SamarkandSamarkand One Day Tour – Departure From Tashkentfrom $219 Three Silk Road cities, one week, one rail line.
Which Registan walk is worth the guide fee. What the Aral Sea run out of Khiva really costs. Whether the fast train beats a car to Bukhara. Reviews of every tour you can book in Uzbekistan.
BukharaAll You Need To Know About Bukhara. A Walk In The Townfrom $55 Four days that decide the shape of an Uzbek trip.
The monuments on foot, the mountains behind Tashkent, a sea that left, and lunch cooked in somebody’s courtyard. What each costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The first morningHistorical Monuments Guided Walking TourRegistan, Bibi-Khanym and Shah-i-Zinda with a guide who can read the tilework. Go at opening, before the coaches reach the square.
02The day outBest of Tashkent Mountains: Amirsoy, Chimgan & Charvak TripAmirsoy, Chimgan and the Charvak reservoir in one loop from Tashkent. Green mountains two hours from a desert capital.
03The strange oneDaytrip from Khiva to Aral Sea Cemetery of Ships. All in oneRusting trawlers sitting on the old seabed at Moynaq, a long drive north of Khiva. Nothing else in Central Asia looks like it.
04The courtyard lunchVillage Tour with Plov Cooking Class & Home VisitA village outside Samarkand, a plov cauldron and the family who cook it. You eat what you helped make.
Four cities on one line, each worth its own days.
A capital of boulevards and marble metro halls, a skyline of turquoise domes, a merchant town you can walk end to end, and a walled desert city that still shuts its gates. Start with whichever your train reaches first.
These old cities give nothing up from a coach window.
Every one of these towns is a walking town. Three ways to take them: the full city day with a car between sites, the old quarter on foot, or a guide who works the monuments properly.
The Uzbek days out more travellers take than any other.
Every tour we have reviewed →The bookings that carry the most travellers in the country, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
Best of Tashkent Mountains: Amirsoy, Chimgan & Charvak Trip
Spend 8 to 9 hours outside Tashkent with an English or Russian-speaking guide. Visit Amirsoy Resort, ride a cable car, explore Chimgan by chairlift or horse, and stop at Charvak Lake for photos, boating, or swimming. Guides such as Odil, Mirzo, Maruf, and Asilbek are known for friendly service and flexible pacing.
From · $48
Read our review →
2
Historical Monuments Guided Walking Tour
from $20
3
Samarkand One Day Tour – Departure From Tashkent
from $219
4
Private Samarkand City Tour With Transportation
from $54
5
A City Tour Of Samarkand: The Pearl Of The East
from $16
6
Full Day Private Tour in Seven Lakes from Samarkand
from $100
7
Samarkand One Day Tour: one day walking & group tour
from $25
8
Amirsoy, Chimgan & Charvak Full-Day Adventure
from $39
Most of Uzbekistan is not city, and the country days prove it.
Snow on the Chimgan ridge an hour from Tashkent, a reservoir the colour of a swimming pool, lakes over the Tajik border, and camps pitched on Kyzylkum sand where the noise stops completely.
The two western towns are small, old and best taken slowly.
Bukhara keeps its trading domes and its bathhouses in working order, and hides a sixteenth-century pool in the middle of it all. Khiva fits inside its walls, which means you can see the whole of it in a day and should still give it two.
Every day out in the west →
What a day in Uzbekistan actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. The country is cheap to travel, and the best morning in Samarkand costs less than the taxi from the airport at home.
Old-town walks, monument guides, a bazaar morning and the short runs up into the hills.
Full city days with a car, the Shahrisabz and Nurata trips, cooking classes with a family.
Multi-day circuits, the Aral Sea run, a private driver for a week and the rail packages.
Three things that only happen in Uzbekistan.
Blue-tiled madrasas have imitators. A fishing fleet stranded in a desert, a 230km/h train under the Kyzylkum sun and a felt tent on the sand do not.
The Ships in the Sand
The Aral was the fourth largest lake on earth until the rivers feeding it were turned onto cotton. The water has gone roughly a hundred and fifty kilometres north, and the trawlers that worked out of Moynaq sit on the old seabed where they were left. Getting there is a long drive from Khiva or Nukus, usually with a night under canvas on the Ustyurt plateau.
- 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
Tashkent to Samarkand in Two Hours
Spain built the trains and Uzbekistan laid the track for them, so the quickest way across the steppe is a Talgo doing 230km/h past cotton fields. Tashkent to Samarkand takes a little over two hours, Bukhara under four. Seats go on sale weeks out and the morning departures are the ones everybody wants.
- 12 Days Tour to Bukhara and Samarkand from Tashkent by train★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 53 reviews
- 2Day Tour to Samarkand from Tashkent by train.★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 34 reviews
- 3Uzbekistan 3 Day Private Tour Tashkent-Bukhara-Samarkand Bullet Train★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 23 reviews
A Night on the Sand
Between Bukhara and Samarkand the road runs past Lake Aydarkul and the dunes around Nurata, and the camps out there are felt tents pitched in a circle with a fire in the middle. Camels in the afternoon, a singer after dinner, and a sky with nothing on the horizon to spoil it.
- 1Yurt stay and Hiking in the Nurata Mountains tour – 2 days★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 35 reviews
- 2Yurt Camp Tour with Night from Bukhara★★★★★★★★★★ 3.8 · 35 reviews
- 3From Khiva To Aral Sea 2-Days One Night In Yurt Stay★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 20 reviews
Four Uzbek bookings that will not wait for you.
Most of this country can be sorted over breakfast the day before. These four run on train inventory, border paperwork and a small pool of vehicles, none of which care when your flight lands.
- 01Full Day Private Tour in Seven Lakes from SamarkandThe Haft Kul lakes are over the border in Tajikistan. The day trip needs a Tajik e-visa already in hand, and that is not a same-morning job.
- 022 Days Tour to Bukhara and Samarkand from Tashkent by trainUzbek rail opens seats about six weeks ahead and the fast Samarkand departures clear first. A tour that includes the ticket holds the seat for you.
- 03Daytrip from Khiva to Aral Sea Cemetery of Ships. All in oneMoynaq is two days of driving in a 4x4, and the local pool of vehicles is small. Spring and autumn departures go out full.
- 04Yurt Camp Tour with Night from BukharaThe Kyzylkum camps have a fixed number of tents and shut through the coldest part of winter. A bed there is a booking, not something you arrange on arrival.
At forty degrees the tilework can wait until six.
High summer on the plain is brutal and shadeless, and every open courtyard in Samarkand turns into a furnace by eleven. The answer is the local one: start at first light, disappear indoors through the middle of the day, and come back out when the domes go gold.
By place, along the line west from Tashkent
Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara, Khiva: the line almost everybody follows.
The newest Uzbek tour reviews.
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Tashkent Chimgan Mountains, Charvak Reservoir and Amirsoy Resort
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Discover Uzbekistan – explore top destinations: Samarkand, Bukhara & Tashkent
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Samarkand City Tour: Ancient Domes & Timeless Stories
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2 – Days Guided Tour of Samarkand and Bukhara from Tashkent
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Uzbekistan in 7 days Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva
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