Ashgabat Tours in October 2026

Excellent tour with plenty of variety - fascinating cities, wild mountains, and intriguing culture and history. Rifa, our guide, was efficient and knowledgeable, taking care that everyone got the best experience. Transport arrangement throughout were first rate: clean and with generous seating which provided window seats for all. The inclusion of Turkmenistan in this tour is questionable: Costly entry requirements, yet we were unable to see much beyond the superficial show of Ashgabat.

This trip was the best group tour I’ve ever taken in 25 years. It wasn’t perfect, but the combination of Itinerary, sites visited, transportation and guides/ground staff made it an excellent trip. (Victoria, Muftuna and Slava) Look the Accommodation wasn’t consistent, it was either magnificent like The Elements in Tashkent or poor like Hotel Maroqanda in Samakand but the local guides had passion for the their towns, the sites we saw over the 13 days were mind blowing and the local people we met were so friendly. A big thank you to Andrew in your UK office for keeping this trip running despite it having to run in reverse order because of the sudden change on the Turkmenistan side. Some days were very long, the pace was full on despite ‚free afternoons‘ but there was so much to see and do. The border crossing was a 4 hour challenge but we made it through. I would 100% recommend this trip and suggest you personally add a few days before and after the trip for more exploring.

This trip was really good. We travelled through five ‘Stans’ i.e. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan and experienced a wide variety of cultures, geography and food. With a vegetarian diet we knew we had difficulties from the start. But the tour leaders really made great efforts to accommodate us. I must congratulate Explore on the coordination of pick ups by coach and other vehicles - excellent timing. Some roads were very rough, others as in Ashgabat were seamless. There were several long journeys. The hotels were fine. The nights in a yurt and under canvas were basic. But our reason for going was not the accommodation or the food, we went to a part of the world we had not seen before. The tour leaders really knew their subject and were clearly enthusiastic to tell us about their countries.

We waited a long time for this trip to reappear and it didn't disappoint. It packs a lot into the three weeks and covers a lot of ground by bus, train and an internal flight. Not for the faint-hearted, sometimes challenging, but very rewarding to visit these emerging countries. Altogether we had 4 tour leaders/guides who worked hard to make this trip go smoothly for everyone.

I am very please with the 5 Stans trip. The guides were wonderful and helpful. The hospitality was great. The trip had introduced us with new, amazing cultures, traditions and people.

This was the longest duration trip I’ve ever taken, covering the most ground by road and with some (by my standards) fairly extreme variations of temperature, altitude and landscape. But it was mostly very unusual, often spectacular and totally worth the bumpy ride - take layers, medications and a better camera than I did. The people were also a particular highlight. Jabbar in Turkmenistan was an impossible act to follow, but the local leaders were all very good. The group was a great mix and we bonded over one or two minor glitches and some medicinal vodka. We met the friendliest local people in markets, at the border crossings, on the road. They were very often willing to share my three words of Russian, and to practice their English. It was also very nice to be asked to join them for their photos - probably some of these invitations were from other tourists, but was still great to feel like the exotic extra for a change.