Uzbekistan month by month
The best time to visit Uzbekistan is a narrower answer than most countries, because the constraint is not rain or crowds. It is heat, and it is the kind of heat that decides how many hours a day you can stand in front of a building.
Two windows work: April to May, and September to October. Everything else is a compromise, and this article is about which compromise you would be making.
One geographical point before the calendar. Uzbekistan is doubly landlocked, mostly flat and largely desert, so the temperature swings hard between day and night and between summer and winter. Bukhara and Khiva, which sit lowest and furthest into the desert, run several degrees hotter than Samarkand and Tashkent in summer, and Khiva’s walled city of unshaded brick holds the heat into the evening. When we say a month is difficult, Khiva is usually the reason.
The short version
| Month | Conditions | Crowds | Our verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | Cold, clear, snow possible | Almost none | Excellent value, short days, a returning traveller’s month |
| February | Cold, clearing | Almost none | Same, and the light is good |
| March | Warming, unsettled, Navruz on the 21st | Building | Good from the middle of the month |
| April | The best month | Busy | Book early. Late April is the finest fortnight of the year |
| May | Excellent to hot | Busy | Very good to mid-May, closing after |
| June | Hot, over 95°F (35°C) and rising | Falling | We would move your dates |
| July | Over 100°F (38°C) in Bukhara | Low | The hardest month |
| August | Over 100°F (38°C), no relief | Low | Same, cheap |
| September | Hot then excellent, harvest begins | Busy from mid-month | The joint best month |
| October | Excellent, cooling, quieter than April | Moderate | Our own preference |
| November | Cool, grey days appear, camps closed | Low | Cities only, and good value |
| December | Cold, clear, very cheap | Almost none | A city trip with snow on the tiles |
Spring
March
The month the country wakes up. The first half is unreliable: cold mornings, rain, a wind off the steppe. The second half is genuinely good, and it contains Navruz on the spring equinox, the Persian and Central Asian new year, which in Uzbekistan is a real national holiday rather than a display for visitors. Families cook sumalak, wheat germ stirred in a cauldron overnight by a rota of neighbours, and every town has something on.
Travelling over Navruz means some museums close for a day or two and domestic transport fills up. We think it is worth it. Book it in October.
April
The best month, and priced accordingly. The steppe is green, the fruit trees are out, Samarkand sits in the seventies Fahrenheit (low twenties Celsius) and evenings need a jacket rather than a coat. Late April into the first week of May is the single best fortnight of the year in Uzbekistan and the one we would pick if the dates were ours.
The costs are crowds and rates. The Registan at midday in late April has coach groups in it, and the twenty or so good courtyard hotels in Bukhara are gone four to six months ahead. If you want April, decide early. Rates are covered in what a trip to Uzbekistan costs.
May
The first half is excellent and effectively an extension of April. The second half turns. By the last week of May, Bukhara and Khiva are into the nineties Fahrenheit (mid thirties Celsius), and the day starts to divide into a usable morning and an unusable afternoon.
May is the best month for the Nuratau mountains and Aydarkul: the hills are still green, the yurt camps are open and the nights are warm enough to sit outside. More in walking the Nuratau mountains.
Summer
June, July and August
Here is the honest version. Bukhara routinely goes over 100°F (38°C) from June to August and can go considerably higher. Khiva is worse because the walled city is a stone box. Samarkand and Tashkent are a few degrees better and not enough to matter.
The monuments are open. The trip is possible. What changes is the shape of the day: out of the hotel at six, sites until eleven, a long break through the middle of the day in a room with air conditioning, back out at five and dinner late. You will see the same places and fewer of them, and the photographs will be better because you are only out in good light.
Three things make a summer trip work if the dates are fixed, which for many families they are. A hotel with a pool, which is a serious upgrade in July and not a frivolous one. A route that stays north and skips Khiva. And two or three nights in the Nuratau hills or by Aydarkul, where the evenings cool properly.
Hotel rates fall 30 to 40 percent in July and August, which is the compensation. If you have any flexibility at all, take it and move to September.
Autumn
September
The second window opens. The first ten days are still hot, into the nineties Fahrenheit (mid thirties Celsius) in Bukhara. From about the fifteenth the country becomes excellent and stays that way for six weeks.
September is also the harvest, which matters more here than in most countries because the fruit is genuinely one of the reasons to come. Melons, and Uzbek melons deserve their reputation. Grapes, figs, pomegranates, and the first of the new season’s dried apricots in the bazaars. A market in Samarkand in late September is the best food shopping we know in Central Asia.
The second half of September is the fortnight we book most often, and it is the only part of the year that overlaps properly with the Kyrgyz mountain season if you are combining the two. That argument is made in full in the Silk Road in two weeks.
October
Our own favourite, narrowly. October has April’s temperatures with fewer people and lower rates. Days in the seventies Fahrenheit (low twenties Celsius), cold clear evenings, low light on tile, and the coach traffic thinning through the month.
Two caveats. By the last week the Nuratau yurt camps are closing for the year and the nights there are cold. And daylight is shortening, which matters when the good hours for photographing the Registan are the first and last of the day.
Winter
November to February
Cold, clear, empty and very cheap, and a genuinely good trip for the right traveller.
November is a transitional month: grey days appear, the mountain accommodation has closed, and the cities are quiet. December through February brings real cold, with Samarkand and Bukhara below freezing at night and days in the forties Fahrenheit (single figures Celsius). Snow falls a few times a winter and does not usually lie long.
What you get is the Registan with nobody in it. Shah-i-Zinda at eight in the morning with your own footprints on the steps. Hotel rates at their floor. Restaurant tables without booking. Samarkand under snow is one of the more memorable things in Central Asia and we have clients who go back in January specifically for it.
What you lose is everything outdoors: the yurt camps are down, the Nuratau walking is over, the desert crossing is bleak and some Khiva hotels close for the season. Daylight is short. And it is properly cold in an unheated madrasa courtyard, which is most of them.
We would not suggest winter for a first visit. For a second, or for a traveller who cares more about buildings than about being warm, it is underrated.
What we would actually book
If the dates were ours and we had no constraints: the last week of September and the first week of October. Second choice, the last two weeks of April. Third, the first half of May.
If you are travelling with school-age children and are tied to the summer holidays, we build the six-to-eleven and five-to-late shape described above, put a pool in the middle of it and cut a city. That trip is described in Uzbekistan with children.
Plan this trip
Tell us the weeks you have and we will tell you honestly whether they are the right ones, and what we would change if they are not. Free first proposal, no obligation.
Keep reading
- Uzbekistan: the complete guide to planning your trip
- What does a trip to Uzbekistan cost?
- How many days do you need in Uzbekistan?
- Walking the Nuratau mountains
- Classic Uzbekistan in 10 days
- All our Uzbekistan trips
Frequently asked questions
Is July really impossible?
Which is better, April or October?
Does it rain?
When are the yurt camps at Aydarkul open?
Does Ramadan affect travel?
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