What does a trip to Uzbekistan cost?

Everything below is land only, per person, based on two people sharing a room. It excludes international flights, which depend entirely on where you fly from and which we quote separately. It includes accommodation, food, ground transport including train tickets, site entries and the guiding we would normally build in.

These are planning figures. Hotel rates and train fares move from year to year, and we confirm the current numbers for your exact dates in writing before anything is booked.

The four anchors

These are the per-day figures our consultants price against, and they are the same numbers used in our complete Uzbekistan guide, because the guide and the magazine should not contradict each other.

A ten-day trip therefore runs from about $1,150 to about $5,300 per person, and a twelve-day trip from about $1,380 to about $6,360.

Two things to notice. The gap between careful and comfortable is mostly hotel standard plus the guiding, and the guiding is the part we would not cut. The gap between boutique and luxury is rooms and cars, not what you see.

Accommodation, which is where the budget is decided

Rates below are per room per night for two sharing, as a planning range. Uzbek hotel pricing rises sharply in the two good windows and falls hard in July and August.

The line worth spending on is the boutique courtyard house in Bukhara. There are perhaps twenty genuinely good ones in the country and most of them are in Bukhara’s old town, in buildings that were merchants’ houses with a central courtyard, a vine and a raised platform for tea. Two nights in one of those is the difference between remembering the trip as a series of monuments and remembering it as a place. They also sell out first in April, May, September and October.

The line where we would not spend more is Tashkent. It is a Soviet-planned city and the hotels are business hotels. Take a good four star, spend the saving in Bukhara.

Food, which is close to free

Uzbekistan is one of the few countries where we tell clients they have over-budgeted for food.

• Non, the round stamped bread, from a bakery: under $1
• Samsa from a tandoor, lamb or pumpkin: $0.60 to $1.50
• A plate of plov at lunch in a proper plov centre: $2.50 to $4
• Lagman, hand-pulled noodles, at a neighbourhood place: $2.50 to $4
• Shashlik, per skewer: $1.50 to $3
• Dinner in a good old-town restaurant with wine: $12 to $20
• Dinner at one of the serious restaurants in Tashkent: $25 to $45
• A pot of green tea and a plate of fruit, which is most afternoons: $2

Budget $25 to $35 a day and you will eat extremely well, including a bottle of Uzbek wine most evenings. Above $50 a day you are eating at the small number of ambitious restaurants in Tashkent, which is a legitimate choice and a good one, but it is a decision rather than a default.

The best eating in the country costs the least. Plov at midday at a plov centre where a man is turning a cast-iron kazan the size of a bath is a $3 meal and the single best thing you will eat. More on this in Uzbek food, bread and the plov hour.

Transport

The Afrosiyob high-speed train is the backbone of the trip and it is cheap. As guidance, and we confirm the live fare when we book:

Business class costs a few dollars more and is worth it. The whole rail bill for a ten-day route is usually under $80 per person, which is less than a single leg in most of the countries we work in.

The larger transport line is the car. A private car and driver runs roughly $70 to $110 a day depending on the vehicle and the route, and you need one for the desert crossing to Khiva, for the Nuratau mountains, for Shakhrisabz over the pass and for the Fergana valley over the Kamchik pass. A domestic flight from Urgench back to Tashkent, which saves a long day, is usually $40 to $70.

The one thing that costs money if you get it wrong is train seats. They sell out in the good months, and the fallback is a five or six hour drive with a driver, which costs both the fare and the day. We book the seats the day the window opens. The mechanics are in the Afrosiyob train, explained.

Guiding, and why we defend it

A private city guide runs about $40 to $60 for a half day and $70 to $110 for a full day, shared between however many of you there are.

We argue harder for guiding in Uzbekistan than in almost any country we work in. These buildings do not explain themselves. A tiled facade is a tiled facade until somebody tells you which parts of it are fourteenth century, which parts were laid in 1974, what the inscription says and why a madrasa in Bukhara has a different plan from one in Samarkand. Without that, four cities of madrasas start to blur by day six, and clients say so.

Between cities you need nobody. On the train you are on your own and it is fine.

Three complete ten-day budgets

Each of these is ten days, per person, two sharing, land only, on the classic Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva route.

The careful trip, about $1,150

Family guesthouses throughout, economy train seats, one guided morning in each of Samarkand and Bukhara, the desert crossing shared with other travellers, and eating at plov centres, bakeries and lagman shops.

Nothing here is a compromise on what you see. It is a compromise on where you sleep, and Uzbek guesthouses are genuinely pleasant.

The comfortable trip, about $1,850

Good three to four star hotels with one boutique night in Bukhara, business class on every train, a private car and driver for the desert and any road day, and a guide for four days across the trip.

This is the most common shape of Uzbekistan trip we build and it maps onto classic Uzbekistan in 10 days.

The boutique trip, about $3,100

Restored courtyard houses in Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva, business class throughout, a private car and driver for the whole trip, and a historian guide rather than a general one on six days.

Boutique Uzbekistan in 10 days is this trip written out day by day.

What actually moves the number

1. The month. April, May, September and October carry the highest rates. July and August are 30 to 40 percent cheaper on hotels and unpleasant to travel in, which is the trade. Uzbekistan month by month lays out the year.
2. Boutique nights. Each one adds roughly $60 to $120 per person over a three star night.
3. Whether the car is private. Sharing a vehicle across four people rather than two nearly halves that line.
4. How many cities. Khiva adds a travelling day and a flight. Fergana adds two nights and a pass.

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Keep reading

• Uzbekistan: the complete guide to planning your trip
• How many days do you need in Uzbekistan?
• Uzbekistan month by month
• The Afrosiyob train, explained
• The Silk Road in two weeks
• All our Uzbekistan trips

Frequently asked questions