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Coverage / Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan

Central Asia

The heart of the Central Asian Silk Road, a doubly landlocked country of turquoise-tiled Timurid cities, living craft towns and desert steppe. Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva hold some of the finest Islamic architecture anywhere, the Fergana Valley still weaves silk and fires blue ceramics by hand, and the Kyzylkum desert and Nuratau mountains open up beyond the monuments.

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What you can do in Uzbekistan

Craft Skills (Bladesmithing, Pottery, Glass)

Culinary / Cooking

Tashkentyear-roundPlov, known locally as osh or palov, is the national dish of Uzbekistan and the centre of its food culture, cooked in a huge cast-iron kazan with rice, yellow carrots, mutton and cumin until each grain stands separate. It matters enough that Uzbek plov and the hospitality around it are inscribed on the UNESCO list of intangible cultural heritage. Tashkent, the capital, is the best base to learn it. A hands-on class starts at a bazaar such as Chorsu, where you choose the right rice, carrots and cut of meat, then moves to a kitchen to build the dish layer by layer and steam it in the kazan. Along the way you usually pick up samsa and the tea ritual as well. It is a direct and tasty way into a culture that measures welcome by the size of the plov.

Horse Riding / Equestrian

AydarkulApr May Jun Sep OctAydarkul is an accidental sea in the desert, a lake more than 250 kilometres long that formed when a Soviet-era reservoir overflowed into the Kyzylkum in the 1960s. Its shore, where sand dunes meet open steppe, is the classic place in Uzbekistan to ride. From the yurt camps near Yangigazgan you saddle up for gentle horse and camel rides out across the dunes and grassland, an easy hour or a longer half-day toward the water, in country that was nomad grazing land for centuries. The riding is relaxed rather than technical, suited to beginners, and the real reward is the setting: felt yurts, camel trains on the skyline, a swim in the brackish lake in summer and some of the darkest night skies in the region. It is the steppe counterpoint to the tiled cities, and an easy overnight break on the road between Samarkand and Bukhara.

Music & Culture Festivals

Sharq TaronalariSamarkandAugSharq Taronalari, the Melodies of the East, turns the Registan into an open-air concert hall every other August. Founded in 1997 and staged in Samarkand's great square, it is one of Central Asia's biggest gatherings of traditional and folk music, drawing performers from dozens of countries to compete and play against the floodlit Timurid madrasahs. The programme runs for the better part of a week, mixing an international competition with gala concerts, craft and instrument exhibitions and workshops, and it is recognised on UNESCO's list of international cultural events. The 13th edition brought creative teams from 80 countries to the square in August 2024. Hearing world music performed on that stage, with the tiled portals lit behind the musicians, is one of the great set-piece experiences of the Uzbek calendar, and the reason to time a Samarkand visit to late August in a festival year.

Trekking / Hiking

NuratauApr May Jun Sep OctThe Nuratau Mountains rise between the Kyzylkum desert and the road east, a quiet range of dry ridges and hidden green valleys that offers the best village trekking in Uzbekistan. This is walking at human scale rather than high-altitude effort: shepherds' paths link the mountain villages of Sentob, Hayat, Asraf and Uhum, past walnut and apricot orchards, spring-fed streams and the occasional petroglyph, with the desert haze always on the horizon. The draw is the community-based tourism network built here, where you sleep in family homestays, eat what the household cooks and walk from village to village with local guides, so the trip supports the people whose land it crosses. A 72-kilometre trail strings the villages together, and shorter loops suit anyone who wants a day or two on foot between the Silk Road cities.

Witness / Attend

SamarkandApr May Jun Sep OctSamarkand is the showpiece of the Silk Road, and the Registan is its centre, a square framed on three sides by the towering portals of the Ulugh Beg, Sher-Dor and Tilya-Kori madrasahs. Built between the 15th and 17th centuries, their ribbed domes and tilework in deep blue and gold are the image most people carry of Uzbekistan. The city holds far more within a short ride: the fluted turquoise dome of the Gur-e-Amir, the tomb of Timur, the ruined giant of the Bibi-Khanym mosque, and the Shah-i-Zinda avenue of mausoleums, whose glazed corridors are among the most beautiful tiled spaces in the Islamic world. This is a place to witness slowly, ideally with a guide to read the inscriptions and the story of Timur and his astronomer grandson Ulugh Beg.

Best months at a glance

	J	F	M	A	M	J	J	A	S	O	N	D
Craft Skills
Culinary
Horse Riding
Music Festivals
Trekking
Witness / Attend

Upcoming events in Uzbekistan

Sharq TaronalariAug 25–30, 2026expected