An Itinerary – Two Weeks in Uzbekistan

If you are headed to Uzbekistan for two weeks, I hate to say it, but you may have too much time. But if you like a leisurely pace then you’ve made the right choice. Uzbekistan for the history buffs among us:

• Day 1: Fly into Tashkent, overnight here
• Day 2: Morning in Tashkent then train to Samarkand late
• Day 3 – 4: Samarkand sightseeing. One day is enough but two days doesn’t hurt either
• Day 5: Travel to Bukhara. 2 hour train so maybe early is best to spend evening in Buhkara.
• Day 6 – 7: Bukhara Sightseeing. Similarly everything can be seen in one day.
• Day 8: Train to Khiva, 5 hours
• Day 9 – 10: Sightseeing Khiva
• Day 11: Train back to Bukhara, overnight there
• Day 12: Train back to Samarkand, overnight there
• Day 13: Train back to Tashkent, overnight there
• Day 14: Fly out of Tashkent

Yes, this gets slow and drawn out near the end and you could go Khiva to Samarkand easily in one day, or even Khiva to Tashkent on an overnight train. Also it is important to note some conventional wisdom: Samarkand has the biggest sights – mosques, madrases, and mausoleums but they are spread out. That being said Samarakand is more or less a modern city. Bukhara and Khiva both have old cities. Khiva’s is less dolled-up (read authentic), though Bukhara’s is bigger. But being bigger it is also more commercial which means it expects and gets more tourists. Each city can be seen in one day but a more relaxed pace of two days is comfortable (at least an evening and morning in each city) with three days a bit too long though plenty of people do it.

Costs will be around $600 USD for two days at this pace. Not too pricey, hostels are common in the cities and food can be cheap. Train travel is at least easy and fairly cheap. Credit cards are taken often which is nice considering it is tough elsewhere in Central Asia.

Check out the country rating here!