Country guide: Uzbekistan
Practical tips to know before you go
Planning a trip to Uzbekistan? You’ll quickly discover that it’s surprisingly hard to find practical travel information online – many resources are incomplete, outdated or even missing altogether. Even major attractions – like the Shah-i-Zinda necropolis in Samarkand or the Ark of Bukhara – don’t have official websites.
Ahead of our trip, I spent hours combing the internet for how to prepare (and fell down many a Reddit rabbit hole in the process). This is the Uzbekistan travel guide I wish I’d had before going, packed with essential tips like:
- How to format your e-visa passport photo so it can meet the impossible, seemingly inconsistent expectations of the buggy Uzbek visa processing website
- Whether you can legally bring your medication into the country
- What the toilet situation will be and when you should bring your own toilet paper (spoiler alert: the answer is always)
Keep reading to learn why we opted for a guided tour over DIY, the offline app you’ll want to download ahead of time, and why you should consider packing a UPF parasol.
Uzbekistan travel guide at-a-glance
This Uzbekistan travel guide covers a lot of ground, in sometimes excruciating detail. Here’s the SparkNotes version of what you’ll find as you keep reading.
What to consider when planning your Uzbekistan trip:
- Traveling independently vs. taking a multiday tour
- Planning the perfect itinerary
- Best time of year to visit
- Getting an e-visa
- How to budget
What to pack for your Uzbekistan trip:
What to expect when you arrive in Uzbekistan:
Planning your trip to Uzbekistan
On traveling independently vs. taking a multiday tour
We took the tour route, opting for Intrepid Travel’s Uzbekistan Adventure itinerary, a 9-day journey that took us to Tashkent, Bukhara, Samarkand, a yurt camp in the Kyzylkum Desert and a guesthouse in a Tajik village in the Nuratau mountains.
Could we have done this exact itinerary on our own? Yes, especially since transfers between Tashkent, Bukhara and Samarkand are easy, courtesy of Uzbekistan’s high-speed rail. It likely would have been less expensive to DIY, too. But in our experience, the tour was completely worth it: we didn’t have to book a single thing ahead of time, negotiate language barriers, or find our own transport (especially important for remote locations like the yurt camp). And having 24/7 access to an uber-knowledgeable guide was a huge perk, too.
Curious about our experience? Check out our in-depth review of Intrepid’s Uzbekistan Adventure itinerary.
On planning the perfect itinerary
Our itinerary was practically perfect: we spent 2 nights in Tashkent (although we arrived in the middle of the night, so it felt more like 1.5 nights), 2 nights in Bukhara, 1 night at a yurt camp in the Kyzylkum Desert, 1 night at a guesthouse in the Nuratau mountains, 2 nights in Samarkand, and 1 final night in Tashkent before departing. This felt like the right amount of time in each place: enough to see the sights and still have ample free time for shopping, dining and resting.
Our only regret? Not adding on a short, 2-night detour to Khiva to see the iconic medieval walled city of Itchan Kala. Note: Khiva is not yet accessible via high-speed train (although this is reportedly coming in 2026). From Tashkent, visitors can travel to Khiva either by overnight train (clocking in at 14 hours) or a short, 90-minute flight.
For design-forward recs for where to stay, eat and explore, dive into our city guides for Tashkent, Bukhara and Samarkand.
On the best time to visit
For much of the year, Uzbekistan’s weather can be considered extreme: frigid temps and frequent snow in winter and scorching, triple-digit heat waves in summer. That’s why shoulder season is the best time to visit: opt for spring (March, April or May) for gardens in bloom, or fall (September, October, November) for harvest season’s explosion of fresh fruits.
It’s worth noting, though, that as a double-landlocked country, Uzbekistan is especially susceptible to the impacts of climate change. When we visited in late May, temperatures were warm but not uncomfortable (think 80s F / high 20s C during the day). Our guide later told us that we were lucky to have timed our visit when we did, as much of March and April were sweltering with record high temperatures as an unprecedented heat wave swept through Central Asia.
On getting an e-visa
While travelers from many countries (including EU member states and Canada) can visit Uzbekistan for up to 30 days without a visa, US citizens are required to secure an e-visa ahead of arrival. A single-entry, 30-day tourist visa costs $20.
Unfortunately, the Uzbek visa processing website is poorly designed at best, downright buggy at worst. Don’t believe me? I learned the hard way that the Uzbek visa authority’s support inbox is full (and I suspect unmonitored).
The source of trouble for most applicants? The exacting requirements for passport photos, which must be met on the first submission; you’ll need to start an entirely new application if your first photo is rejected (I don’t make the rules!). Save yourself the trouble of manually editing your photo and have it properly formatted at visafoto.com. Yes, it costs $9, but it’s worth it: even ChatGPT couldn’t deliver my photo to the proper specifications.
Pro tip: Apply for your e-visa at least a few weeks before your departure date. While most applications are approved within 3-5 business days, you’ll want a buffer for any technical issues.
On how to budget
For most Western visitors, Uzbekistan is incredibly affordable to visit and provides exceptional value for your dollar, euro or pound. While our accommodations and most attractions were covered by our tour group, expect to pay less than $100 per night (and in some cases, much less) for lodging in 3- and 4-star hotels and no more than $10 per person per meal, even with appetizers and drinks.
Case in point: We grabbed to-go cocktails at O’Hare to sip at our gate pre-flight, and a single cocktail cost significantly more than any multi-course meal we ate in Uzbekistan (yes, Em’s margarita was an exorbitant $24 – but still).
Packing for Uzbekistan
On what we packed (and wish we’d packed)
Uzbekistan is a Muslim-majority country and you will most certainly be visiting Islamic mosques, madrasas and mausoleums where modest dress (covering shoulders and knees) is required. That’s why we packed:
- Scarves to cover our hair (though many mosques also have loaners you can borrow)
- Lightweight joggers that could withstand the heat, but still looked put-together (I swore by this style)
- Socks to slip on when we needed to take off our shoes to enter select mosques
The Central Asian sun is intense, even on cloudy days, which makes sun protection critical. You’ll also want to pack:
- A wide-brimmed sun hat (my Sungrubbies Classic Fedora is my go-to, and is perfect for those of us with ginormous heads)
- Plenty of sunscreen
- A UPF parasol – while we didn’t bring one, a tour companion did; we were all envious
What we wished we’d packed: flip flops to use in the shared showers at the yurt camp and the mountain guesthouse. A headlamp also would have been handy.
On bringing medication into the country
Uzbekistan closely monitors the import of medications like sleeping pills and psychotropics. According to official guidance and numerous Reddit threads, violations can result in fines, confiscation or other severe sanctions.
We prepared by bringing doctor’s notes, which we translated into Uzbek and Russian (using Google Translate) as a precaution. Luckily, we didn’t need them: our carry-on luggage was not inspected, nor were we asked any questions about what we were carrying at immigration.
Remember: regulations can change, so make sure to check the latest guidance before you depart.
When you arrive in Uzbekistan
On connectivity
All of our hotels had free, fast WiFi; even the yurt camp and the mountain guesthouse offered internet access (although it was slower and less dependable in these remote locations). Just make sure to pack your type C and F plug adapters (the same as used across most of Europe) to keep your devices fully charged.
While day-to-day Uzbek life feels fairly offline (exhibit A: even major tourist attractions don’t have websites), we were pleasantly surprised to find that it was easy to stay connected to our friends and family back home. We had reliable LTE cell service in all major cities (and even intermittently at the desert yurt camp) thanks to our T-Mobile plan’s international roaming services. Check with your carrier to understand what you can expect in-country.
On safety
I won’t bury the lede: I felt safer in Uzbekistan than I feel pretty much anywhere else in the world (including my own neighborhood in Chicago). Violent crime is rare, even petty crime is uncommon, we went through metal detectors practically everywhere we went (including on the metro) and our luggage was x-rayed even at train stations. Families are out in the streets and socializing well into the evenings, and we never had concerns about walking home at night as two young-ish women. Keep your wits about you, of course, but there’s no need to overthink it.
Don’t believe me? Take it from our guide, who had no qualms about telling us to leave our luggage unattended in the train stations. When we prodded him about whether this was a safe practice, he shrugged and said that the only way your bag would be taken is if an Uzbek person genuinely confused it with their own. Though conventional wisdom still suggests you should keep an eye on your belongings, theft just isn’t a part of the Uzbek culture the way it is in other parts of the world.
On speaking the language
Based on our research, we expected to encounter relatively few English speakers during our time in Uzbekistan – which is not surprising, since Uzbek is the official national language and English only became required in schools in 2013.
But lucky for us, we found English to be more widely spoken than every Uzbekistan travel guide had led us to believe. This was especially true among those working in tourism (and including a very cute 11-year-old who shyly asked if she could practice her English with us and then immediately asked everyone in our tour group how old we were). Still, it’s helpful to download offline Google Translate for both Uzbek and Russian: it came in handy for us when translating Russian-only lunch menus and when ordering beers from our sweet innkeeper in Samarkand.
For more insights into the Uzbek culture – including the lasting Soviet influence – see our Uzbekistan design diary.
On money matters
Uzbekistan is still largely a cash-based economy, and aside from some high-end shops and restaurants in major tourist areas, you should expect to pay for most things in cash. It’s easy to withdraw Uzbek som from ATMs in major cities (our hotel in Tashkent had one in the lobby); just make sure you understand your bank’s withdrawal fees. If you’re headed to more remote areas like the desert or the mountains, make sure to stock up on cash before you leave town.
As of this writing, it’s about 12,700 som to $1 USD, so get used to doing exchange rate math on the fly (or plan to print out a wallet-sized cheat sheet, as our friend Craig did in Cuba). Tips are not expected but always appreciated; we liked to keep small bills (think 10-20,000 som notes) on hand for housekeepers, servers and bathroom attendants.
On the toilet situation
No Uzbekistan travel guide would be complete without addressing the question every traveler is afraid to ask: what’s the toilet situation?
The good news: most tourist sites have Western-style toilets (or may offer a mix of Western-style and squat toilets). In more rural areas you may find only squat toilets (we only encountered one such stop at a mosque in Nurata, on our drive to the desert yurt camp). Be prepared to pay to use public toilets (usually less than 5,000 som per person) and bring your own toilet paper and hand sanitizer (as neither are always readily available).
On getting around
Most international flights land in Tashkent in the middle of the night, so it’s wise to arrange your transfer to your hotel ahead of time. Once you’ve arrived in central Tashkent, it’s easy to explore on foot – most tourist attractions are consolidated in the city center – or via the metro, which is a tourist attraction in its own right with its unique Soviet-era stations.
Ride share services are available via the Russian app Yandex Go, although note that some users may not be able to access due to sanctions and/or security risks. I ultimately wasn’t able to download Yandex Go to my corporately managed phone due to security concerns, but luckily we didn’t ever need it during our time in Tashkent.
It’s also easy to travel between Tashkent, Bukhara and Samarkand thanks to Afrosiab’s network of high-speed trains. In our experience, trains were on-time, impeccably clean and well-serviced (attendants paced the aisles offering everything from chocolates to fruit bowls to ice cream sundaes for purchase). Just make sure to book your tickets well in advance (ideally a month), though, as high-speed routes do fill up quickly. Note: Khiva is not yet connected to the high-speed network, so visiting still requires an overnight train or flight.
On food and drink
The Uzbek diet is very meat- and bread-heavy, which may limit options for travelers who are vegetarian or require a gluten free diet. However, we had folks with both types of dietary needs in our tour group and they were always able to find acceptable, if repetitive, substitutes: eggplant salad, roasted vegetables, and rice bowls were in heavy rotation.
One of our travel companions unfortunately learned this lesson the hard way: it is not safe to drink tap water in Uzbekistan. Most hotels have large water coolers that you can use to fill up, and bottled water is readily available at restaurants and convenience stores. And while alcohol is not widely consumed by locals, it is readily available for purchase (and in some instances, even restaurants that don’t serve alcohol will allow you to BYOB).
More Uzbekistan tips, tricks & recs
- Design diary: Uzbekistan for field notes on the art and design scene
- City guides: Tashkent, Bukhara & Samarkand for design-forward recs along the Silk Road
- Review: Uzbekistan Adventure with Intrepid Travel for an honest review of our 9-day itinerary
For even more travel recs for the design-obsessed, subscribe to Armchair Traveler on Substack.
