How many days do you need in Uzbekistan?

Uzbekistan packs four world-class Silk Road cities, a desert, a craft valley and a buzzing modern capital into a compact, well-connected country. How long you need depends on how much of that you want — and how fast you like to travel. Here are the routes we build most often, by length.

5 days — the essentials

A long weekend is enough for the two greatest cities. The high-speed Afrosiyob train links Tashkent, Samarkand and Bukhara, so in five days you can see the Registan, Shah-i-Zinda and the whole of old Bukhara without feeling rushed. It is the perfect taster, or an add-on to a wider Central Asia trip.

8 days — the classic loop

Our most popular length adds Khiva, the walled desert city in the far west, to make the full set of four Silk Road capitals. Eight days gives you a comfortable two nights in each of the major cities, time to wander beyond the headline monuments, and an unhurried pace that leaves room for a bazaar, a workshop or simply a long lunch.

12 days — the grand tour

Two weeks lets you slow right down and add the regions most visitors miss: the crafts of the Fergana Valley, an extra day to linger in Bukhara, and the chance to travel between cities by road and watch the landscape change. This is the trip for travellers who want depth rather than a checklist.

15 days and beyond

With a fortnight or more you can fold in a night in a yurt camp by Lake Aydarkul, the mountains around Tashkent, the gastronomy and craft scene, or even a cross-border extension into neighbouring Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan or Tajikistan. There is no upper limit to how rewarding a slow Silk Road journey can be.

Whatever your timeframe, we will shape the route around your interests and pace rather than the other way around — these lengths are starting points, not fixed packages.