Uzbekistan with children

The good part: the trains are fast, clean and fun to be on. Uzbeks like children and show it, sometimes to the point where a blond four-year-old will be photographed more than the Registan. Food is cheap, plain and easy to negotiate. The bazaars are the kind of chaos children enjoy. There is a yurt to sleep in, a pottery wheel to sit at, a camel, and a silk workshop where a person actually pulls thread out of a boiling pot in front of you. Distances between cities are short and the roads are decent.

The bad part is heat, and it is not a small problem, because school holidays fall in July and August and Bukhara in July goes over 100°F (38°C).

Here is how we build these trips, what works, what does not, and what we would change.

Ages, honestly

Under four. Possible, and we would generally suggest waiting. The trip is a sequence of buildings, the heat is a real risk for small bodies, and the pleasures that make Uzbekistan work with children are mostly ones that need a bit of age.

Four to seven. Works, with the route heavily reshaped: fewer monuments, more bazaar, more train, a pool most afternoons, and no attempt at Khiva. Two cities rather than four.

Eight to twelve. The best age for this country by a distance. Old enough to be interested in Genghis Khan, the Silk Road and Timur, and old enough to do a walking day in the Nuratau hills and sleep in a yurt without it becoming an ordeal. Everything below assumes this bracket.

Teenagers. Very good, particularly if there is a craft or a camera involved. The workshops in Fergana and the ikat silk process are genuinely interesting to a fifteen-year-old in a way that a fifth madrasa is not.

The heat rule, which decides everything

If you can travel outside the summer holidays, do. Late April, May, late September and October are the months, and the difference is not marginal. In April a family walks around Bukhara at two in the afternoon. In July it does not.

If you are tied to July or August, and most families are, we build a genuinely different trip:

• Out of the hotel at six or seven, monuments until eleven.
• The middle of the day, from eleven to five, in a hotel with a pool. This is the upgrade we push hardest for summer family trips and it is not a luxury.
• Out again at five, and dinner late, which children adapt to within two days.
• No Khiva. The walled city is unshaded brick and holds the heat into the evening, and it is the hardest place in the country for a child in summer.
• A route that keeps to Tashkent, Samarkand and Bukhara, with the Nuratau hills or the lake at Aydarkul as the break.

You will see fewer things. Everyone will be happier. The rest of the calendar is in Uzbekistan month by month.

What actually works

The train. The Afrosiyob is two hours between cities, with a table, a window on the steppe and a trolley. Children who dread transfer days like this one. It also means no long car journeys between the main cities, which is the single biggest structural advantage Uzbekistan has as a family destination. Details in the Afrosiyob train, explained.

The bazaars. Chorsu in Tashkent under its blue dome, the Siab bazaar in Samarkand. Mountains of dried fruit and nuts, spice piles, bread stalls, and vendors who will hand a child something to try. Give a ten-year-old some som and a shopping list and the hour looks after itself.

A pottery workshop in Rishtan. Sitting at a wheel with a master potter, making something badly, and having it fired. The best two hours of most family trips here. Rishtan is in the Fergana valley, and our craft and culture route is built around this kind of day.

A silk workshop in Margilan. Cocoons in boiling water, thread being drawn off, the ikat tying and dyeing process, and a loom you are allowed to touch. Concrete, physical and explicable in five minutes.

The yurt at Aydarkul. A night in a yurt on the sand at the lake edge, dinner around a fire, a camel in the morning and a sky with no light pollution in it. This is the thing children remember. It is also more comfortable than a Kyrgyz mountain camp: there is a washblock and it is not at altitude. The walking version around it is in walking the Nuratau mountains.

The Tashkent metro. Every station individually designed in marble and mosaic, photography now permitted, and it costs nothing. Half an hour of riding around looking at the ceilings is a better Tashkent activity for a nine-year-old than a museum.

Paper making at Konigil. A working watermill outside Samarkand making paper from mulberry bark by the old method. Hands-on, short, and the children leave with a sheet of paper they beat themselves.

What does not work

Four cities of madrasas. An adult can absorb five days of Timurid architecture. A child cannot, and pretending otherwise ruins the days that would have worked. We cut the monument list by roughly half for a family trip and nobody has ever complained.

Long guided mornings. A guide is essential in this country and a two-hour lecture is not. We brief guides to work in twenty-minute blocks with a story in each, and to use the Timur and Genghis Khan material rather than architectural vocabulary. A good guide here is very good with children. We ask specifically.

Khiva in summer. Discussed above. In spring or autumn, Khiva is excellent for children: it is a walled city with towers to climb and gates to run through, and it is compact enough that nobody gets tired walking.

The folklore dinner show. A set menu, a fashion parade of coats and a long evening. Adults dislike it. Children dislike it faster.

Very long transfer days. The Bukhara to Khiva desert crossing is six hours with almost nothing in it. With children we fly Tashkent to Urgench instead, or we drop Khiva.

Where to stay with children

Courtyard guesthouses and small hotels in Bukhara and Khiva old towns are lovely and often have two-room family arrangements, though the courtyards have pools and steps and no railings, which matters with a toddler.

Four star city hotels with a pool are the summer answer, in Samarkand, Bukhara and Tashkent. Less charming, and in July they are what makes the trip work.

Family rooms are widely available and cheap. A second room typically costs less than the first, given the price levels described in our costs article.

Food with children

Easier than most of Asia. It is a mild cuisine: nothing is chilli-hot, meat is grilled or stewed, rice and bread are everywhere and the fruit in autumn is exceptional.

Reliable orders: shashlik skewers, plov, samsa, plain non, chips which exist everywhere, manti dumplings, and yoghurt and dried fruit at breakfast. Fizzy drinks are cheap and widespread if that is your compromise.

Bring rehydration sachets and use them in summer without waiting for a problem. Bottled water everywhere, and more of it than feels necessary.

The shape we build most often

Ten days: Tashkent two nights, Samarkand three, the Nuratau hills and Aydarkul two, Bukhara three, fly or train back. Khiva only if the dates are spring or autumn and the children are over ten.

That is roughly our ten-day family route, and if you want the wider Asian comparison, Asia with children sets the region’s family destinations against each other.

Practical notes for parents

• Car seats are not standard. We request them and our long-standing Tashkent partner sources them, and we would rather tell you in advance that the fit and quality vary.
• Nappies, formula and standard medicines are available in city pharmacies and supermarkets. Bring the specific brand you rely on.
• Pushchairs are hard work on old-town cobbles and in bazaar crowds. A carrier is better for anyone under three.
• Sun. Hats, high-factor cream and long sleeves from May to September. The sun here is fierce well before the temperature peaks.
• Toilets at monuments and roadside stops are variable. Carry paper and gel.
• Medical care is adequate in Tashkent and thinner elsewhere. Our partner has doctors they use and your consultant is on the WhatsApp thread throughout.

Plan this trip

Tell us the ages and your dates and we will build the shorter, cooler, more hands-on version of Uzbekistan rather than the standard one with children attached. Free first proposal, no obligation.

Start planning

Keep reading

• Uzbekistan with children, 10 days
• Uzbekistan: the complete guide to planning your trip
• Uzbekistan month by month
• Walking the Nuratau mountains
• Asia with children
• All our Uzbekistan trips

Frequently asked questions