North of Tehran are the desirable beaches of the Caspian Sea, a body of water covering 140,000 square miles; an area equivalent to the state of Montana. Popular coastal provinces are Gilan, Golestan and Mazandaran. According to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Mazadaran, within the first week of the Iranian New Year, roughly 12 million tourists flock to these coastal locations.
Though much time is spent on the beach, swimming, tanning and barbequing, visitors to these coastal areas can take part in other activities. On land, lush forests along the coast provides an ideal hiking environment and the ambitious tourist can ride through them on horseback. Off the coast, visitors can take boat rides for fishing trips or for simple enjoyment. Other tourist attractions include both hot and cold mineral springs as well as historic sites like the traditional village of Masouleh, Ramsar City and the tea farms of Lahijan.
Iranian law prohibits women from exposing their skin in public but there are segregated beaches along the coast where women can replace their headscarves and the traditional chadors (the dark fabric that covers the entire body except for the eyes) with much more revealing bikinis and other swimsuits.
These guarded areas are enclosed by walls of canvas that extend far into the sea. The only males allowed into the enclosures are boys under the age of 6. Though many Iranian women enjoy them, others feel that the woman-only areas are too small to for the number of visiting woman, resulting in overcrowded and unclean beaches. These segregated beaches are not unique to Iran as other countries in the Middle East, like Egypt, provide them as well.
In 2007, the government of Iran devoted funding for beach revitalizations programs such as "Tarhe Salem-sayzi Darha", which means the "Cleansing Sea Project". In addition to greater sanitation efforts, this program has increased the amount of lifeguards for monitoring swimming areas. Also, this program has designated more sections of beach for woman-only areas.
