Travel to Uzbekistan or other "Stans" in September 2019

Have a friend who is interested in that part of the world, he has used the tour group Voyages Jules Verne. www.vjv.com. They are a UK based company, the headline cost of the tours includes airfares from the UK but they also quote a price excluding airfare so you make your own way there. My friend's next trip with them is to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan - I'm interested to see how that goes …..

There are several more UK based tour groups who go to that part of the world, I can try to list them if that is of help. But I'm sure there must be many more options in the US.

Thanks Katie! We are trying to avoid US companies as we find the prices start at double what a local, on-the-ground tour company charges.

If you are male, you may or may not get much out of this link, but a regular travel blogger I follow went to the 'Stans' 2 years ago and has planning tips and things to consider. https://blog.women-on-the-road.com/tag/centralasia/
I think a good amount of the info is not gender specific, but just gloss over the stuff that is ;-)

I would start with some good books (Lonely Planet etc.) - you'll get a lot more substantive info that way. Hopefully they will list some good local tour operators, or else you'll just have to go with the flow until you get on the ground. I agree that getting any tour operator from the US just means a big markup and, in the end, they'll likely use local guides anyway.

I believe Uzbekistan has relaxed their visitor visa process, but it still warrants checking out in advance.

LyubaTour is a small but very well-traveled company based in Bulgaria, who co-produce Rick's Bulgaria tour. They have a few itineraries for you to consider at https://lyuba.tours/we-explore/. I did an excellent Kyrgystan+Kazakhstan tour with Yuri two years ago (not an exact duplicate of any current schedule).

Here's a link to a previous post on a similar topic. Do a search as well as check out some guidebooks. Uzbekistan has the heavy hitters in terms of historical Silk Road cities/town. All comes down to what you want to see, do, and how much time you want to spend.

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/general-europe/been-to-uzbekistan

Several years ago we used an Uzbeki travel agency called Advantour for our trip to Central Asia. The agency was easy to work with and put together a great trip.

Neil