungarians are said to have settled the Carpathian Basin. St. Stephen's Basilica across the river is exactly as tall, on purpose.

At night the building lights up gold, and the river doubles it. Budapest felt like a great city both times, but this was the view I'd been missing.

Hungary was already on my list, so it didn't change the count. The flight to Baku left at 22:20 and landed at 03:50.

#The four new countries in one paragraph each

Azerbaijan, #87. One day in Baku: the whole seafront boulevard, the Old City, the view from below the Flame Towers at dusk, and the spot where The Diamond Arm was filmed. Clean, beautiful, and for some reason it felt a bit like home. The shawarma there is the best I've had in a long time.

Kuwait, #88. A local creator stopped me near Kuwait Towers for a street interview, and it turned into a six-hour evening of history, the souq and my first Arabic coffee. I have a new favorite drink.

Bahrain, #89. A fort on a site people have lived on for over 4,000 years, a car I rented on the spot at the airport, a Navratri celebration in the Manama souq I was invited to join, and a tour of the Al-Fateh Grand Mosque where I was the only visitor.

Armenia, #90. Khor Virap and Mount Ararat at sunset on the first evening, then a day with my friend Bohdan — Geghard, cut into the rock, the basalt columns of the Garni gorge and an abandoned Soviet radio telescope.

#8 flights on 4 airlines

All one-way tickets, mostly booked separately:

• Wizz Air: Kraków → Budapest (W6 2420) and Budapest → Baku (W6 2499), landing at 03:50
• Jazeera Airways: Baku → Kuwait (J9 602), 23:30 → 02:40
• Kuwait Airways: Kuwait → Bahrain (KU 615), from Terminal 4
• Air Arabia: Bahrain → Sharjah → Yerevan (G9 106 + G9 246), with a night in Sharjah between them
• Wizz Air: Yerevan → Larnaca → Kraków (W6 7837 + W6 2052), two separate tickets with 5h45 in Larnaca

This was the year of the war with Iran, and the Gulf airspace showed it: my Baku → Kuwait flight went the long way around Iran, and some flights in the region were cancelled. Keep the airline apps installed — that's where the changes show up first.

#A night in Sharjah instead of a terminal bench

Air Arabia through Sharjah turned out to be a nice trick. The flight from Bahrain landed at 22:25 and the one to Yerevan left at 07:30. Instead of a night on a terminal bench, I went through UAE immigration and slept at an airport hotel right across the road from the terminal.

It was a short night. Around 5:30 the minaret of the mosque next to the hotel was still lit against a sky that hadn't decided to be morning yet.

Two hours later I was back on the other side of passport control, and the sun was coming up over the Air Arabia planes on the apron.

#Why I left my drone at home

My drone stayed at home this time. Three of the four new countries make flying one somewhere between banned and impossible.

Kuwait banned all drone flights and aerial photography in March 2026, "until further notice", and then banned drone sales too. Azerbaijan doesn't let non-residents bring a drone in at all — customs keeps it and returns it on departure. Bahrain needs a licence plus approvals from the Defence and Interior ministries, which a tourist won't get. Even the UAE, where I only spent a night, requires a registration that's effectively off-limits to visitors.

Armenia does allow drones, and luckily Bohdan had his, so the Armenia post has aerial shots after all.

#A free lounge before every flight

Guess how many airport lounges fit into 8 flights? Eight: Kraków, Budapest, Baku, Kuwait, Bahrain, Sharjah, Yerevan and Larnaca, every one through DragonPass on my monobank card, at $0. The Asia trip post explains how that card works.

It also leads to mistakes. In Kuwait I had breakfast at the hotel, then took the bus to the airport and had breakfast again in the Al Mubarakiya Lounge. I should have slept an hour longer instead.

The best of the eight, by far, was The Pearl Lounge at Bahrain airport — the biggest lounge I've ever seen. It took me 3–5 minutes just to walk around it. It's about 2,700 m² (29,000 sq ft), split into 10 themed areas, with showers, a prayer room and a games room with a pool table and table football.

Judging by how fast lounges are getting better, especially in the Gulf, I could live in one. The only problem is the 3-hour limit before your flight.

The last one, the SKALA Lounge in Larnaca, did the most work for me. I had 5h45 between two separate Wizz Air tickets, and I spent about 3 hours of it there with my laptop. It opened in July 2024 on the airport's third floor, with around 400 seats, a terrace over the runway and a quiet work area.

#Visas on a Ukrainian passport

• Azerbaijan, Armenia: visa-free
• Kuwait: eVisa, KD 10 (about $32)
• Bahrain: eVisa, single entry, BD 10 (about $27)
• UAE (Sharjah): visa-free
• Cyprus: visa-free; I hadn't planned to enter, but the self-transfer took me through passport control anyway

Both Gulf eVisas came through within minutes to a day. The airlines checked the printouts at the counter before issuing boarding passes, so have them on paper or at least offline. So the paperwork for both Gulf countries cost about $60 in total.

#Practical Notes

• Kuwait airport terminals: Kuwait Airways flies from T4, Jazeera Airways from T5. Check which one before you take a taxi.
• Self-transfers: with cabin bags only, two separate Wizz Air tickets through Larnaca were easy, even with about 30 minutes of passport queues to check in again. With checked luggage I wouldn't risk it.
• Airport hotel instead of an airport bench: on a night connection, look at the hotel next to the airport — Sharjah's made a 07:30 departure painless.
• Rental cars: in Bahrain I walked up to the Budget desk at the airport without a booking — the first time I've ever done that — because a day's rental cost about the same as a taxi to the city and back. In Armenia I rented one at Yerevan airport for 2 days, which fit Khor Virap, Geghard, Garni and the ROT-54 telescope into a day and a half.
• Drones: leave yours at home for Kuwait, Bahrain and Azerbaijan (see above).
• Insurance from the bank: I paid for the tickets with a card that comes with the bank's travel insurance, and it covered the whole trip.

What stayed with me most wasn't the number 90. It was standing on a site in Bahrain that people built on more than 4,000 years ago. At home we start our history with Kyivan Rus, about a thousand years ago. I'm still not sure I can really picture what "4,000 years" means.