Samarkand, Bukhara, Khiva — and the road between.
Which Samarkand day gets you into Shah-i-Zinda before the coaches. Whether the Aral Sea is worth two days of desert. What the fast train to Bukhara actually costs. Every guided day in Uzbekistan, reviewed.
Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara, Khiva — in that order.
Almost every trip runs west along the old road: the capital first, then the Registan, then the trading domes, then the walled city in the desert. Two side trips are worth breaking the line for.
The days that fill first between Tashkent and Khiva.
Every review →More travellers take these than anything else on the road — and what each one is actually like on the day.
1
Best of Tashkent Mountains: Amirsoy, Chimgan & Charvak Trip
Review of Tashkent’s Amirsoy, Chimgan and Charvak day trip, with mountain views, cable cars, swimming, costs, timing and practical tips.
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
Private Samarkand City Tour With Transportation
from $54
5
A City Tour Of Samarkand: The Pearl Of The East
from $16
6
Tashkent City Tour
from $69
7
Transfer: Bukhara – Khiva via Ancient Fortresses
from $160
8
Full Day Private Tour in Seven Lakes from Samarkand
from $100
Three ways to do Samarkand, and one of them is a day trip.
All Samarkand tours →
The Registan, Shah-i-Zinda and Gur-e-Amir sit within two kilometres of each other. What changes is whether you sleep in the city, come and go on the fast train, or add Shahrisabz over the mountain pass.
Out and back on the fast train
Tashkent at seven, the Registan by ten, Shah-i-Zinda after lunch and home before midnight. It is a long day and it works.
Shah-i-Zinda before the coaches
The avenue of tombs is narrow and best at opening time. A walking guide covers the monuments in a morning and leaves the afternoon to you.
Shahrisabz and the Tahtakaracha
Timur was born ninety kilometres south of Samarkand and built a palace there so large that only two pylons still stand. The road crosses a 1,700m pass to reach it.
The Silk Road, west from Tashkent.
Tashkent
Samarkand
Shahrisabz
Bukhara
KhivaBukhara is the city people stay an extra night for.
Trading domes still selling scissors and silk, a minaret Genghis Khan left standing, and a pool the whole old town walks around at dusk. The centre is small enough to cross in twenty minutes and deep enough to lose two days in.
Uzbekistan stays cheap until you hire the car.
A guided morning here costs less than a taxi across most capitals. The jump comes the moment a driver, a desert crossing or an overnight goes on the bill.
Walking tours of the old cities, museum entries, bazaar mornings and cooking classes in a family kitchen.
Full days with a driver: Shahrisabz over the pass, Chimgan and Charvak, private tours of Bukhara and Khiva.
The long ones — Moynaq and back, the Seven Lakes across the Tajik border, multi-day runs linking all four cities.
Tashkent is Soviet concrete laid over a Silk Road bazaar.
Chorsu’s blue dome sells the same bread it has for centuries; ten minutes away the metro runs through stations built as palaces. Most trips give the capital one day before the train west. It holds two.
Three things Uzbekistan has and nowhere else does.
Tiled madrasas run the length of Central Asia. A rusting fleet in a dry seabed, a rice dish cooked by the cauldron and mudbrick castles older than Islam belong to this country alone.
The Ship Graveyard
Moynaq was a fishing port with a cannery and a harbour. The Aral Sea has retreated roughly 150 kilometres from it, and the trawlers were left where they settled, upright in the sand above the old shoreline. Trips run out of Khiva or Nukus and take two days, because the drive across the Ustyurt is most of it.
- 1Daytrip from Khiva to Aral Sea Cemetery of Ships. All in one★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 52 reviews
- 2Yurt stay and Hiking in the Nurata Mountains tour – 2 days★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 35 reviews
- 3Yurt Camp Tour with Night from Bukhara★★★★★★★★★★ 3.8 · 35 reviews
Plov, Cooked Properly
Osh is rice, carrot, mutton and cottonseed oil cooked in a cast-iron kazan wide enough to feed a wedding, and every city insists its version is the real one. Tashkent eats it at lunch and stops serving by two. A class puts you at the cauldron in a family kitchen instead of at a restaurant table.
- 1Samarkand: Village Tour with Plov Cooking Class & Home Visit★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 29 reviews
- 2Tashkent: Uzbek Culture, Food, Crafts & Pottery Masterclass★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 24 reviews
- 3Tashkent: Cultural Exploration & Pottery Masterclass★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 24 reviews
The Desert Castles
Two thousand years before the blue tiles, Khorezm built mudbrick fortresses out in the Kyzylkum — Ayaz-Kala on its ridge, Toprak-Kala below it, dozens more eroding quietly. They are ninety minutes from Khiva on a road with nothing either side of it, and you can walk the ramparts alone.
- 1Transfer: Bukhara – Khiva via Ancient Fortresses★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 101 reviews
- 2Daytrip From Khiva To Ancient Fortresses★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 60 reviews
- 3Guided Tour To Old Fortresses★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 25 reviews
The Kyzylkum is nine hours wide and worth two days of it.
All desert trips →
Daytrip from Khiva to Aral Sea Cemetery of Ships. All in one
Read our review →
From Khiva To Aral Sea 2-Days One Night In Yurt Stay
Read our review →Book these before you fly to Uzbekistan.
Most of the country can be arranged from your hotel the evening before. These cannot — they run on border paperwork, seat releases and a handful of beds out in the desert.
- 01Daytrip from Khiva to Aral Sea Cemetery of Ships. All in oneTwo days minimum and a 4x4 with a driver. Nothing about the Ustyurt road gets arranged on the morning.
- 02Full Day Private Tour in Seven Lakes from SamarkandThe lakes sit over the Tajik border, so your passport details go to the operator days ahead of the drive.
- 032 Days Tour to Bukhara and Samarkand from Tashkent by trainThe fast trains between the cities sell out weeks ahead through April, May, September and October.
- 04Yurt stay and Hiking in the Nurata Mountains tour – 2 daysA camp holds a handful of beds a night, and in spring and autumn they are taken.
Khiva is a walled city you can cross in twenty minutes.
Itchan Kala is a ring of mudbrick wall around what is effectively a museum of a town: an unfinished fat minaret, a harem, a slave-market square and a view over all of it from the watchtower at sunset. Most itineraries give it one night. It repays two.
- 1Khiva: Historical City Highlights Guided Walking Tourfrom $19
- 2Transfer: Bukhara – Khiva via Ancient Fortressesfrom $160
- 3Daytrip From Khiva To Ancient Fortressesfrom $98
By ten in the morning the Registan is 40 degrees.
Uzbek summers are dry and severe, and the middle of the day is not for monuments. Start at six, stop at eleven, and spend the hot hours somewhere thick-walled: under a trading dome, at a potter’s wheel, over a kazan, or up at Charvak where the lake runs fifteen degrees kinder than the city.
By city — along the old road
Tashkent52 tours
Samarkand51 tours
Bukhara26 tours
Khiva22 tours
Moynaq & the Aral16 tours- Chimgan & Charvak9 tours
The Seven Lakes6 tours- All Uzbekistan tours →
Newest on the road between Tashkent and Khiva.
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Bukhara: Full-Day Guided Tour with English-Speaking Guide
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2-Day Nuratau Mountain Tour to Sentob Village from Bukhara.
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Tashkent Private Full-Day City Tour on a Premium Car
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Tashkent Chimgan Mountains, Charvak Reservoir and Amirsoy Resort
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