A private guide in Samarkand, Bukhara, Khiva and Tashkent: what you get and how to book
Places in this article: Samarkand · Bukhara · Khiva · Tashkent
The Did you know? The Registan's sun-carrying lion went on a banknote The Sher-Dor Madrasah (1619–1636) is named for the big cats with the sun on their backs on its portal. The image appeared on the reverse of Uzbekistan's 200-som note of 1997. Read more → opens at 8:00, and the hour before the tour groups arrive is the best of the day. Whether you spend it at the gate with the story of the square, or queuing and guessing, is mostly a matter of who you hire and how early you book. We are a tour operator in Tashkent and send guides out in all four cities every week, so here is how it works.
What a licensed guide in Uzbekistan does
Under the law on tourism, a guide in Uzbekistan is a resident of the country with professional training who introduces visitors to its sights, and may work only after receiving a certificate from the state tourism authority. That certificate is what separates a guide from a friendly stranger at the gate. We cover the rules in more detail in on your own or with a local operator.
In practice your guide does three jobs at once:
- Tells the story. Who built what, why a An Islamic college: student cells and classrooms around a courtyard behind a grand portal. In the old towns many now house museums and craft workshops. faces a mosque, which tilework is original and which is restoration.
- Runs the day. Orders the stops around ticket-office hours, light and heat, and keeps you away from the tour-bus wave.
- Translates the city. Ordering at a A teahouse: green tea, plov and conversation on wide wooden beds called topchan., reading a menu, asking a craftsman about his work.
A guide in your language
Our guides work in your language. Tell us what you speak when you write, and we match the guide to it in each city. If you are travelling as a mixed group, say so: one guide for everyone is easier than a running translation.
Guide only, or guide with a car and driver
Guide only suits the old centres you cover on foot. In Samarkand the classic circuit from Did you know? Timur's tombstone went to Persia and came back The dark-green jade slab on Timur's grave in Gur-e-Amir was carried off by Nader Shah in 1740. It broke, and on his advisers' urging he sent it back to Samarkand. Read more → to Did you know? Why Shah-i-Zinda means 'the Living King' The necropolis grew around the shrine of Qutham ibn Abbas, a cousin of the Prophet Muhammad. Legend says he did not die in battle but went down a deep well to a garden of paradise, where he lives on. Read more → fits into one long day on foot; Khiva's Did you know? People still live inside Khiva's museum city Itchan Kala packs more than 50 historic monuments and about 250 old houses inside clay walls 8–10 m high and 5–6 m thick, and families still live and work in its lanes. Read more → and the centre of Bukhara are compact. For this we offer a walking tour of Samarkand with a guide and a private guide in Khiva in Travel Moments. Both are priced per guide, whatever the size of your party, so a family pays the same as a couple.
Guide with a car and driver makes sense when the sights are spread out. Tashkent is a big city: The religious heart of old Tashkent: madrasahs, a Friday mosque and mausoleums. Right next to it stands the new Center of Islamic Civilization, opened in 2026. Read more →, Tashkent's old bazaar under a big blue-green dome, not far from Hazrati Imam. Bring cash in so'm. Read more → and the Did you know? A metro designed to ride out a magnitude-9 earthquake The three original lines of the Tashkent Metro were built to withstand an earthquake of magnitude 9.0, and the tunnels lie unusually shallow, only 8–25 m below the street. Read more → are not one walk. In Samarkand the Did you know? Ulugh Beg measured the year to within 25 seconds Working at his Samarkand observatory, Ulugh Beg put the tropical year at 365 days 5 h 49 min 15 s, about 25 seconds too long, closer than Copernicus a century later. Read more →, the A village near Samarkand where paper is made by hand from mulberry bark, the old way, at a working mill on the stream. paper mill and the Uzbekistan's high-speed train: Tashkent to Samarkand in 2 hours 30 minutes, Tashkent to Bukhara in about 4 hours. Tickets are tied to your passport. Read more → museum are outside the old centre, and in Bukhara the emir's summer palace and the Bahauddin Naqshband complex are a drive from town. Our private full-day tours include a guide in your language, comfortable transport for the day and entrance tickets to the sites on the programme:
- Samarkand: Highlights (Registan, Gur-e-Amir, The great mosque Amir Timur ordered after his Indian campaign of 1398–1399, one of the largest of its time. Read more →, Shah-i-Zinda) or Discovery (observatory, paper mill, Saint Daniel, Afrosiyob museum).
- Bukhara: Highlights (The heart of old Bukhara: the Kalyan Minaret of 1127, the Kalyan Mosque and the Mir-i-Arab Madrasah facing each other across one square. Read more →, The fortress-residence of the rulers of Bukhara on a high artificial hill: the oldest structure in the city. Read more →, Did you know? Bukhara's ponds were once its water supply Pools like Lyabi-Hauz, dug around 1620 and 46 × 36 m, were the city's main source of water. Most were filled in during the 1920s–30s because they spread disease; Lyabi-Hauz survived. Read more →, the trading domes) or Discovery (The summer palace of the last emirs of Bukhara, built in the late 19th and early 20th century in a mix of European and Central Asian styles., Bahauddin Naqshband, Chor-Bakr).
- Khiva: a full day in Itchan Kala.
- Tashkent: Highlights.
How long a city day is
A private city tour with us is a full day, and the sights set its rhythm. The Registan opens at 8:00; the Ark in Bukhara is open 9:00–18:00, in season 8:00–21:00. We start early in summer to see the open courtyards before the heat, and leave mausoleums and bazaars for later.
Coming from Tashkent for one day? Afrosiyob reaches Samarkand in 2 hours 30 minutes. By road it is about 270 km and 4–5 hours each way, which is why our Samarkand in a day starts with a 06:00 pick-up.
What is usually not included
Entrance tickets, when you hire a guide only. Every monument sells its own ticket: the Registan alone is 100,000 som for a foreign adult, the Ark in Bukhara 60,000 som. Prices and hours for each sight are in our guides to Samarkand sights and Bukhara and Khiva sights. On our full-day private tours the tickets for the programme are included.
Meals. Lunch is not part of a guided day unless the programme says so. Ask your guide where to eat; you pay the bill yourself.
Photo and video fees at monuments, personal expenses and tips are also paid separately.
Private or a small group
A private guide works on the date that suits you, and the itinerary can be adjusted: more time at Shah-i-Zinda, less at the bazaar, a stop for photographs whenever you want one. A group tour runs on fixed dates and a set programme; our 4-day Samarkand group tour arrives every Friday. Choose private if you travel with children, walk slowly, photograph a lot or want questions answered; choose a group if a set programme suits you.
When to book
Spring and autumn are high season for city routes, and it starts in April. In those months guides are booked up along with Afrosiyob seats, which go on sale 60 days ahead on eticket.railway.uz. Book the guide when you book the train.
To book, send a request from the tour page, write to hello@aroundca.com or message us on WhatsApp. Give the city, the date, how many of you there are and your language; a real person replies within 24 hours.
Tipping your guide and driver
Tipping is not obligatory here, but it is appreciated. Guides and drivers are tipped at the end of the day if you enjoyed it, and it is up to you how much. Keep some so'm in cash for it; more in cards, cash and tipping.
In short
- Guides in Uzbekistan work with a state certificate, and ours work in your language.
- Guide only for walkable old towns; a guide with a car and driver for Tashkent and for sights outside the centres.
- A city tour is a full day, starting early and built around ticket-office hours.
- Entrance tickets come on top with a guide-only booking; meals, photo fees and tips are always extra.
- In high season, from April, book the guide as soon as you book the train.
