Uzbekistan tours from Israel: 30 days without a visa, a nonstop flight from Tel Aviv and the best weeks of 2027

In the current timetable Uzbekistan Airways flies HY 302 nonstop from Ben Gurion to Tashkent on set days of the week. It leaves around midday and lands in Tashkent in the evening after about 4 h 50 min. The return flight, HY 301, leaves Tashkent in the morning and reaches Tel Aviv before noon, in about 5 h 30 min. Qanot Sharq also flies the route on some dates.

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: three hours ahead of Israel in winter and two hours ahead in summer. The flight lands in the evening, so we plan the first night around your arrival. We can also arrange fast-track passport control and a car to your hotel.

You book the flight, and we arrange everything on the ground: hotels, train tickets, guides and transfers, timed to your arrival. Your guide speaks your language, Hebrew, English or Russian, and that is included in the price of our tours.

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.

By train, 8 days. Our Uzbekistan by train tour links the same four cities by rail: the Afrosiyob to Samarkand and Bukhara, a high-speed train to Khiva and a sleeper back to Tashkent; see our guide to trains in Uzbekistan.

At an easy pace, 10 days. Our classic Uzbekistan at a gentle pace takes the same cities slowly: one or two sights each morning, free afternoons and a flight back from Khiva. A free-form version is in Uzbekistan in 10 days.

Crafts, 5 days. Our crafts of Bukhara and Samarkand tour visits the workshops of potters, embroiderers and silk weavers. It fits well into a short holiday week, or after a few days in Tashkent.

For food, 8 days. Our culinary tour of Uzbekistan goes to the markets in every city and includes three hands-on cooking classes; read Uzbek food by city before you go. Not sure which route fits your dates? Try our tour finder.

Bukhara is the city where most of our guests slow down. Its old centre is small enough to walk: the Poi Kalyan ensemble, the Ark fortress, the trading domes and, at its heart, the Lyabi-Hauz pond, laid out around 1620 under the vizier Nadir Divan-Begi. Our plan for Bukhara in 1, 2 or 3 days shows how to spread it out.

For centuries, craftsmen, merchants and families of many kinds lived here side by side, and one of the oldest pages of the city’s history belongs to the Bukharan Jews. Their dyers gave colour to Bukhara’s famous fabrics, and their musicians were part of Shashmaqom, the classical music of Bukhara and Samarkand that is now on UNESCO’s list of intangible heritage. A legend tells that the old widow who owned the plot for the pond agreed to sell it in return for land for a synagogue.

The old Jewish quarter is a few minutes’ walk from Lyabi-Hauz, with its courtyard houses and its active synagogue. It is best walked with a guide who knows its history; read our article on the Bukharan Jews, a page in Bukhara’s history, as well as the legends of Bukhara and the music of Uzbekistan.

Three additions fit almost any of these routes. Near Bukhara, a trip to Gijduvan with a ceramics workshop and lunch shows how the town’s plates and bowls are shaped and painted. In Samarkand, a visit to a silk workshop shows how silk goods are made. From Samarkand, a day trip to Shahrisabz takes you over the mountains to the home town of Amir Timur. If you keep kosher, tell us in advance, and we will plan the lunches on these days to match.

The long holidays of the Israeli year fall in the best seasons for Uzbekistan.

Pesach. In 2027 Pesach runs from 22 to 28 April, with the intermediate days from 23 to 27 April. Tashkent averages 22 °C in the afternoon in April: the gardens are green, and the days are long enough for the old towns. See Uzbekistan in April and Uzbekistan in spring.

Rosh Hashanah and Sukkot. Rosh Hashanah falls on 2 and 3 October 2027 and Yom Kippur on 11 October. Sukkot begins on 16 October, and Simchat Torah is on 23 October. Tashkent averages 29.5 °C in the afternoon in September and 22.2 °C in October, with dry, clear weather: our favourite season for walking. See September, October and Uzbekistan in autumn.

Summer. We will be honest: an Uzbek summer is hot. Tashkent averages 33.6 °C in the afternoon in June and 35.9 °C in July, so in summer we plan the cities for mornings and evenings and add days in the mountains, where Chimgan averages 26.2 °C in July. See Uzbekistan in summer and when to go.

Holiday weeks are popular, so book flights and hotels early.

Uzbek cooking is built around bread, rice, vegetables and meat, and the bazaars are full of fruit, nuts and dried fruit; start with our article on plov.

If you keep kosher, we arrange kosher meals along the whole route: tell us when you book. Tell us, too, about anything else in how you eat, and we will plan meals around it. If you prefer to skip meat on some days, our guide for vegetarians in Uzbekistan has the dishes and the words to use.

If you keep Shabbat, tell us too. We can plan the programme around Saturday: no flights, trains or long drives on that day, and a quiet day in one city instead.