Ten days lets you string together the four cities that defined the Silk Road in Uzbekistan at a steady, comfortable pace, with two- and three-night stays and one long travel day. It suits travelers who want architecture, bazaars and craft towns with breathing room. You’ll use one domestic flight, a short taxi transfer, the slow train across the Kyzylkum and the Afrosiyob high-speed train for the eastern legs.
Day 1: Tashkent arrival
Land in
Tashkent and keep it simple. Spend the afternoon at
Tashkent’s Chorsu Bazaar, where you can taste your way through dried apricots, salty kurt cheese balls and fresh tandoor bread for pocket change. One night here is enough because the morning flight west is the smartest move of the trip.
Days 2-3: Khiva and the Itchan Kala
Fly to Urgench (about 1 hour 40 minutes) and take a taxi 35 km to
Khiva. Getting the far west done first, while you’re fresh, means the rest of the trip runs east toward your departure point. Inside the
Itchan Kala, a mud-brick walled …
read more 👉Ten days lets you string together the four cities that defined the Silk Road in Uzbekistan at a steady, comfortable pace, with two- and three-night stays and one long travel day. It suits travelers who want architecture, bazaars and craft towns with breathing room. You’ll use one domestic flight, a short taxi transfer, the slow train across the Kyzylkum and the Afrosiyob high-speed train for the eastern legs.
Day 1: Tashkent arrival
Land in
Tashkent and keep it simple. Spend the afternoon at
Tashkent’s Chorsu Bazaar, where you can taste your way through dried apricots, salty kurt cheese balls and fresh tandoor bread for pocket change. One night here is enough because the morning flight west is the smartest move of the trip.
Days 2-3: Khiva and the Itchan Kala
Fly to Urgench (about 1 hour 40 minutes) and take a taxi 35 km to
Khiva. Getting the far west done first, while you’re fresh, means the rest of the trip runs east toward your departure point. Inside the
Itchan Kala, a mud-brick walled town of around 2 km circumference, a single combined ticket covers most of the madrasas and museums. Don’t miss the squat, tiled Kalta Minor minaret, abandoned half-built. The
Khiva Juma Mosque is held up by more than 200 carved wooden columns, the oldest believed to be about a thousand years old. Watch sunset from the western walls.
Days 4-6: Bukhara and Gijduvan
Day four is the long one: 6 to 7 hours by train or shared taxi across the Kyzylkum Desert. Your reward is three nights in
Bukhara, the most walkable old city in the country. Base yourself near the
Lyabi-Hauz Ensemble, a stone-edged pool shaded by old mulberry trees where locals play backgammon in the evenings. Day five covers the
Po-i-Kalyan Ensemble, whose 12th-century Kalyan Minaret stands about 47 meters tall, and the
Ark of Bukhara, the walled fortress of the emirs. On day six, ride 45 km to
Gijduvan for its ceramics workshops, where families still turn and glaze pottery in ochre, brown and green, then come back to Bukhara for dinner.
Days 7-8: Samarkand
The Afrosiyob train gets you to
Samarkand in about 1 hour 40 minutes. With two nights, plan your time around the light. Hit the
Registan Ensemble at 8 am, when the square is almost empty and you can study the tiger mosaics on the Sher-Dor madrasa without a crowd. Save the
Shah-i-Zinda Necropolis for late afternoon, when the low sun makes the tiled tombs glow.
Days 9-10: Back to Tashkent
Take the Afrosiyob train to
Tashkent (just over 2 hours) and spend the afternoon riding the metro, whose Soviet-era stations are decorated with chandeliers, marble and cosmonaut motifs. Fly home on day ten.
If you can steal an extra day in Khiva, hire a driver north to Ayaz Kala, a cluster of mud-brick desert fortresses in Karakalpakstan with a yurt camp below the ramparts.
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