Uzbekistan Tours in Fall

Excellent trip. Busy with very good guides but with some days to explore the wonderful cities on our own. Perfect for us. The yurt was too basic for us oldies!!

This is a fascinating part of the world which was and is great fun to learn about. The initial three plane journeys were tough but after that the itinerary worked well and opened up a new world with the help of our brilliant guide - who was also determined to fill in the health and safety which Uzbekistan is fairly laid back about! Our hotels were largely very well placed and independent, helping to build up an idea of the local culture. We found the people to be very friendly and hospitable despite the fact that English is not necessarily even their third language. Twice we were dragged into group photographs by older Uzbeks in traditional dress. Explore travelers as tourist sights themselves! The only negative i would say was the night in the yurt which sounded exotic but wasn't. I find sleeping on a barely padded wooden bed very difficult and the joyful but rather selfish Polish contingent who took over the camp did not add to our enjoyment. In fact, I would opt to miss this altogether (although I quite enjoyed the chance to ride a Bactrian camel for a change) and maybe visit the lake we saw from a distance or another site which provided variety. Altogether though a great holiday, well organised and spent with like-minded people.

This was my second trip with Explore, and like the first was excellent overall but with a few observations I would like to make. The night at the yurt camp was very disappointing. I was not expecting to have the place to myself but the atmosphere was ruined by the addition - somewhat bizarrely - of a disco and another tour group who sang loud songs long after we had all gone to bed. Secondly, Explore's advice to bring mainly US Dollars seems over cautious. There were plenty of atm's in Samarkand and Bukhara where you can take out local currency (and you need a lot of it) but less banks to change money over. That said the tour itself fulfilled a dream of visiting Samarkand. The accommodation and itinerary were good with enough down time to explore or go back to places we had visited. The people are very friendly, happy to haggle a bit and enjoy having their photos taken with visitors from foreign countries! I loved it!

Our Uzbekistan trip was just amazing, we had such a good guide and had so much fun. Poor Ganesh had literally thousands of questions to answer but we never would have learnt so much or experienced this amazing country without Ganesh and G

This holiday was a delight, so much to see and also spare time to look around on your own. Accommodation was excellent. On driving days we had plenty of comfort breaks, comfortable transport and excellent lunch stops.

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.