Places in this article: Samarkand · Bukhara · Tashkent
Uzbekistan tours from the UAE and the Gulf: four hours from Dubai, 30 days visa-free, Samarkand in five days
Board in Dubai after breakfast, and by mid-afternoon, Tashkent time, you are on the ground: the flight takes about four hours. From there the fast train reaches Samarkand in 2 h 10 min. With a journey that short, four or five days are enough for Samarkand and Bukhara. We are a tour operator in Tashkent, and this is our guide to Uzbekistan tours from the UAE and the Gulf: the flights from Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi and Doha, entry 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 → short routes, cool mountains in summer, travelling with children, halal food and the holidays of 2027.
Flights from Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi and Doha
Dubai has the most choice. flydubai flies to Tashkent several times a day, with morning, midday and night departures; Uzbekistan Airways and Centrum Air fly from Dubai too, and Air Arabia flies from Sharjah. From Abu Dhabi, Air Arabia Abu Dhabi flies three days a week this winter. Depending on the airport and the season, the flight takes about three and a half to four and a half hours.
From late December 2026 flydubai also flies to Samarkand, three nights a week, landing at about three in the morning. Your trip can then start in Samarkand and end in Tashkent, with no backtracking. Since September 2026 flydubai and Uzbekistan Airways have sold through tickets: one booking via Dubai and Tashkent to Bukhara, Fergana or Urgench, with your bags checked through. Details are in our news story One ticket via Dubai. Air Arabia, with 13 flights a week between Tashkent and Sharjah or Abu Dhabi, is discussing direct flights to Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva; no dates have been set yet, see our news story.
From Doha, Qatar Airways flies to Tashkent four times a week, on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. From Jeddah there are nonstop flights by flynas, Uzbekistan Airways and Centrum Air, about six hours. From Muscat, Oman Air flies on Mondays and Fridays until mid-March 2027. From Riyadh, Kuwait and Bahrain there are no nonstop flights as of October 2026, so you fly with one connection, for example in Dubai or Doha.
Tashkent is on UTC+5 all year: one hour ahead of the UAE and Oman, two hours ahead of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain. Many flights land at night or before dawn. We meet you whatever the hour and, if you wish, take you through the arrival lounge with fast-track passport control. More routes are in our guide to flights to Uzbekistan.
Entry: 30 days without a visa
Citizens of all six Gulf countries enter Uzbekistan without a visa and can stay up to 30 days from the day they arrive. The rule came in step by step: for the UAE from 20 March 2019, for Saudi Arabia from 1 January 2023, for Qatar from June 2023, and for Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman from 1 June 2025. In October 2025 a government resolution added Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia to the official list of countries whose citizens need no visa for 30 days.
For a longer stay you need a visa before you travel. Have your return ticket with you on arrival. If you live in the Gulf but hold another passport, the rules depend on your citizenship, not on where you live, so tell us your nationality when you book. Hotels register your stay at check-in; keep the registration slips until you fly home. Details are in our articles on registration and customs and visas. These are the rules as of October 2026; they can change, so check them before you travel.
Uzbekistan tours from the UAE: Samarkand and Bukhara in 4 to 6 days
With a flight of about four hours, there is no need to save up for a long trip. For a first visit we suggest Samarkand and Bukhara, linked by the Uzbekistan's high-speed train: Tashkent to Samarkand in about 2 hours 10 minutes, Tashkent to Bukhara in about 4 hours. Tickets are tied to your passport. Read more → high-speed train: Tashkent to Samarkand in about 2 h 10 min, Samarkand to Bukhara in under two hours, Bukhara back to Tashkent in about four.
4 days. Two nights in Samarkand and one in Bukhara: 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 → 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 → and ,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 → then the old town of Bukhara around 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 → and .Did you know? Legend: the minaret's foundation was laid with camel milk Legend says master Bako laid the foundations of the Kalyan minaret with ganch plaster mixed with camel milk, then vanished for two years to let them harden, and only then built the tower. Locals still show a grave they say is his. Read more → It is tight, and it works best when you fly into Samarkand.
5 days. Our private tour Samarkand and Bukhara in 5 Days is built around the flights from Dubai and Sharjah: two nights in each city, the fast trains in between, and in summer a day in the mountains near Tashkent in place of the second day in Bukhara.
6 days and more. Add a day in Tashkent, or travel at a slower pace. For the great scholars, al-Bukhari near Samarkand and Did you know? A village renamed in honour of a Sufi master Bahauddin Naqshband (1318–1389), who gave his name to one of the largest Sufi orders, was born and buried near Bukhara in Qasr-i Hinduvan. The village was later renamed Qasr-i Arifan in his honour; the tomb over his grave dates from 1544. Read more → near Bukhara, see our seven-day Heritage of the Great Scholars; with Khiva as well, the 8-day classic tour. How we lay out a week is in Uzbekistan in 7 days.
You book the flight, and we arrange everything on the ground: hotels, train tickets, guides and transfers. Your guide speaks your language, and that is included in the price of our tours; tell us when you book which language you prefer. If you want a premium trip, say so: the Afrosiyob has VIP and Business classes, and we choose the hotels with you.
Summer: the old towns early, the mountains for the heat
Schools on the UAE Ministry of Education calendar break up for the summer on 2 July 2027, and July is the height of summer here too. Bukhara averages 37 °C in the afternoon, Tashkent 36 °C and Samarkand 35 °C, with almost no rain. The heat is dry and the mornings are fresh, so we see the sights before eleven, keep the middle of the day for lunch and the hotel, and go out again after six, when the old towns fill with families. Drink bottled water: it is sold everywhere.
The cool is close at hand. Amirsoy, a mountain resort 65 km from Tashkent, runs two gondolas in summer, up to 2,290 m. In July the weather station at nearby Mountains of the Western Tian Shan about 80 km from Tashkent: hiking in summer, skiing in winter, the Charvak reservoir nearby. Read more → averages 26.2 °C in the afternoon, almost ten degrees below the city. At the resort there is a rope park for adults and children, quad bikes with an instructor, a heated outdoor pool and three restaurants. The drive takes about an hour and a half; for an easy day, book our trip to Amirsoy and Chinorkent with lunch and the cable car. Lake Did you know? The lake below Chimgan is held back by a 168-metre dam Charvak is a reservoir: a 168 m stone dam on the Chirchiq, built in 1964–1970, holds about 2 km³ of water from the Pskem, Koksu and Chatkal rivers. Its name is traced to the Persian chorbog, "four gardens". Read more → is a short drive further, and in July 2026 a new resort hotel opened at Beldersay, in the same mountains, for a night out of the heat.
More in our guides to Amirsoy, Chimgan and Charvak in a day, the mountains near Tashkent and Uzbekistan in July.
With children
Families eat out together in Uzbekistan, and children are welcome in a A teahouse: green tea, plov and conversation on wide wooden beds called topchan. as much as anywhere. What needs planning is the heat and the pace, and short distances help. The Afrosiyob is the easy way between the cities: two hours to Samarkand, with a restaurant car and no airport queues.
Some places children remember: 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. 13 km from Samarkand, the 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 → workshop makes paper from mulberry bark, with a water wheel turning on the stream; in Bukhara, the puppet workshop-museum; in Tashkent, the Magic City park, lit up in the evening. Tell us your children’s ages when you book, and we plan the days and the car around them.
Our full guide is Uzbekistan with kids, and for a whole week our family tour of Tashkent, Samarkand and Bukhara.
When to go: Eid, school holidays and 2027
The best months for the old towns are April–May and September–October. On the UAE Ministry of Education calendar for 2026–27, the winter break starts on 14 December 2026 and the spring break on 5 April 2027. Mid-December brings 8–9 °C in the afternoon in Samarkand and Bukhara and frost at night: quiet streets, crisp air and snow on the slopes at Amirsoy. The spring break falls in our best season, with afternoons of 21–24 °C.
Eid al-Fitr is expected on 9 or 10 March 2027, and Eid al-Adha around 16 May, with the UAE holiday expected from 15 to 18 May; the exact dates depend on the moon. Both fall in good weather: in March Tashkent averages 16 °C in the afternoon, in May 28 °C. Navruz, the spring new year, is on 21 March. Ramazon hayiti and Qurbon hayiti, Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, are public holidays in Uzbekistan too, so trains and hotels fill up, and we book early.
Ramadan 2027 is expected to begin around 8 February. Month by month: March, May, December and when to go.
Halal food and prayer on the road
Close to nine in ten Uzbeks are Muslim, and most dishes here are cooked with halal meat: lamb, beef or chicken. We do not promise a halal certificate in every restaurant; if you want to be sure, ask “halolmi?”, which means “is it halal?” in Uzbek, or ask your guide to check. Tell us about your food requirements when you book, and we take them into account when we plan the meals.
,Rice cooked in a kazan with carrots, onions and meat: the dish of every Uzbek celebration. Each region cooks it its own way. rice cooked in a cauldron with meat, carrots and onions, is the dish to try first; shashlik is grilled on skewers, and every meal comes with non, the round bread from the clay tandir oven, and green tea. In Bukhara, spend an evening as the guests of a local family at dinner. Our guides to Uzbek cuisine and plov help you order.
Your guide plans each day with prayer times in mind, and in the old towns of Samarkand and Bukhara a mosque is never far away. International airports and railway stations have prayer rooms with space for ablution. On Friday, tell us if you want to pray Juma at a particular mosque, and we build the day around it. During Ramadan cafés stay open in the daytime, and iftar in restaurants starts right after sunset.
Money, plugs and your phone
- Cards. Visa and Mastercard work at most card terminals in hotels, restaurants, shops and stations. Cash, in so’m, is for bazaars, street stalls and some taxis.
- Cash. Bring US dollars or euros: banks and exchange offices change them against your passport; keep the receipt. See where to exchange currency and cards, cash and tipping.
- Plugs. Sockets are types C and F at 230 V. The three-pin type G plug used across the Gulf does not fit, so pack an adapter.
- Phone. Roaming works, and a local SIM card is sold against your passport. For a short trip your phone needs no registration; the rules are in bringing a phone to Uzbekistan.
- At mosques and mausoleums. Cover shoulders and knees; women cover their hair, and shoes come off on the carpets. More in what to wear.
In short
- Dubai and Sharjah have several flights a day to Tashkent, about four hours; Qatar Airways flies from Doha four times a week, and from late December 2026 flydubai flies to Samarkand too.
- Citizens of the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman need no visa for up to 30 days.
- Four to six days are enough for Samarkand and Bukhara by fast train; our 5-day private tour is built around the flights from Dubai and Sharjah.
- In July and August, see the old towns early and late, and spend a day at Amirsoy, almost ten degrees cooler than Tashkent.
- Most dishes are cooked with halal meat, your guide plans the day with prayer times in mind, and Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha 2027 fall in good weather.
© Photos
- Gondola cabins above the slopes of Amirsoy — Iplossusvulpes19 / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
