Four cities on the Silk Road. Two hours apart by train.
Which Registan ticket to buy, and the hour the light lands on it. What the fast train to Bukhara really costs. Whether the Aral Sea repays two days of desert driving. Reviews of every tour you can book in Uzbekistan.
The Registan, a bread oven in Khiva, the Seven Lakes, a mountain lake above Tashkent.
The four that shape a first trip through Uzbekistan: what each costs, how long it takes, and what it leaves you wanting next.
01The opening morningSamarkand: Historical Monuments Guided Walking TourThree madrasas facing one square, walked before the coaches arrive. The cheapest important morning in the country.
02The day off the mapBest of Tashkent Mountains: Amirsoy, Chimgan & Charvak TripCharvak reservoir and the Chimgan ridge, an hour out of the capital. Bring a swimsuit between June and September.
03The long driveDaytrip from Khiva to Aral Sea Cemetery of Ships. All in oneShips stranded on the seabed at Muynak, reached across the dried floor of the Aral. A full day each way from Khiva.
04The kitchenSamarkand: Uzbek Cooking Class in a Village HomePlov over a wood fire in a village house outside Samarkand. You eat what you cook, and it takes all afternoon.
Base yourself in Samarkand, or ride the whole Silk Road line.
The Afrosiyob train has turned a week of driving into a series of two-hour hops. That changes the question: one city done slowly, a day trip out and back, or the full Tashkent to Khiva run.
Samarkand: the Registan early, the tombs after.
Everything in Samarkand →
The square is free to stand in and the madrasas are not, so the ticket question comes first. Then Shah-i-Zinda’s tiled lane of tombs, and Gur-e-Amir with Timur under the jade. These three carry more travellers than anything else in the city.
Guided, or just the square
Standing in the Registan costs nothing; going inside the three madrasas does. A guide is the difference between three beautiful facades and four hundred years of argument between the men who built them.
Shah-i-Zinda and Gur-e-Amir
The necropolis is a narrow lane of tiled doorways climbing a hill, and it photographs best in the morning before the tour groups fill it. Gur-e-Amir is ten minutes away and takes twenty.
Over the pass to Shakhrisabz
Timur was born here and built a palace gate so large that only the two pylons survived. The drive crosses a 1,700-metre pass, which is half the reason to go.
Uzbekistan is mostly desert, and the desert is the better half.
Mud fortresses standing in the Kyzylkum since before Islam reached it. A fishing fleet rusting ninety miles from the water. Yurts at Aydarkul, and a chain of green lakes over the Tajik border from Samarkand. None of it is within walking distance of a hotel, and all of it is bookable.
The days out more travellers book than anything else in Uzbekistan.
Every Uzbek tour we have reviewed →What each of them is actually for, and what it costs to find out.
1
Best of Tashkent Mountains: Amirsoy, Chimgan & Charvak Trip
Escape Tashkent for Amirsoy, Chimgan, and Charvak Lake with mountain views, cable cars, local somsa, optional rides, and an English-speaking guide.
From · $48
Read our review →2
Samarkand: Historical Monuments Guided Walking Tour
from $20
3
Samarkand One Day Tour – Departure From Tashkent
from $219
4
Small group: Tajikistan Seven Lakes Day trip from Samarkand
from $141
5
Private Samarkand City Tour With Transportation
from $54
6
A City Tour Of Samarkand: The Pearl Of The East
from $16
7
Full Day Private Tour in Seven Lakes from Samarkand
from $100
8
Samarkand One Day Tour: one day walking & group tour
from $25
What the Registan, a plov class and a desert day each cost.
The whole list falls into three brackets. Uzbekistan is one of the last places where a guided morning among world monuments costs less than lunch at home.
Guided city walks, the monument tickets, a cooking class, a bread masterclass in Khiva.
The full days: Shakhrisabz over the pass, the Chimgan mountains, the Seven Lakes.
Private cars with a driver, the Aral Sea expedition, and the multi-day runs between cities.
Three things that happen in Uzbekistan and nowhere else.
Tiled domes and old bazaars turn up across Central Asia. A fleet beached in a desert, a gate built for a man who conquered half of it, and a fifteenth-century observatory do not.
The Ships at Muynak
Muynak was a fishing port. Soviet planners diverted the two rivers feeding the Aral into cotton fields, and the water went back ninety miles, leaving the fleet sitting upright on the seabed. The ships are still there, rusting on sand, with the old shoreline marked by a low cliff behind them. It is a full day of driving from Khiva and the flattest horizon most people will ever stand on.
- 1Daytrip from Khiva to Aral Sea Cemetery of Ships. All in one★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 52 reviews
- 2Aral Sea Adventures (2 day)★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 30 reviews
- 3From Khiva To Aral Sea 2-Days One Night In Yurt Stay★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 20 reviews
The Khorezm Fortresses
Long before the blue domes, Khorezm built in mud. Ayaz Kala and its neighbours stand on bluffs above the Kyzylkum, walls fifteen metres high and two thousand years old, weathered down to something that reads more like geology than architecture. There is no ticket office and usually no one else there. Most trips out of Khiva string three or four of them together.
- 1Daytrip From Khiva To Ancient Fortresses★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 60 reviews
- 2Private Daytrip to 7 Ancient Fortresses of Khorezm★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 25 reviews
- 3Guided Tour To Old Fortresses★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 25 reviews
Ulugh Beg’s Samarkand
Timur’s grandson cared more about astronomy than conquest. He built a sextant so large that its arc had to be sunk into a hillside, and used it to calculate the length of the year to within a minute. The instrument survives in its trench on the edge of Samarkand, and his madrasa still holds the left-hand side of the Registan.
- 1Day Tour to Shahrisabz of Amir Timur★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 44 reviews
- 2Afrosiyob high speed train tickets – Guaranteed Pass★★★★★★★★★★ 3.5 · 18 reviews
- 3Samarkand City Tour from Silk Paper Factory to Registan Square★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 4 reviews
Plov over a wood fire, bread stamped before it goes in the oven.
Every region argues its plov is the correct one, and all of them will feed you far too much of it. Book the class that ends as lunch, the bread masterclass in Khiva, the silk and suzani workshops where the pattern is still drawn by hand.
Four Uzbek bookings that will not wait.
Most of this country can be arranged over breakfast the day before. These four run on train inventory, desert logistics and seasons that take no interest in your flight.
- 012 Days Tour to Bukhara and Samarkand from Tashkent by trainThe Afrosiyob seats between Tashkent, Samarkand and Bukhara sell out days ahead in spring and autumn. The alternative is a much slower train or a long car ride.
- 02Daytrip from Khiva to Aral Sea Cemetery of Ships. All in oneMuynak is a two-day round trip over unsurfaced desert in a shared 4WD. Nobody assembles that at short notice, and the vehicle goes when it is full.
- 03Yurt stay and Hiking in the Nurata Mountains tour – 2 daysThe camps at Aydarkul and Nurata run a short season and hold a fixed number of beds. Midsummer nights sell before the shoulder months do.
- 04Small group: Tajikistan Seven Lakes Day trip from SamarkandThe lakes are across the Tajik border, so the day needs a vehicle cleared for the crossing and time built in for the formalities.
What to book when the Kyzylkum is too hot to stand in.
July and August put Bukhara and Khiva well past forty, and the old towns hold almost no shade between eleven and five. The answer is the same one the cities have used for six hundred years: go out early, then go under a roof. Covered bazaars, tiled interiors, a kitchen, a bathhouse.
Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara, Khiva: the line almost everybody rides.
Tashkent
Chimgan
Samarkand
Shakhrisabz
Bukhara
KhivaThe four cities, and the desert behind them
Monument, mountain, kitchen or desert
The newest Uzbek tour reviews.
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Samarkand Capital of Amir Timur Private Tour with Transport
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2 – Days Guided Tour of Samarkand and Bukhara from Tashkent
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Two Days in Fann Mountains at Iskandarkul and Sevenlake
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1 Day Tour to Shakhrisabz: Motherland of Amir Temur
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Day Tour from Samarkand Explore Panjakent and Seven Lakes
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Ayaz Kala & Toprak Kala private fortress daytrip from Khiva
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Samarkand Airport / Railway Station – Samarkand City Transfer
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Tashkent city Night Tour with Dinner & Free Pro Photography
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