While we have covered most of the most common misconceptions Iran for tourists, I want to put some of them together in a single post.
1. Americans need permission to go to Iran. FALSE. You need a visa, easily obtainable, but NO permission from the U.S. government.
2. Iran is unsafe. Again, this is just not the case. I would say that Iranian cities have terrible traffic and you need to be careful on that score, but since you will have a private driver, you will not be doing any driving there and will not need to worry. You do need to be careful when crossing the street on foot. According to State Department documents, the only Americans seriously injured in Iran were in traffic accidents. But, of course, this can occur anywhere, even near your home.
3. Iran is a third-world country and does not have modern hotels or infrastructure. Again, this is not true. Most of the hotels we stay at in Iran can be called 4- or 5-star. In some of the smaller towns and off-the-beaten-track places you might have to stay at simpler, less luxurious places. But in or experience they are always clean and almost every one has Wifi.
And we can say that the luxury hotels are really luxurious. The Hotel Shiraz, for example, is probably one of the msot beautiful hotels in the world.
As far as the roads are concerned, Iran is completely covered with 4-lane divided highways, with sign in both Farsi and English. In my own experience, there appear to be more 4-land divided highways in Iran than in almost any other Asian country and even more than in many European countries. It is far ahead of Turkey, for example, in that respect.
4. And here’s a big misconception. For some indefinable reason. Iranians seem to love Americans. When people hear that are from the U.S. they can’t seem to get enough of you. When we say that the Iranian people are “welcoming” to Americans, it is really true.