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Armenia eSIM
5 data plans · from £7.40 · instant QR code by email
Choose your plan
Travelling as a group? Buy everyone an eSIM in one checkout and the discount is applied automatically — no code needed. See group pricing
5 data plans · from £7.40 · instant QR code by email
Travelling as a group? Buy everyone an eSIM in one checkout and the discount is applied automatically — no code needed. See group pricing
Streaming, tethering and heavy use
£13.20
£1.26/GB
Buy →
Connects automatically to the strongest signal across Vivacell.
Setup
It takes about a minute. Tap the install link we email you, leave the line switched off, then switch it on when you land — and you're online.
On iPhone (iOS)
On Android
Armenia: 9 plans, from 3 to 20 GB. Validity runs from 1 day to 30 days. 2 of them run on 5G where the local network has it.
7 plans can be topped up without installing a second eSIM. Plans run on Vivacell, Beeline, MTS, Bakcell.
Counted from our live catalogue, not a marketing figure — the plan list above this section is the same data.
3 regional plans carry Armenia cover. The widest spans 11 countries — worth it if this is one stop of several rather than the whole trip.
Regional coverage starts at £14.00 for 1 GB over 7 days.
A Armenia travel eSIM is a digital SIM that downloads straight to your phone — no plastic card, no queuing at an airport counter. You buy online, tap the install link we email you (the QR code is in there too), and your phone adds a second line alongside your normal SIM. It stays dormant until your trip begins, then connects automatically to Vivacell on LTE. Your normal number carries on working for calls and texts while the eSIM handles the data.
Maps, messaging and taxi apps use very little data — roughly 300–500 MB a day. If you add photos, social media and the occasional video, expect to use closer to 1 GB a day. For a one-week trip, a 5 GB plan is usually plenty; for two weeks, tethering, or heavy use, opt for 10 GB or more, or choose a top-up plan you can reload as you go. Armenia plans start at £7.40 across 5 sizes, with the per-GB price clearly shown so you can easily spot the best value.
Yes. A Armenia travel eSIM is a local data plan rather than international roaming — you pay the price you saw online, and there are no per-megabyte charges from your home network provider. Set the eSIM as your mobile data line, switch data roaming off on your normal SIM, and nothing unexpected turns up on your next bill. Full refund at any time before installation, so buying ahead costs you nothing.
Khorovats
Armenian barbecue — pork, lamb or vegetables skewered and grilled over vine cuttings. Less a dish than the reason a group gathers, and cooked by one designated person.
Roadside restaurants outside Yerevan, especially on the Sevan and Garni roads.
Lavash
Paper-thin bread slapped onto the wall of a tonir, a clay pit oven, and peeled off seconds later. Its baking is on the UNESCO intangible heritage list. Used as plate, wrapper and utensil.
Village bakeries where you can watch it made; sold by the stack in every market.
Tolma
Minced meat and rice wrapped in vine or cabbage leaves. Pasuts tolma is the Lenten version, filled with beans, lentils and grains and eaten cold — quite a different dish under the same name.
Traditional restaurants; the bean version appears during fasting periods.
Harissa
Cracked wheat and shredded chicken or lamb beaten together over hours until it becomes a smooth, savoury porridge. It carries a heavy memorial association with the Musa Dagh resistance.
Traditional restaurants and, communally, at village feasts.
Ghapama
A whole pumpkin hollowed out, packed with rice, dried apricots, walnuts and honey, and baked until the shell collapses. Autumn and celebration food, and there is a folk song about it.
Restaurants in autumn; guesthouses will make it on request.
Khash
A clear broth of long-boiled cow's feet, eaten at breakfast in winter with garlic crushed into it, dried lavash and vodka. Strictly a cold-weather ritual and taken seriously.
Dedicated khash houses, which open early and close by mid-morning, between roughly November and March.
Basturma and sujuk
Basturma is air-dried beef coated in a paste of fenugreek, garlic and paprika and sliced translucently thin; sujuk is the spiced dried sausage that keeps it company.
The GUM market in Yerevan, where vendors will let you taste before buying.
Spas
A soup of yoghurt or matsun thickened with wheat and heavy with herbs, served hot in winter and cold in summer.
Everywhere; a standard first course.
Gata
A sweet layered bread with a filling of butter, flour and sugar worked into a crumb, sometimes stamped with a pattern on top. Sizes vary from a biscuit to a wheel.
The women selling it from tables at the gate of Geghard monastery — the classic place to buy it.
Areni wine and Armenian brandy
The Areni grape from Vayots Dzor makes a distinctive red, and the Areni-1 cave nearby holds the remains of what is generally considered the oldest known winery. Brandy is the other national drink, aged and taken seriously.
Wine bars along Saryan Street in Yerevan; the wineries around Areni village.
Yerevan centre and the CascadeYerevan
A pink tufa city built to a Soviet-era plan around Republic Square, with the Cascade's giant stairway and sculpture collection climbing the hill, and the Matenadaran holding thousands of medieval manuscripts at the top of the main avenue.
two days
TsitsernakaberdYerevan
The Armenian Genocide memorial — a split stele and a ring of leaning slabs around an eternal flame, with a museum beneath. Central to how the country understands itself, and worth the time to visit properly.
half a day
Garni and GeghardKotayk
A colonnaded Hellenistic-style temple on a gorge edge, and half an hour further up the valley a monastery with chapels cut directly into the rock, where singers demonstrate the acoustics. In the gorge below Garni, the basalt columns known as the Symphony of Stones.
a day
Khor VirapArarat province
A monastery on a hillock in the plain with Mount Ararat filling the sky behind it, and the pit where Gregory the Illuminator was imprisoned beneath. The Turkish border runs immediately past it and Ararat itself is on the other side.
half a day
NoravankVayots Dzor
A monastery at the end of a narrow red-rock canyon, with an external staircase of stone slabs cantilevered off the church front that visitors still climb. The Areni wine villages are on the way.
half a day
Tatev and the Wings of TatevSyunik
A ninth-century monastery on a promontory above the Vorotan gorge, reached by an exceptionally long reversible cable car strung across the valley. The road alternative is a long series of switchbacks.
a day · book ahead
Lake SevanGegharkunik
A very large mountain lake at altitude, cold even in August, with the Sevanavank churches on a peninsula above it and fish restaurants around the shore.
a day
Dilijan and HaghartsinTavush
Forested hills that Armenians call their Switzerland, a restored old street in the town, and the Haghartsin monastery in the woods above it.
two days
Haghpat and SanahinLori
Two UNESCO-listed monasteries a few kilometres apart in the northern canyon country, with carved khachkars and vaulted book depositories, and far fewer visitors than the sites near Yerevan.
a day
GyumriGyumri
The second city, built in black and orange tufa, with the Kumayri district of nineteenth-century merchant houses. The 1988 earthquake is still visible in the fabric of the place and in how people talk about it.
a day
Marshrutka
Shared minibuses running fixed routes from set departure points, leaving when they fill rather than on a timetable. Cheap and everywhere, but cramped and not always obvious to a first-time visitor.
very low
Hired driver for the day
Booking a car with a driver for a full day is normal, affordable and the usual way Armenians themselves reach the monasteries. Arranged through guesthouses, agencies or a taxi driver you liked.
moderate for a full day
Yerevan metro and buses
A single metro line runs under the city and is quick for the stops it serves. Buses fill in the rest of the network and are paid on board or by card.
very low
Train
South Caucasus Railway runs a small network, with Yerevan to Gyumri the main domestic service and summer trains toward Lake Sevan. The overnight service to Tbilisi runs seasonally and books out.
low
Self-drive
Possible, and the road quality on the main corridors is reasonable, but the mountain routes into Syunik and Lori are demanding and driving standards are assertive. Fuel stations thin out in the south.
moderate
Ride-hailing
Yandex Go, GG
Both work well in Yerevan and are very cheap, which removes any need to negotiate a fare. GG is the domestic app. Coverage falls away outside the capital and the larger towns, where you arrange a car through your accommodation instead.
Paying for things
Basics
| New Year and Armenian Christmas | 31 December to 2 January, and 6 January | The longest holiday of the year in practice. The Armenian Apostolic Church marks the Nativity on 6 January, not 25 December, and much of the country is on holiday through the whole stretch. |
| Genocide Remembrance Day | 24 April | A day of national mourning. Hundreds of thousands walk to Tsitsernakaberd with flowers, restaurants play no music, and many businesses close. Behave accordingly. |
| Labour Day and Victory Day | 1 May and 9 May | Two public holidays in the same week; domestic travel and family gatherings. |
| First Republic Day | 28 May | Marks the 1918 republic. Public holiday with events in Yerevan. |
| Vardavar | the fourteenth Sunday after Easter, so usually in July | A pre-Christian water festival absorbed into the church calendar. Everyone throws water at everyone, including strangers and tourists, from buckets and balconies. Waterproof your phone and do not take it personally. |
| Constitution Day | 5 July | Public holiday in the middle of the summer season. |
| Independence Day | 21 September | Marks the 1991 independence. Public holiday with a parade in Yerevan in some years. |
| Yerevan's founding celebration | the second weekend of October | Erebuni-Yerevan day. Not a public holiday, but the city is given over to street events and central roads close. |
Recurring dates — the day these fall on moves year to year.