Darvaza Gas Crater

The drive north from Ashgabat across the Karakum Desert takes two to three hours on a flat tarmac road with almost no other traffic — just the occasional truck heading to the gas fields and camels grazing on the sparse camelthorn that manages to survive in this hyper-arid environment. There is nothing but sand, sky and the distant Kopet Dag mountains on the horizon until the faint smell of sulphur reaches you through the car's ventilation system, the first sign that something is not normal ahead and that the road is leading to one of the most unusual geological features on earth.

The Darvaza crater — officially named Garagum ýalkymy, Shining of the Karakum, but universally known as the Door to Hell or Gates of Hell — is a natural gas field collapsed into a cavern roughly 60 to 70 metres in diameter, burning with a roar audible over the constant desert wind. The flame has been burning continuously since 1971 when Soviet geologists, having drilled into a pocket of natural gas that caused the cavern roof to collapse, made the decision to ignite the escaping gas to prevent the poisonous methane from reaching the nearby village of Darvaza and the surrounding settlements. The crater has a depth of approximately 30 metres.

During daylight hours the crater is a striking geological oddity: the orange glow is visible from the rim, heat shimmers distort the air above the opening, and the surrounding desert floor for a radius of several tens of metres is scorched black and completely lifeless, killed by years of radiated heat from the continuous burning. The contrast between the fiery crater and the sterile desert around it makes the site feel like something from another planet, and it is this visual incongruity that has made the crater one of the most photographed natural features in Central Asia.

Photographing the crater effectively requires a wide-angle lens and a stable tripod; the character of the flame changes constantly as pockets of gas ignite and die back in sequence, creating an unpredictable light show that no daytime image fully captures. Long-exposure night photographs from the rim, with the fire reflected in the eyes of other visitors standing on the rim, produce the most striking results and are the images most commonly published in international media. The sound of the burning gas — a deep, continuous roar punctuated by occasional loud pops — adds an audio dimension that makes the site feel genuinely dangerous.

There are two other craters in the immediate area, one filled with bubbling mud and the other with water, both part of the same collapsed natural gas field and now fenced off from visitors; the burning crater is the only one that has been continuously alight since 1971. Turkmen geologists believe significant commercial gas reserves remain beneath the Karakum in this area, and there has been periodic government discussion about extinguishing the flame to capture the gas commercially — which gives the site an uncertain future and adds urgency to a visit.

No other place on earth combines the geological drama of an open gas flame, the scale of a 60-metre crater and the extreme isolation of the Karakum in quite this way; the site has become one of Central Asia's most iconic travel destinations.

The Turkmen government is considering extinguishing the flame as part of future gas field development, giving the crater a finite visitable lifespan — making a trip there feel genuinely urgent.

Nighttime visits offer the most memorable experience; the fire illuminates the crater rim and the surrounding desert in a way that daylight cannot, and the silence of the Karakum at night makes the sound of the burning gas feel even more isolated.