Culture & Cuisine Easy
Silk Road: Samarkand to Khiva
Turquoise domes, geometric tilework, and the ghost of Tamerlane's empire.
9 days
Max 4–10
Apr–Jun, Sep–Oct
From
$3,400 pp
Uzbekistan · Kyrgyzstan · Tajikistan
Central Asia
The Silk Road is not a metaphor here — it is the road.
The Silk Road conjures images of merchants and camels, but in Uzbekistan the physical evidence is overwhelming: the Registan of Samarkand, the mud-brick labyrinth of Khiva, the holy city of Bukhara. Beyond the cities, Kyrgyzstan's Tian Shan mountains shelter eagle hunters and yurt-dwelling nomads. Tajikistan's Pamir Highway is one of the world's highest and most dramatic road journeys. Central Asia remains genuinely off the tourist trail, and genuinely extraordinary.
Why travel here
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Registan Square, Samarkand: possibly the world's most perfect Islamic plaza
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Khiva Ichon-Qala: a living medieval city within a wall
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Eagle hunting in Kyrgyzstan with Kok-Boru masters
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Pamir Highway: the world's second-highest international road