The complete guide for UK travellers: Registan Square at 5pm when the tiles go gold, the Shah-i-Zinda tilework that took generations to complete, a walled medieval city with 3,000 people still living inside it, the Soviet metro stations more ornate than most European museums, the Aral Sea ship graveyard, the high-speed train connecting it all — and why Uzbekistan is the most extraordinary undervisited trip available from the UK right now.
Reading time: 15 minutes | Last updated: 2026
The Silk Road was not a road.
It was a network of trade routes connecting China to the Mediterranean, running for 4,000 years from roughly 200 BC to the 15th century CE, carrying silk, spices, horses, ceramics, glass, and religion in both directions. The cities that grew at the crossroads of those routes — where the routes met, where the caravans rested, where the merchants traded and the artisans lived — became some of the wealthiest and most culturally sophisticated centres in the medieval world.
Most of those cities are in modern Uzbekistan.
Samarkand, Bukhara, Khiva — three cities that were significant when Rome was young, that became extraordinary under the Timurid Empire in the 14th and 15th centuries (when Timur, also known as Tamerlane, conquered half the known world and used its wealth to build an Islamic architecture unlike anything before or since), and that survived subsequent invasions, Soviet collectivisation, and decades of Central Asian insularity to emerge, in the past decade, as one of the most accessible and most extraordinary travel destinations on Earth.
The window between “unknown” and “discovered” is currently open. The flights are cheap. The visa is free for UK passport holders. The accommodation is excellent value. The major sites — Registan Square, Shah-i-Zinda, the Khiva Ichan-Qala — are being visited by a fraction of the international tourists who visit comparable sites in Turkey, Jordan, or Morocco.
This is the trip of the next five years. Go now, before it isn’t.
Quick Navigation
- The Case for Uzbekistan — And Why Now
- When to Go — Spring, Autumn, and the Summer Heat
- Getting There — The Train That Changes Everything
- Tashkent — The Capital and the Metro
- Samarkand — The Timur Showcase
- Bukhara — The Holy City
- Khiva — The Living Museum
- The Aral Sea — The World’s Most Important Environmental Warning
- The Fergana Valley — The Cradle of Silk
- Nuratau — The Mountain Lakes Nobody Visits
- The Food — Plov, Lagman, and the Silk Road Diet
- What It Costs — Real Numbers
- Practical Notes
- The 10-Day Itinerary — The Silk Road Route
The Case for Uzbekistan — And Why Now
The “why now” is specific, not rhetorical.
Until 2017, Uzbekistan was a difficult country to visit. The visa system was bureaucratic, the tourist infrastructure was thin, and the government of President Islam Karimov (who died in 2016 after 27 years in power) had little interest in developing international tourism. The country was known primarily as a US partner in the War on Terror and as the birthplace of several notable historical figures, not as a travel destination.
In 2017, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev began a significant opening of the country — visa-free access for most Western nations, a simplified visa system for others, a liberalisation of the currency exchange rate (previously an official and unofficial rate existed in parallel, creating significant difficulties), and a focused investment in tourism infrastructure across the main Silk Road cities.
The result: new guesthouses in Bukhara’s old city, a renovated train network, the Afrosiyob high-speed train connecting the main Silk Road cities, improved English-language signage at the major monuments, and an influx of international visitors that has grown from approximately 5 million in 2018 to over 9 million by 2023.
The key number: 9 million is still tiny compared to Turkey (50 million), Egypt (15 million), or Morocco (13 million). For context, Jordan — which receives considerable UK visitor attention — sees 4 million visitors per year. Uzbekistan, which is genuinely more historically significant and more architecturally extraordinary, sees roughly twice that and receives roughly one-tenth the coverage in UK travel content.
The infrastructure is now excellent. The prices remain those of a country in the early stages of tourism development. The monuments are not crowded. The food is extraordinary and cheap. The train is fast and reliable.
This is the argument for going now rather than in five years when the prices will have risen and the crowds will have arrived.
When to Go — Spring, Autumn, and the Summer Heat
Uzbekistan has a continental climate — hot summers, cold winters, mild springs and autumns.
March to May — Spring
The finest season. Temperatures in Samarkand and Bukhara: 20-27°C. The Fergana Valley and the Nuratau foothills are green from winter rains. Nauruz (the Persian New Year, March 21) is celebrated throughout Central Asia with public festivities, music, and the first outdoor plov cooking sessions of the season. The light is excellent for the tile photography that the Silk Road monuments demand.
September to October — Autumn
The second sweet spot. The summer heat has broken. The pomegranate harvest runs through October — the markets of Samarkand and Bukhara are piled with fruit. The evening temperatures in Khiva drop enough to make the rooftop dinner of a guesthouse genuinely pleasant rather than oppressive. The light in October, low and golden, is extraordinary on the blue tiles.
June to August — Summer
Hot. Genuinely, seriously hot — Bukhara and Khiva reach 40-45°C in July. The major monuments are still open and still extraordinary, but the outdoor photography and the walking between sites requires the same midday rest strategy as the Egyptian summer. The Tashkent mountains (the Chimgan resort) offer relief. For most UK travellers, this is not the optimal window.
November to February — Winter
Cold in the north (Tashkent, Khiva: 0-10°C), very cold at altitude. The monuments are open, largely uncrowded, and occasionally snow-dusted in a way that gives the blue tiles an entirely different character. The fewer-crowds benefit is real. Travel is generally fine but some mountain routes close.
The BGGD recommendation: April or October. Both give the tilework in the best light, comfortable temperatures, and manageable crowd levels. The pomegranate season in October gives Bukhara’s markets an additional dimension.
Getting There — The Train That Changes Everything
Flights:
Uzbekistan Airways operates direct flights from London Heathrow to Tashkent — flight time approximately 7 hours, return flights from £350-500 booked 6-10 weeks ahead. This is one of the most economical long-haul flights available from the UK and is the primary reason the Uzbekistan trip is so accessible.
Turkish Airlines via Istanbul is the main alternative — slightly longer (10-11 hours total) but often competitive on price and with more flexible scheduling.
Fly into Tashkent. Fly out of Tashkent, Samarkand, or Urgench (the nearest airport to Khiva). An open-jaw routing (in Tashkent, out Urgench or Samarkand) avoids backtracking and is typically the same price.
The Afrosiyob High-Speed Train:
The transformation of the Uzbekistan tourist experience. A Spanish-built (Talgo) high-speed train connecting Tashkent, Samarkand, and Bukhara at speeds up to 250km/h:
- Tashkent → Samarkand: 2 hours 10 minutes, from £12-18
- Samarkand → Bukhara: 1 hour 30 minutes, from £10-15
- Tashkent → Bukhara (direct, less frequent): 3 hours 40 minutes
Book tickets at uzrailpass.com or at any train station ticket office (Uzbek Som only at the station; USD and card online). The trains are clean, comfortable, and punctual in a way that makes the distances between the Silk Road cities effectively irrelevant. The landscape through the windows (desert plains, the occasional river oasis, the Zerafshan valley) is part of the experience.
Bukhara to Khiva:
The one section the train doesn’t cover elegantly. A shared taxi (six seats, depart when full) from Bukhara’s central taxi stand to Khiva takes 5-6 hours through the Kyzylkum desert. Cost: £8-12 per seat. The drive is through a flat, largely empty landscape — not spectacular, but the arrival in Khiva through the city gate after a day in the desert has its own logic.
Alternatively: Uzbekistan Airways domestic flight from Bukhara to Urgench (40 minutes, £25-40), then shared taxi to Khiva (45 minutes).
Tashkent — The Capital and the Metro
Tashkent is the largest city in Central Asia — 2.7 million people, largely rebuilt after a devastating 1966 earthquake that destroyed most of the pre-Soviet city. The Tashkent that remains is Soviet in its urban planning: wide boulevards, monumental public buildings, public parks of the kind that Soviet urbanism planned as necessary components of the socialist city.
This sounds like a reason to pass through quickly. It’s not, for one specific reason.
The Tashkent Metro:
Built in the 1970s and progressively expanded, the Tashkent Metro was designed as both functional infrastructure and propaganda — each station was assigned to a different architect and themed to a different subject, producing a series of spaces that individually would be extraordinary museum installations. Together, as a working underground railway, they are genuinely one of the most unusual public spaces in the world.
Photography was officially restricted until 2018 — the stations were classified as strategic installations. This is why they’re only now being properly documented and shared. The restrictions have been removed; take as many photographs as you want.
The specific stations:
Kosmonavtlar (Cosmonauts Station): The ceiling: a series of illuminated domes depicting the Soviet space program — rockets, satellites, cosmonauts, the full iconography of the Soviet space age rendered in mosaic and relief. The effect of walking into a station celebrating human space exploration as a daily commute is specific and slightly surreal.
Alisher Navoiy: Named for the 15th-century Uzbek poet and statesman. The interior: carved wooden stalactite vaults (muqarnas) in the Persian-Uzbek architectural tradition, illuminated by elaborate chandeliers. Islamic architecture aesthetics applied to a Soviet metro station — a collision of two traditions that somehow works.
Pakhtakor (Cotton Workers): The station of the cotton harvest — the cotton plant rendered in marble reliefs, the harvest scenes depicted across the walls, the entire interior celebrating an agricultural economy that the Soviet system both valorised and exploited. The aesthetics are extraordinary; the history is complicated.
Mustaqillik Maydoni (Independence Square): The central station, redesigned after independence — marble, gold, the imagery of an independent Uzbekistan rather than a Soviet republic. The contrast with the Soviet-era stations makes the political transition visible.
The metro costs £0.15 per journey. Take it as transport and as a museum simultaneously.
The Old City Fragment:
The 1966 earthquake destroyed most of pre-Soviet Tashkent, but the Khast Imom complex survived — an ensemble of madrasas and mosques that functioned as the religious centre of the city. The Barak Khan Madrassa (16th century, its main façade the finest remaining example of Timurid architecture in Tashkent), the Hazrat Imam Mosque (the main Friday mosque), and the library containing the Uthman Quran — believed to be the oldest surviving Quran in the world, written in the 7th century. Entry to the Khast Imom complex: free.
The Chorsu Bazaar:
The main market of Tashkent — a domed 16th-century bazaar building surrounded by an open-air market that extends through several blocks. The spice section (saffron, dried fruit, nuts, rice varieties, the specific plov spice mixes that Uzbek cooks prepare in advance) is the best. The bread bakers at the back, pulling non (flatbread) from the tandoor ovens, are the earliest risers at the market.
Samarkand — The Timur Showcase
Samarkand was the capital of Timur’s empire — the city he chose as the centre of a territory stretching from Turkey to India, and that he spent his wealth and his artisans’ skills transforming into the most beautiful city in the Islamic world.
The Timurid architectural programme ran from approximately 1370 to 1500, covering three generations of Timurid rulers. The buildings constructed in this period represent a specific and unrepeated achievement in Islamic architecture — the combination of Persian, Mongolian, and Central Asian traditions in a context of near-unlimited imperial wealth produced structures that have no direct equivalent.
The Registan
Three madrasas (Islamic schools) facing each other across a central plaza: Ulugh Beg Madrassa (1417-1420), Sher-Dor Madrassa (1619-1636), and Tilya-Kori Madrassa (1646-1660). Each is covered in turquoise, cobalt, gold, and white mosaic tilework — geometric patterns, calligraphic inscriptions, floral arabesques — of a precision and scale that no single craftsperson could complete in a lifetime.
The Registan at 5pm, when the sun is at a low angle from the west and the tiles catch it: one of the finest architectural views in the world. The digital light show that runs at night (£3, included in the evening session) is a pale substitute — skip it and stand in the real light instead.
The interior of the Tilya-Kori Madrassa: the main hall has a gilded painted ceiling, the gold leaf still luminous, the mihrab (prayer niche indicating the direction of Mecca) the finest example of ceramic tilework in the building. Usually quiet inside regardless of the plaza crowd outside.
Entry: £5 for the full Registan pass. Open from 8am to 7pm.
Shah-i-Zinda Necropolis
A processional avenue of Timurid mausolea — a street of the dead, each building the tomb of a Timurid noble or family member, covering approximately 150 years of construction from the 14th to 16th centuries. Each mausoleum is tiled differently: one in geometric blue and white, one in polychrome floral, one in mosaic calligraphy, one with a dome in a deep lapis lazuli that appears unnatural in direct sunlight.
The specific quality of Shah-i-Zinda that no photograph communicates: the scale. These are buildings 15 metres tall, one after another, the avenue between them about 4 metres wide. Walking the processional path slowly — which the pace of the tilework demands — takes 45 minutes and produces a growing sense of the accumulative skill across the century and a half of construction.
At the far end of the avenue: the tomb of Kusam ibn Abbas, believed to be a cousin of the Prophet Muhammad and the person who brought Islam to Central Asia in the 7th century. A pilgrimage site — visit respectfully, dress modestly. Entry: £2.
The Gur-e-Amir Mausoleum
Timur’s own tomb — and the tomb of his descendants, including his grandson Ulugh Beg (one of the finest mathematicians and astronomers of the medieval world, who measured the length of the year to within a minute in the 15th century with instruments built in the Samarkand observatory). The blue ribbed dome above the octagonal drum, the interior covered in painted and gilded plasterwork of extraordinary fineness. Entry: £3.
The story associated with Tamerlane’s tomb: Soviet archaeologists opened it in June 1941. Three days later, Germany invaded the Soviet Union. The tomb was resealed in November 1942, shortly before the Soviet victory at Stalingrad. This is probably coincidence.
The Ulugh Beg Observatory
Built in 1428-1429 by Timur’s grandson, an astronomer-king who measured the length of the year (365 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes, 15 seconds — actual value: 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 45 seconds, an error of 30 seconds for a 15th-century measurement). The observatory was destroyed shortly after Ulugh Beg’s assassination by his own son in 1449. Excavations in 1908 revealed the underground arc of the giant sextant — a curved marble track 40 metres long used to track the position of the sun and stars. The arc is preserved in situ, with a small museum above it. Entry: £2.
The connection between the observatory and the Registan is 10 minutes on foot and underlines the specific quality of the Timurid court: the combination of architectural patronage and intellectual life that produced both the finest buildings in Islamic history and significant advances in mathematics, astronomy, and poetry in the same generation.
Bibi-Khanym Mosque
Commissioned by Timur for his favourite wife (Bibi-Khanym) on his return from the Indian campaign in 1399, designed to be the largest mosque in the world — the main iwan (portal arch) was 18 metres wide and the dome of the main hall 40 metres high. It was partially collapsing within a generation due to the rushed construction schedule (Timur wanted it built in two years) and the use of undercured mortar.
What remains — the restored portal arch, the scattered marble Quran stand in the courtyard, the base of the minarets — gives a sense of the original ambition in its absence. The ruins as ruins are more interesting than they would be if fully restored.
Bukhara — The Holy City
Bukhara was the spiritual and intellectual capital of the Islamic world several times across its history — a city of 200 mosques, 100 madrasas, and a teaching tradition that produced Al-Biruni (the 11th-century polymath who calculated the Earth’s circumference to within 1% using mathematics alone) and Avicenna (Ibn Sina, who wrote the Canon of Medicine in Bukhara, the definitive medical textbook in the Islamic world and European universities for 500 years).
The old city of Bukhara (the Ark fortress, the Kalon Minaret and Mosque, the covered bazaars, the 17th-century madrasas) has been continuously inhabited since at least the 5th century BC — the same streets, the same spatial logic, the same relationship between the mosque and the market and the caravanserai. This continuity is what distinguishes Bukhara from the spectacular but largely archaeological quality of Samarkand.
The Kalon Minaret
Built in 1127 by the Kara-Khanid Khan Arslan Khan — 46 metres tall, the tallest structure in Central Asia for 300 years after its completion. The story: Genghis Khan arrived in Bukhara in 1220 to destroy it. He looked up at the minaret. His hat fell from his head. He had never been obliged to tilt his head back to see a building’s top before. He reportedly said: “Only God is greater than this minaret.” He spared it. Every other building in the city was destroyed.
The minaret is visible from across the old city. From the base, the geometric terracotta brickwork (each row a different pattern) and the blue-tiled calligraphic band at the top are the finest Central Asian brickwork of the pre-Timurid period. Climbable with guide (ask at the adjacent mosque): the view from the top takes in the entire old city.
The Po-i-Kalyan Complex
The ensemble around the Kalon Minaret: the Kalyan Mosque (rebuilt in the 16th century, capable of holding 12,000 worshippers), the Mir-i-Arab Madrassa (16th century, the finest Timurid-period madrassa in Bukhara, still functioning as a religious school — students visible in the courtyard in the morning). The three buildings form a spatial composition that is Bukhara’s equivalent of the Registan — different in character (lower, more horizontal, the minaret vertical element) but equally considered.
The Lyabi-Hauz
A 16th-century reservoir (hauz) surrounded by mulberry trees, madrasas, and tea-houses — the social heart of Bukhara. The chaikhana (teahouse) operators have their chairs and tables on the shaded platforms beside the water from 7am. This is where you drink green tea in the late afternoon and watch the city conduct its business.
The Nadir Divanbegi Madrassa on the north side of the pool: the most visually unusual madrassa in Uzbekistan — the façade features two phoenix birds (simurgh) flanking a human face, a figural representation that is technically prohibited in Islamic architecture. The madrassa was originally built as a caravanserai; when it was hastily redesignated as a madrassa, the already-completed decoration couldn’t be changed. Bukhara is full of these specific human decisions.
The Covered Bazaars (Tim)
The 16th-century domed trading halls that connected the main bazaar axis of Bukhara — each covering a specific trade: the Tim Abdullakhan for money changers, the Toki Sarrofon for jewellery, the Toki Telpakfurushon for hat-makers. The domes (ribbed terracotta, the same technique as the minarets) are still functioning as craft and souvenir markets. The silverwork and suzani (embroidered textiles) sold here are genuinely good — the crafts tradition is intact.
The Ark Fortress
The citadel of Bukhara — a mud-brick fortress occupied continuously from the 5th century AD to 1920 (when the Red Army bombed it during the Bolshevik takeover of Central Asia). The Emir of Bukhara escaped over the wall in the bombardment. His throne room, ceremonial chamber, and the prison (where the two British officers Charles Stoddart and Arthur Conolly were executed in 1842 — the Great Game incident that ended careers and lives) are all accessible. Entry: £3.
Khiva — The Living Museum
Khiva is the most intact example of a Central Asian walled city in existence. The Ichan-Qala (inner city) — a mud-brick walled enclosure approximately 650 metres by 400 metres — contains mosques, madrasas, minarets, caravanserais, and a royal palace, all within walls that have stood since the 10th century. Approximately 3,000 people still live inside the walls.
This last fact is what makes Khiva extraordinary rather than merely well-preserved. A museum is curated for visitors. A lived city still has its own logic. In Khiva, the child playing in a narrow lane between two 17th-century madrasas is not staged. The old woman selling dried apricots from her doorway is not a historical recreation. The cats that own the alleys at dawn and dusk are entirely indifferent to any historical significance.
The Ichan-Qala:
Entry pass: £6, covers all the major monuments. Open 8am to sunset.
The Kalta Minor Minaret: The most visually distinctive structure in Khiva — a minaret of extraordinary girth (28 metres in diameter at the base) that was never completed. Mohammed Amin Khan began it in 1855 intending to build the tallest minaret in Central Asia; he was killed in battle in 1855 before the work was complete. The minaret reaches 26 metres — less than a third of the planned height — and is covered in turquoise and blue tilework. Its truncated form, standing absurdly thick and squuat in the Khiva streetscape, is somehow more affecting than any completed minaret.
Juma Mosque: A mosque supported by 218 wooden columns, each carved with a different design, collected from different sources across several centuries. No two columns are identical. Walking through the forest of carved columns is among the finest architectural interior experiences in Uzbekistan.
Tash Hauli Palace: The 19th-century Khanate’s summer palace — three courtyards of varying function (the harem, the audience chamber, the private quarters), the walls covered in blue, white, and turquoise geometric tilework. The harem courtyard in particular — two storeys of carved wooden screens and tilework around a central courtyard with a marble pool — shows the Central Asian aristocratic aesthetic at its most refined.
Khiva at Night:
The overwhelming majority of tourists in Khiva are day visitors from Urgench or from the overnight train from Tashkent. Stay at least one night — ideally two — inside the Ichan-Qala walls (guesthouses from £18-28/night, some in buildings of genuine historical character). After 7pm, when the day visitors have left, the illuminated minarets and mosque domes above the dark alleyways create the most atmospheric urban environment in Central Asia. Walk slowly. Get slightly lost. The wall will always reorient you.
The Aral Sea — The World’s Most Important Environmental Warning
The Aral Sea was the fourth-largest lake in the world in 1960 — 68,000 square kilometres of water on the border between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. It no longer exists in any meaningful form.
The Soviet irrigation programme of the 1960s diverted the two rivers feeding the Aral Sea (the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya) to irrigate the cotton fields of Central Asia. By 1997, the lake had shrunk to 10% of its original volume. By 2014, the eastern basin (the Uzbek side) had completely dried up. What remains in the Uzbek portion is saline wasteland — the former lake bed now a desert of salt, chemical residue, and the rusting hulks of fishing boats that once operated on a fishing industry supplying 40,000 tonnes of fish per year.
The town of Muynak, once a fishing port on the Aral shore, is now 150km from the water. The ship graveyard outside Muynak — a collection of 20+ rusting fishing vessels stranded on the former lake bed, surrounded by desert — is one of the most affecting man-made landscapes in Central Asia.
Getting to Muynak is challenging (it requires a 5-6 hour drive from Khiva or a 2-hour drive from Nukus) and justified. The environmental lesson the Aral Sea offers is not abstract. Standing among the rusting ships, the wind blowing salt dust from a sea bed that was underwater 40 years ago, the consequence of a single agricultural policy carried out without adequate environmental understanding is entirely concrete.
Nukus and the Savitsky Museum:
A necessary stop on the route to Muynak. The Karakalpakstan State Museum of Art in Nukus contains the Savitsky Collection — the largest collection of Russian avant-garde art outside St. Petersburg’s Russian Museum. Igor Savitsky spent decades secretly collecting works by artists persecuted under Stalin (works declared “degenerate” and ordered destroyed), hiding them in this remote Central Asian city where Soviet censors rarely ventured. The collection of 90,000+ works — many unique surviving pieces of 20th-century Russian art — is one of the great hidden museum stories of the Soviet era. Entry: £5. Known among art historians as the world’s most important unknown museum.
The Fergana Valley — The Cradle of Silk
The Fergana Valley in eastern Uzbekistan, enclosed by the Pamir-Alay mountains on three sides, was the heartland of the Silk Road silk production — the mulberry trees that fed the silkworms, the mulberry leaves that produced the cocoons, the artisans who unreeled the silk filaments and wove the ikat textiles that the caravans carried west.
The craft tradition is still active. Margilan (the main silk city) has operating silk workshops where the entire process — mulberry cultivation, silkworm raising, cocoon unreeling, thread dyeing, ikat weaving — is visible and available for purchase at factory prices.
The Yodgorlik Silk Factory, Margilan:
The most complete silk production facility open to visitors — every stage of the process in one building, guided tours available, the finished ikat (suzani) textiles and scarves available at prices significantly below what they cost in Tashkent or Samarkand. A half-day in Margilan gives the best single craft experience available in Uzbekistan.
The Rishtan Ceramics:
30km from Margilan, the town of Rishtan produces the blue and white ceramics that are the most distinctive craft souvenir of the Fergana Valley — a tradition using local clay and mineral glazes continuously since the 11th century. The Usto Rustam Umarov workshop is the most visited and most representative.
Getting to the Fergana Valley: domestic flight from Tashkent to Andijan or Namangan (45 minutes, from £25) or a 5-hour train or shared taxi from Tashkent. The valley route is a 2-day addition to the main Silk Road circuit rather than a substitution for it.
Nuratau — The Mountain Lakes Nobody Visits
The Nuratau Mountains north of Samarkand — a range of hills rising to 2,000m, containing the Aydarkul and Tuzkan lakes in the desert steppe to the north and the Navruz National Park hiking routes to the south — are almost completely absent from mainstream Uzbekistan travel content.
The specific appeal: a landscape completely unlike the Silk Road cities, accessible in 2-3 hours from Samarkand by shared taxi, with community tourism homestays in the mountain villages that were established in the 2000s and provide the most authentic local life encounter available in the country.
The Aydarkul Lake — an artificial lake created by Soviet irrigation engineering that gradually expanded to cover approximately 4,000 square kilometres — is now a lake in the Kyzylkum Desert. The specific combination of sand dunes, salt desert, and water gives a landscape with the aesthetic qualities of the Sahara but in a Central Asian context.
Yurt camp accommodation on the Aydarkul shore: from £20-30/night including dinner. The Nuratau village homestay circuit: from £25-35/night in family homes, with meals included. Both accessible from Samarkand through local tour operators (ask at your guesthouse) or through the Nuratau-Kyzylkum Biosphere Reserve’s community tourism programme.
The Food — Plov, Lagman, and the Silk Road Diet
Uzbek food is one of the great unexplored Central Asian cuisines — unknown outside the region, deeply satisfying within it, and built on a combination of ingredients (lamb, rice, root vegetables, sesame, dried fruits) and techniques (the tandoor oven, the kazan cast-iron cauldron, the slow braise) that reflect the Silk Road’s position at the intersection of nomadic herding culture and settled agricultural civilisation.
Plov (Osh)
The national dish. Slow-cooked rice with lamb, carrots, onion, and garlic in cottonseed oil in a massive cast-iron kazan. Each city has its regional variation: Tashkent plov has chickpeas and quail eggs; Samarkand plov uses whole heads of garlic and dried barberries; Fergana plov has more lamb and less carrot.
The correct way to eat plov in Uzbekistan: at a plovkhona (plov house), where an enormous kazan is cooked in the morning and the plov served from 8am until it runs out (typically by 1pm). Cost: £1-2 for a full plate. The quality at a traditional plovkhona consistently exceeds anything available at a restaurant. Tashkent’s Besh Qozon restaurant near the Chorsu Bazaar and Samarkand’s Siab Bazaar plov stalls are the reference points.
Lagman
Hand-pulled noodles in a meat and vegetable broth — the Uzbek version of a dish that exists across Central Asia and western China, each tradition pulling the noodle differently and seasoning the broth distinctly. Uzbek lagman: thick noodles, lamb, tomato, pepper, potato, green beans. Available at any bazaar café for £1.50-2.50. The noodle-pulling demonstration, where the cook works a rope of dough into progressively finer strands, is one of the more theatrical food preparations in the region.
Shashlik
Skewered grilled lamb, pork (in some areas), or chicken, cooked over charcoal at market stalls and roadside grills throughout the country. The correct seasoning: salt and cumin. Available everywhere from £0.50-1 per skewer. Eaten at the grill, standing, with non bread and a glass of green tea. The shashlik at Bukhara’s evening market behind the Kalon Mosque is the best available in the old city.
Non (Flatbread)
The Uzbek flatbread — stamped with a distinctive pattern by a bread stamp (naqsh), baked in a tandoor, available from bakeries and market stalls from 7am. Each city and region has a distinct non shape and texture: Samarkand non is large and slightly sour; Bukhara non is smaller and crisper; Fergana Valley non has a specific layered quality. Cost: £0.20-0.40. Buy one warm from the oven and eat it immediately.
Samsa
Baked triangular pastries filled with lamb and onion — the Uzbek equivalent of a pasty, made with a layered dough that gives the exterior a flaky quality similar to rough puff pastry. Available from tandoor bakeries from 9am, typically for £0.30-0.50 each. The smell of baking samsa in a covered bazaar is one of the specific olfactory signatures of Uzbekistan.
Dimlama
A slow-cooked vegetable and meat stew — the Uzbek one-pot dish. Layers of lamb, onion, carrot, potato, tomato, and herbs in a sealed kazan, cooked slowly over low heat until everything has merged into a deeply flavoured stew. Available at family restaurants and at bazaar cafes that have the kazan on the fire from the morning. £2-3 for a full bowl.
Green Tea
Not a specific dish but a specific institution. The chaikhana (teahouse) is the social infrastructure of Uzbek city life — a platform of low tables and cushions, a teapot of green tea (kok choy) brought immediately, a view of the bazaar or the pool or the minaret. The tea is free with any food order; stand-alone tea costs £0.30-0.60. The correct pace of Uzbekistan requires at least one hour per day in a chaikhana.
What It Costs — Real Numbers
Uzbekistan is one of the most affordable destinations in this guide. The combination of excellent infrastructure and local pricing makes it extraordinary value.
Daily Budgets
Budget (£18-25/day)
- Accommodation: budget guesthouse, private room (£8-15/night)
- Food: bazaar plov and lagman, samsa, non bread (£4-6/day)
- Transport: train, shared taxi, Yandex taxi for cities (£2-4/day)
- Activities: entry fees are among the lowest in the world (£2-6 per site)
Mid-Range (£35-50/day)
- Accommodation: boutique guesthouse in old city, breakfast included (£18-30/night)
- Food: restaurant dinners, bazaar lunches (£8-14/day)
- Transport: train + occasional private taxi for day trips
- Activities: all paid sites across the 10-day route (total approximately £20-30)
Comfortable (£60-80/day)
- Accommodation: upmarket hotel or heritage property (£35-60/night)
- Food: quality restaurants, guided food experiences (£18-25/day)
- Transport: private driver for flexibility
What 10 Days in Uzbekistan Actually Costs from the UK
| Category | Budget | Mid-Range |
|---|---|---|
| Return flights (Tashkent direct, Uzbekistan Airways) | £350–500 | £400–550 |
| 10 nights accommodation | £100–180 | £210–380 |
| Food (10 days) | £50–80 | £90–145 |
| Train (Tashkent → Samarkand → Bukhara, all legs) | £22–33 | £22–33 |
| Bukhara → Khiva shared taxi | £8–12 | £8–12 |
| Site entries (Registan, Shah-i-Zinda, Khiva pass, etc.) | £22–30 | £22–30 |
| City transport (metro, Yandex taxis) | £10–20 | £15–25 |
| Total | £562–855 | £767–1,175 |
Uzbekistan is the finest value long-haul trip in this guide. £562 for 10 days all-in from the UK, including flights, is extraordinary for the quality of what you’re visiting.
Practical Notes
Visa: Free for UK passport holders — no advance application required, no fee. Stamp on arrival at Tashkent Airport and other international entry points. Stay of up to 30 days. Extendable if needed. This is the most straightforward visa situation in the guide (including European destinations that require passport validity checks).
Getting there: Uzbekistan Airways direct from London Heathrow to Tashkent. Return flights from £350-500. Book through the Uzbekistan Airways website or comparison sites. Turkish Airlines via Istanbul is the main alternative.
Currency: Uzbekistani Som (UZS). £1 ≈ 15,800 UZS at time of writing. The currency is used in very large denominations — a meal for two costs approximately 70,000-100,000 UZS, which sounds alarming and is approximately £5. ATMs widely available in Tashkent, Samarkand, and Bukhara; less reliable in Khiva and remote areas. US dollars are widely accepted in tourist-facing businesses and for guesthouse accommodation. Carry both UZS for bazaar purchases and USD for accommodation.
Getting around: The Afrosiyob high-speed train (uzrailpass.com) for Tashkent-Samarkand-Bukhara. Shared taxis from Bukhara to Khiva (from the main shared taxi stand, depart when full). Yandex (the Russian ride-hailing app) works in Tashkent and most major cities — more reliable than flagging street taxis and eliminates price negotiation. Domestic flights: Uzbekistan Airways serves Namangan, Urgench (for Khiva), and other regional cities.
Language: Uzbek (a Turkic language) is the primary language; Russian is widely spoken by the older generation and in business. English is improving rapidly in Tashkent and the main Silk Road cities (particularly among guesthouse staff and trained guides) but is not universal. The guide-to-English ratio at the major monuments has improved significantly since 2018 — official guide hire (£15-25/half day at the main sites) is genuinely worthwhile for the Shah-i-Zinda and the Samarkand Observatory where the historical context transforms the experience. Russian phrasebook is more useful than an English one in rural areas.
Getting a SIM: Ucell and Beeline both have SIM sales at Tashkent Airport. A 30-day SIM with 10GB data costs approximately £5. Coverage is good in all cities and along the main routes; limited in remote desert areas (Aral Sea region). Download offline maps before departure for the Khiva and Fergana Valley sections.
The 10-Day Itinerary — The Silk Road Route
This is the standard Silk Road circuit — Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara, and Khiva — using the Afrosiyob train between the first three cities and a shared taxi for the final leg.
Day 1: Tashkent
Land at Tashkent Airport. Yandex taxi to the hotel (15 minutes, £2-3). Afternoon: Khast Imom complex. Evening: Chorsu Bazaar closing time (5-6pm, the most atmospheric hour). Dinner near the bazaar.
Day 2: Tashkent Metro + Departure
Morning: Tashkent Metro circuit — Kosmonavtlar, Alisher Navoiy, Pakhtakor, Mustaqillik Maydoni, plus whichever stations fall on your route. Budget 2 hours for the full circuit; it goes quickly because each station demands attention. Afternoon: Afrosiyob train to Samarkand (2 hours 10 minutes, departs multiple times from 6am). Check in. Registan at 5pm.
Day 3: Samarkand
6am: Gur-e-Amir at opening (usually 8am, but the light at dawn on the exterior dome is worth the walk). Morning: Bibi-Khanym ruins. Siab Bazaar for plov at 9am. Afternoon: Shah-i-Zinda (slow walk, 90 minutes minimum). Return to Registan for the golden hour at 5pm.
Day 4: Samarkand
Morning: Ulugh Beg Observatory. Afternoon: Afrosiab Museum (the pre-Timurid Sogdian paintings from the 7th-century royal palace of ancient Samarkand — the finest surviving examples of Sogdian art, the civilisation that preceded the Islamic period). Late afternoon: Afrosiyob train to Bukhara (1 hour 30 minutes).
Day 5: Bukhara
Morning: the Ark Fortress (opens 9am). Midday: Lyabi-Hauz chaikhana for tea and lunch. Afternoon: Po-i-Kalyan complex (Kalyan Mosque, Mir-i-Arab Madrassa, the Kalyan Minaret from below). Late afternoon: the covered bazaars (Topi Sarrofon, Toki Zargaron). Evening: walk the old city lanes at dusk.
Day 6: Bukhara
Morning: the smaller monuments — the Samanid Mausoleum (10th century, the oldest surviving example of Central Asian Islamic architecture), Chor Minor (a bizarre 19th-century structure with four small minarets, unique in Uzbekistan), the Magoki-Attori Mosque (12th century, partially excavated below the current ground level). Afternoon: shared taxi to Khiva departs in the afternoon — the drive is 5-6 hours, arriving in Khiva late evening. Or: take the morning train to Urgench and taxi to Khiva (faster, recommended).
Day 7: Khiva
Early morning: the Ichan-Qala before the day visitors from Urgench arrive (6am, the gates open at dawn). Walk every alley you can find. Kalta Minor Minaret. Juma Mosque. Tash Hauli Palace. Lunch at a guesthouse inside the walls. Afternoon: climb the walls themselves (a section of the western wall has a walkway) for the view over the city. Evening: the illuminated old city from the exterior — walk the perimeter.
Day 8: Khiva + Nukus (optional)
Option A: Second full day in Khiva and the surrounding area — the Khiva Silk Factory (10 minutes from the old city), the outer city (Dishan-Qala), and relaxation.
Option B: Day trip to Nukus (2 hours by shared taxi) to see the Savitsky Museum. Return to Khiva for the night.
Day 9: Khiva → Tashkent (fly or drive)
Fly Urgench to Tashkent (1 hour, from £25) or take the overnight train (12 hours). The flight is the right choice for a 10-day itinerary. Afternoon and evening in Tashkent.
Day 10: Tashkent Departure
Morning: anything not yet done in Tashkent. Fine Arts Museum of Uzbekistan (Soviet-era central Asian art, Timurid miniatures, one of the better art museums in the region). Departure flight home.
Final Thought
I was at the Shah-i-Zinda at 4pm on an April afternoon. The processional avenue was mostly empty — a group of four pilgrims at the far end, near the tomb of Kusam ibn Abbas, and two other visitors somewhere in the middle.
Each mausoleum door was open. The light came in from the west at an angle that lit the tiles from the side rather than straight-on — the effect was to reveal the texture of the individual tesserae rather than the overall pattern. Each tile was slightly imperfect, slightly different from its neighbours. The pattern existed only at a distance; close up, it was thousands of individual decisions made by hundreds of individual craftspeople across two centuries.
A friend who studies Islamic architecture tells me that the best Timurid tilework cannot be understood from photographs because photographs compress the surface into a flat image. The depth of the glaze, the way each tile catches the light slightly differently from the one next to it, the slight variation in the tone of the blue — these things only exist in three dimensions, at a specific time of day, from a specific distance.
She’s right. No photograph from Shah-i-Zinda has ever fully represented what I saw there.
Go. Stand in the right light. Move slowly.
Question about Uzbekistan this guide doesn’t cover? Drop it in the comments.
