Accessible travel in Uzbekistan: an honest guide for limited mobility

Since January 2026 Tashkent airport has 30 wheelchairs for passengers with reduced mobility, free of charge, in the international halls and in the domestic terminal. Uzbekistan Airways offers an escort at both airports, a wheelchair or an ambulift for passengers who cannot walk to the aircraft, priority boarding and getting off after the other passengers. All of it is on request: book it with the ticket. On other airlines, ask the airline in the same way.

After a night flight, our CIP Arrival service helps too: a staff member meets you, takes you through the fast-track passport lane and helps with the luggage, and our driver waits at the exit. Tell us about the wheelchair when you book, so that the car and the people meeting you are ready for it.

For many of our guests the Afrosiyob is the easiest part of the trip. Tashkent to Samarkand takes about 2 hours 10 minutes, Samarkand to Bukhara under 2 hours, in a seat, with no airport queue. We book Business class and a morning train, so you arrive with the afternoon to rest.

The harder part is the station: the entrance check, the platform and the step into the carriage. If you use a wheelchair, tell us when you book. We check the carriage and the help available at each station with the railway before we confirm the trip, and our guide or driver meets you on the platform. Stations are outside the old towns, more than 6 km from the Registan in Samarkand and about 12 km from the centre of Bukhara, so the car is part of every train day. How the trains work is in our guide to trains in Uzbekistan.

Tashkent is the easiest city on the route: a modern capital with broad avenues, big parks and large hotels. The metro is another matter. Most stations are reached by stairs, and lifts are being added only now: in September 2025, of 45 lifts planned at 16 stations, 32 were installed and 15 were working, with 30 more planned for 2026. For a wheelchair user we plan Tashkent by car, and we visit one or two stations of the Tashkent metro only if the stairs are manageable for you.

Of the great sights of Samarkand, the Registan is the friendliest to limited mobility. The three madrasahs face a large open square, and the best views are from the square itself, so you lose little if the courtyards inside are harder going. The sights of Samarkand are spread out, and we drive between them.

Shah-i-Zinda is the difficult one: the street of mausoleums begins with a staircase of about 40 steps, and in a 2020 accessibility check there was no wheelchair route into it. Gur-e-Amir has steps at the entrance too. With a stick and a handrail, many guests manage them slowly; with a wheelchair, we tell you honestly what you will see from outside and plan the day around it.

Both old towns are small, which helps: in Bukhara the main sights are a walk from Lyabi-Hauz, and Itchan Kala in Khiva is smaller still. But the paving is old brick and stone, uneven in places, and not every lane is open to cars, so the driver may stop a short walk from your hotel door. The Ark of Bukhara is entered up a long sloping brick ramp; take it slowly, with help.

Minarets are climbed by narrow, dark spiral staircases. Climbing is entirely optional, and nothing essential is lost from below: the towers are best seen from the street anyway.