Uzbekistan (April, 2026)

We visited Uzbekistan with my partner earlier this month and I wanted to share some of our pictures with the sub.

We did the usual route Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara, Khiva and the fortresses tour. Unfortunately we decided to cancel our Aral Sea tour due to the weather. Overall if you travel in spring I'd say that it is good to have extra days because we were unlucky with rain.

We had booked a tour for the fortresses around Khiva, the guide was really nice and so proud of the culture of his region, the Karakalpakstan. We learnt so much.

We both agreed that our favorite stop was Samarkand, and since it rained non stop for a day we would have liked to have an extra day there. Samarkand really blew our mind. On the other hand we think that one day is enough for Bukhara. If you can, don't go to Khiva on a sunday, it was packed! There were a lot of kids on school trips. The smaller kids were so cute though, saying hello to us all the time and giggling when we answered them. Khiva was much emptier on Monday. It was nice to not need to take taxis there.

Taxis are really cheap! Always make sure to have cash and several cards with you. Sometimes some of our bank cards were not working and we were glad we had several cards and cash.

It was our first time outside of somewhat more developed countries and it does require a bit more logistics and planning to transit through the country than we were previously used to. Going from one city to another can be tiring, the noise pollution also tired us because for some reason we were not expecting it. For light sleepers like us we recommend booking nice hotels with good isolation.

Like in a lot of places, be aware of scammers. Even before boarding our train someone tried to make us pay more than what we had paid for our tickets, which were completely valid btw. I noticed that when I tried to speak Uzbek to buy bottles of water they were half the price.

We had a mix of very good and more cold interactions with people. The food is pretty good too but can feel repetitive after a while. Their chicken shashlik is to die for.

The most memorable for us was unsurprisingly, the architecture which is stunning!