Uzbekistan · 1 to 2 days
Tashkent
The capital and the place most trips begin: a Soviet-planned city of wide avenues over an older one of bazaars and mosques.
Destinations
Where we go.
Uzbekistan's Silk Road cities first, the valley and the desert next, and the neighbours from there.
Uzbekistan
Cities, valley, desert
Uzbekistan · 2 days
Samarkand
Timur's capital from 1370: the Registan, the Shah-i-Zinda necropolis and the Gur-e-Amir mausoleum, two hours from Tashkent by high-speed train.
Uzbekistan · 2 to 3 days
Bukhara
More than 140 protected monuments in one walkable old town, among them the Kalyan Minaret, standing since 1127.
Uzbekistan · 1 to 2 days
Khiva
Itchan Kala, the walled inner town, became Uzbekistan's first UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1990 and still looks the way it did two centuries ago.
Uzbekistan · 2 to 3 days
Fergana Valley
Silk weaving in Margilan, ceramics in Rishtan and knives in Chust, over the mountains east of Tashkent.
Uzbekistan · A day trip from Samarkand
Shakhrisabz
Timur's birthplace, over the Takhtakaracha pass from Samarkand, with the ruined gate of his Ak-Saray palace still forty metres high.
Uzbekistan · 1 night, between Samarkand and Bukhara
Nurata and the Kyzylkum
The desert between Samarkand and Bukhara: a holy spring at Nurata, Bronze Age petroglyphs, and yurt camps by Aydarkul lake.
Uzbekistan · 3 to 4 days
Nukus and the Aral Sea
The far west: the Savitsky Museum's hidden avant-garde collection, the ship graveyard at Moynaq, and the shore the sea has retreated to.
Beyond Uzbekistan
The neighbours
Each joins an Uzbekistan trip by land or by a short flight.
Kyrgyzstan · 5 to 8 days
Kyrgyzstan
Mountains, lakes and yurts: Issyk-Kul, the high pasture at Song-Kul, and Osh, a land border away from the Fergana Valley.
Kazakhstan · 1 day for Turkestan; 3 to 5 days for Almaty and the lakes
Kazakhstan
Turkestan's great mausoleum is three hours from Tashkent; Almaty, the Charyn Canyon and the Kolsai lakes are an overnight train or a short flight away.
Tajikistan · 1 to 3 days from Samarkand; 8 to 12 days for the Pamirs
Tajikistan
The Seven Lakes are a day from Samarkand, Khujand two hours from Tashkent, and the Pamir Highway is a trip of its own.
Plan a trip
Tell us your dates, how many of you are travelling and what you want to see. We reply with a day-by-day proposal and a price.
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