Places in this article: Samarkand · Bukhara · Tashkent
Uzbekistan tours from Austria: entry, flights from Vienna and the best weeks of 2027
The first Austrian flight of the day leaves Vienna-Schwechat for Munich at 06:10 and lands an hour later. At 10:45 the Uzbekistan Airways flight leaves Munich, and at 21:05 you are in Tashkent. There is no nonstop flight from Vienna, but with one change you are here the same evening, and at passport control your Austrian passport is all you need. We are a tour operator in Tashkent, and this is our guide to Uzbekistan tours from Austria: entry rules for Austrian citizens, connections from Vienna, the best weeks around your public holidays and school holidays in 2027, and a scholar from Vienna who traced the paper of the Islamic world back to Samarkand. The general picture for German speakers is in our guides to Uzbekistan tours from Germany and Switzerland.
Entry for Austrian citizens: 30 days without a visa
Citizens of Austria enter Uzbekistan without a Entry rules depend on your passport. Once you are here, each stay must be registered within three days, and hotels do it for you; customs and registration rules are in our guide. Read more → and can stay for up to 30 days, counted from the day they cross the border. For a longer stay you need a visa before you travel.
Travel on your passport. It must be valid for at least three months after you leave Uzbekistan; to be safe, we recommend six. ID Austria on your phone is not accepted here. Children under 16 enter only with a parent or legal guardian, and if they travel with one parent, they also need a declaration of consent. For young people aged 16 and 17 travelling alone, such a declaration is strongly advised.
Every foreign visitor is registered within three days of arrival. Hotels do it at check-in, so in a hotel you do nothing yourself. For nights in a yurt camp or a village home, we check in advance how it works there. Keep the registration slips with your passport until you fly home. Foreign currency above 2,000 US dollars must be declared on arrival, and drones may not be brought in. Details are in our visa guide and our article on registration and customs.
Take out travel insurance that covers medical treatment in Uzbekistan for every day of the trip. While you travel, our office in Tashkent is reachable 24/7.
From Vienna: one change in Munich, Frankfurt or Istanbul
There are no nonstop flights from Vienna to Tashkent in the current timetable. The three usual connections:
- Via Munich. Austrian flies from Vienna to Munich several times a day in about an hour. From Munich, Uzbekistan Airways HY 236 leaves at 10:45 and lands in Tashkent at 21:05 local time, after 6 h 20 min; in the winter timetable it flies mainly on Sundays.
- Via Frankfurt. Austrian, Lufthansa and Condor fly from Vienna to Frankfurt in 1 h 15 min to 1 h 30 min. From Frankfurt there are three airlines to Tashkent: Uzbekistan Airways on Mondays and Thursdays, Qanot Sharq on Tuesdays and Fridays and Centrum Air on Fridays, each in about 6 h 20 min.
- Via Istanbul. Turkish Airlines, Pegasus and AJet fly from Vienna to Istanbul in a little over two hours. From Istanbul Airport, Turkish Airlines, Uzbekistan Airways, Centrum Air and Qanot Sharq fly on to Tashkent in about four and a half hours. Pegasus and AJet land at Sabiha Gökçen, on the other side of the city, so check which airport your connection leaves from.
Days and times change between the winter and summer timetables, so check yours when you book. More routes are in our guide to flights to Uzbekistan.
Tashkent is on UTC+5 all year, with no summer time: four hours ahead of Vienna in winter, three in summer. Many flights land in the evening or at night, so we plan the first night around your arrival. We can arrange fast-track passport control and a car to your hotel.
Vienna and the paper of Samarkand
In 1883 the orientalist Joseph von Karabacek, born in Graz in 1845, acquired for Vienna a large collection of Greek, Coptic and Arabic papyri from Egypt, with the financial support of Archduke Rainer. From 1889 to 1917 he was director of the Court Library in Vienna, today the Austrian National Library.
Among the finds were early Arabic documents written on paper. In 1887 Karabacek published his study Das arabische Papier in the collection’s own journal. Two of its chapters are about Samarkand: who the first papermakers there were, and the linen paper made in the city. His conclusion was that papermaking in the Islamic world began in Samarkand around 751, and from there spread to Baghdad and further west. He took the story of Chinese masters brought to the city after a battle from medieval Arabic writers. Today historians treat that story as a legend: paper was used in Samarkand before 751, and the craft most likely came gradually along the trade routes.
Paper is still made by hand near Samarkand, from mulberry bark, at the workshop in the village of .A village near Samarkand where paper is made by hand from mulberry bark, the old way, at a working mill on the stream. We tell its story in Samarkand paper: the Meros mill in Konigil, and you can watch a sheet being formed, pressed and polished in an hour. Vienna has another link here: the mountaineer Willi Rickmer Rickmers, who first came to Samarkand and Bukhara in 1894, was a member of the academic section of the German and Austrian Alpine Club in Vienna; his story is in our guide for travellers from Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
Uzbekistan tours from Austria: routes for 8 to 10 days
You book the flight, and we arrange everything on the ground: hotels, train tickets, guides and transfers, timed to your arrival. Your guide speaks German, and that is included in the price: just tell us when you book.
The classic week, 8 days. Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva on our 8-day classic tour. If you would rather have fewer early starts, take the 10-day tour at a gentle pace. How we lay out such a week is in Uzbekistan in 7 days.
On foot, 8 days. For anyone who spends summer weekends on the Alpine trails: a day hike above ,Mountains of the Western Tien Shan about 80 km from Tashkent: hiking in summer, skiing in winter, the Charvak reservoir nearby. Read more → two nights with families in the Did you know? The Nuratau ridge protects a rare wild sheep The Nurata Nature Reserve was set up on the Nuratau ridge in 1975 to protect wild walnut groves and Severtsov's argali, an endemic wild sheep on the Red List. Golden eagles and bearded vultures are protected here too. Read more → villages and a full walking day between them, a night in a yurt camp by ,Did you know? Lake Aydarkul appeared by accident in 1969 In the flood year of 1969 the Chardara reservoir on the Syr Darya had to release so much water that it was sent into the Arnasay depression in the desert. The water stayed, and Lake Aydarkul is now a large lake with fish, birds and yurt camps. Read more → and Samarkand at both ends. That is our hiking tour of Chimgan, Nuratau and Samarkand; more in hiking in Uzbekistan.
In the semester holidays, 8 days. Our Winter Silk Road runs from December to February: Tashkent, Khiva, Bukhara and Samarkand by train, each day planned around the short daylight, with a visit to a Did you know? Paper polished with stone, made to last 400 years At the Meros mill in Konigil, founded in 1996 to revive a craft that had died out, a water wheel beats mulberry bark into pulp, and each sheet is polished for hours with agate, shell or horn. It is made to last some 400 years. Read more → and, if you wish, a last day on the snow. See Uzbekistan in winter.
Three additions that work in any route: a mountain hike with a guide and a picnic near Tashkent, a day trip from Samarkand to Shahrisabz, and dinner with a local family in Bukhara. Not sure which route fits your dates? Try our tour finder.
When to go: Austrian holidays and school holidays in 2027
Christmas and the semester holidays. This school year the Christmas holidays run from 24 December 2026 to 6 January 2027. The semester holidays fall in three waves: Vienna and Lower Austria from 1 to 6 February 2027, Burgenland and Carinthia from 8 to 13 February, and Upper Austria, Styria, Salzburg, Tyrol and Vorarlberg from 15 to 20 February. Tashkent afternoons average 9.5 °C in February, with nights around zero: quiet old towns, short queues and a warm coat. More in Uzbekistan in February and New Year in Uzbekistan.
Easter. The Easter holidays run from 20 to 29 March 2027 in all Länder, ending with Easter Monday. That is a good time for the cities and early for the mountains: at Chimgan, April is the wettest month. See Uzbekistan in April.
May. Ascension Day is Thursday 6 May, the Whitsun holidays run from 15 to 17 May, and Corpus Christi is Thursday 27 May. Two Thursday holidays invite a bridge day, and Whit Monday makes a third long weekend in the same month. Tashkent averages 28 °C in the afternoon in May, and the Nuratau slopes are still green: for walkers, the best window of the year. See Uzbekistan in May.
Summer. The summer holidays run from 3 July to 5 September 2027 in Vienna, Lower Austria and Burgenland, and from 10 July to 12 September in the other six Länder. In July Tashkent averages 35.9 °C in the afternoon, against 26.2 °C at Chimgan, so we plan the cities for mornings and evenings and add days in the mountains, or in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan: see Kyrgyzstan in summer.
Autumn. The National Day falls on Tuesday 26 October 2027 and All Saints’ Day on Monday 1 November. October afternoons in Tashkent average 22 °C, and the walking season in the mountains continues. See Uzbekistan in October and when to go.
Money, plugs and your phone
- Cards. Visa and Mastercard work at most terminals in city hotels, restaurants, shops and stations, and many ATMs give out so’m on them. Bazaars, villages and small shops often take cash only.
- Euros. On 20 October 2026, 14 Uzbek banks listed euro buying rates, from 12,000 to 13,700 so’m, so compare before you change. Change money only at banks and official exchange offices, with your passport. See where to exchange currency and cards, cash and tipping.
- Plugs. Sockets are types C and F at 230 V, as in Austria, so your chargers fit without an adapter.
- Phone. Roaming works, and a local SIM card is issued against your passport; read bringing a phone to Uzbekistan first.
- Water. Drink bottled water: it is sold everywhere, in many brands.
- At mosques and shrines. Cover shoulders and knees; women may want a scarf. More in what to wear.
In short
- Austrian passport, valid at least three months after departure: up to 30 days in Uzbekistan without a visa. ID Austria does not count.
- From Vienna, one change: in Munich, Frankfurt or Istanbul.
- The best weeks are the long weekends of May and the October days around the National Day; in the semester holidays, take the winter route.
- Pay by card in the cities, carry euros for bazaars and villages; your plugs fit.
- Your guide speaks German, included in the price.
