Uzbekistan tours from Germany, Austria and Switzerland: flights, entry and the best weeks of 2027

On Mondays and Thursdays this winter, Uzbekistan Airways flight HY 232 leaves Frankfurt at 09:05 and lands in Tashkent at 19:25 local time, six hours and twenty minutes later. Munich has its own flight on Sundays, and from Vienna and Zurich it takes one change. We are a tour operator in Tashkent, and this guide to Uzbekistan tours from Germany, Austria and Switzerland covers what is specific to you: the flights, entry on your passport, the best weeks of 2027 around your holidays and routes for a week or ten days, one of them on foot. The picture for the rest of Europe is in our guide to Uzbekistan tours from Europe.

Nonstop from Frankfurt and Munich, one change from Vienna and Zurich

In the winter timetable 2026/27, these flights go nonstop to Tashkent (local times):

From	Airline and flight	Days	Departs – arrives
Frankfurt	Uzbekistan Airways HY 232	Mon, Thu	09:05 – 19:25
Frankfurt	Qanot Sharq HH 492	Tue, Fri, 17 November to 26 March	11:30 – 21:50
Frankfurt	Centrum Air C6 152	Fri, 30 October to 26 March	20:15 – 06:40 next day
Munich	Uzbekistan Airways HY 236	Sun	10:45 – 21:05

The flights home leave Tashkent early in the morning: Uzbekistan Airways at 04:15 to Frankfurt, landing at 07:15, and at 06:25 to Munich, landing at 09:20. We plan the last evening and the night transfer to the airport around that. From the end of March 2027 the summer timetable applies, with other days and times, so check yours when you book.

There are no nonstop flights from Vienna or Zurich in the current timetable. The usual route is one change in Istanbul, where Turkish Airlines and Uzbekistan Airways fly on to Tashkent, or a connection in Frankfurt or Munich. More on routes and airports is in our guide to flights to Uzbekistan.

Tashkent is on UTC+5 all year. In winter it is four hours ahead of Berlin, Vienna and Zurich, in summer three. The flights from Frankfurt and Munich land in the evening, so the first night is a transfer and sleep. We can arrange fast-track passport control and a car to your hotel.

Entry: 30 days without a visa

Citizens of Germany, Austria and Switzerland enter Uzbekistan without a visa for up to 30 days. For a longer stay you need a visa before you travel.

Bring your passport: an identity card is not accepted, and neither is ID Austria on your phone. German children can travel on a Kinderreisepass. The passport should be valid for at least three months after you leave Uzbekistan; to be safe, we recommend six.

Every foreign visitor is registered within three days of arrival. Hotels do it at check-in. For nights in village guesthouses or a yurt camp, we check in advance how it works there. Keep the registration slips until you fly home. Leave the drone at home: drones are not allowed into the country. Details are in our visa guide and our article on registration and customs.

Willi Rickmer Rickmers and the Alpine clubs

Long before the first charter flight, mountaineers from all three countries knew this region. Willi Rickmer Rickmers, born in 1873 in Lehe, today part of Bremerhaven, came to Samarkand and Bukhara for the first time in 1894 and again in 1895. He was a member of the academic section of the German and Austrian Alpine Club in Vienna, and from 1903 of the Akademischer Alpen-Club Zürich.

On his next journeys he went into the mountains east of Bukhara. In 1913 he led the first Pamir expedition of the German and Austrian Alpine Club, which surveyed peaks and passes there and made the first photogrammetric maps of part of the north-western Pamir. His book about the region, The Duab of Turkestan, came out the same year. In 1928 he was back, at the head of a large expedition to the Alai and the Pamir that set out from Tashkent in June.

Rickmers’ high mountains lie in neighbouring Tajikistan today. In Uzbekistan the walking is gentler, and the trails start an hour or two from the cities: see our guide to hiking in Uzbekistan.

Uzbekistan tours from Germany, Austria and Switzerland: routes for 7 to 10 days

You book the flight, and we arrange everything on the ground: hotels, train tickets, guides and transfers, timed to your arrival. With two to four flights a week from Frankfurt, the flight days often set the length of the trip, so tell us yours.

The classic week, 8 days. Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva on our 8-day classic tour. How we lay out such a week is in Uzbekistan in 7 days.

On foot, 8 days. A day in the mountains above Chimgan, two nights with families in the Nuratau villages and a full walking day between them, a night in a yurt camp on Lake Aydarkul, and Samarkand at both ends: our hiking tour of Chimgan, Nuratau and Samarkand.

Ten days. The four classic cities with fewer early starts on our 10-day tour at a gentle pace, or all of it by rail on the Uzbekistan by Train tour. Our day-by-day plan is in Uzbekistan in 10 days.

Your guide speaks German, and that is included in the price: just tell us the language when you book. Not sure which route fits your dates? Try our tour finder.

For walkers: Chimgan, Nuratau and Aydarkul

If your summers are spent on Alpine huts, the mountains here will feel familiar in scale but not in setting. Most hikes stay between about 1,200 and 2,500 m, and you sleep in guesthouses, family homes and yurts rather than huts.

Chimgan. Greater Chimgan, 3,309 m, is about an hour and a half by car from central Tashkent, in the Ugam-Chatkal National Park. In July Chimgan averages 26.2 °C in the afternoon, against 35.9 °C in Tashkent. The easiest start is our one-day mountain hike with a guide and a picnic.

Nuratau. A ridge of more than 170 km between Samarkand and Lake Aydarkul, with Mount Zargar, 2,169 m, as its highest point. You walk from village to village and sleep with families; a typical leg, from Sentob past Majrum to Hayat, is about 16 km with some 500 m of climbing. North of the ridge lies Aydarkul, a lake that appeared after a flood in 1969, with yurt camps on its shores.

More in our articles on hiking in Uzbekistan and the Aydarkul yurt camps. For one village night inside a classic route, there is our Nuratau Mountains extension; for four days by jeep around Chimgan, the High Tashkent expedition.

When to go: holidays and school holidays 2027

Easter. Easter Sunday falls on 28 March 2027. In most German Länder the Easter school holidays run from 22 March to 2 or 3 April; in Austria from 20 to 29 March. That is a good time for the cities and early for the mountains: at Chimgan, April is the wettest month of the year.

May. Ascension Day is Thursday 6 May, Whit Monday 17 May, and Corpus Christi, a holiday in several Länder and in Austria, Thursday 27 May; Austrian schools also close from 15 to 17 May. In Tashkent and Samarkand the average May afternoon is 27–28 °C, and the Nuratau slopes are green. For walkers, this is the best window of the year. Month by month: Uzbekistan in May.

Summer. German summer holidays begin on 28 June in Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland and end on 13 September in Bavaria; in Austria they run from 3 or 10 July to 5 or 12 September. In July and August the cities average 35–37 °C in the afternoon, so we plan sightseeing for mornings and evenings and add the mountains, or neighbouring Kyrgyzstan: see Kyrgyzstan in summer.

Autumn. September and October are the second walking season, drier and steadier than spring, with afternoons around 22 °C in Tashkent and Samarkand in October. The Day of German Unity falls on a Sunday in 2027, and Austria’s National Day on Tuesday 26 October. In Switzerland each canton sets its own school holidays, so check yours. See September, October and when to go.

At the table

Uzbek food is built around meat, mostly mutton, and around rice and bread. Plov, the national dish, is rice cooked in a cauldron with meat, carrots and onions; the round bread from a clay tandir oven comes with every meal; green tea is poured into small bowls all day. Our guides to Uzbek cuisine and plov explain what is on the table.

In a village homestay you eat what the family cooks, often with vegetables from their own garden. Vegetarian, allergies, foods you would rather avoid: tell us when you book, and we take it into account when we plan the meals. In Bukhara, a dinner with a local family is a good way to see home cooking. Do not drink tap water; bottled water is sold everywhere.

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 14 October 2026, sixteen Uzbek banks listed euro buying rates, and the gap between buying and selling rates differs a lot from bank to bank. 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 Germany and Austria, so your plugs fit. Swiss three-pin type J plugs do not; the flat two-pin type C does. Bring an adapter from Switzerland.
• Phone. Roaming works, and a local SIM card is issued against your passport; read bringing a phone to Uzbekistan first.
• At mosques and shrines. Cover shoulders and knees; women may want a scarf. More in what to wear.

In short

• Nonstop to Tashkent from Frankfurt and Munich, about 6 h 20 min; from Vienna and Zurich, one change.
• German, Austrian and Swiss passports: 30 days without a visa. Bring a passport, not an ID card, and leave the drone at home.
• For walkers, the best weeks are around Ascension and Whitsun in May and in September and October.
• Pay by card in the cities, carry euros for villages and bazaars, and bring an adapter for Swiss plugs.
• Your guide speaks German, included in the price.