Getting around Uzbekistan: transport and apps

The train, which is the whole trip

Afrosiyob is a Spanish-built high-speed train and it turns the Silk Road cities into day trips from one another.

• Tashkent to Samarkand takes a little over 2 hours. Samarkand to Bukhara is about 1 hour 30.
• Economy is comfortable and is what most visitors book. Tashkent to Samarkand runs around 294,000 som in economy, more in business and VIP.
• Tickets are released exactly 45 days before departure, at midnight Tashkent time, and popular dates sell out in hours during spring and autumn.
• Book at eticket.railway.uz. Foreign cards are frequently declined there; if yours is, a hotel, a local agency or a reseller will book it for a small fee, and that is the normal solution rather than a scam.
• Sharq is the slower conventional train on the same route, cheaper and easy to get.
• The overnight train to Khiva from Tashkent exists and is a genuine sleeper, which saves a hotel night.

Cities

• Tashkent's metro is one of the most beautiful in the world and costs a flat 1,700 som with an ATTO card or the app, 3,000 som for a cash token. Three lines and a ring line, and stations decorated as public monuments.
• Photography in the metro has been allowed since 2018, so go and look.
• Yandex Go covers Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara and the larger towns, and is cheap enough that walking is a choice rather than a saving.
• Marshrutka minibuses run everywhere and are for the confident: no English, no fixed stops, cash to the driver.

Between towns without the train

• Shared taxis leave from set ranks when they fill, and are the local way to reach anywhere the train does not.
• You pay per seat, or buy the whole car if you want to leave now.
• Long-distance buses are slow but very cheap.
• Domestic flights connect Tashkent with Nukus and Urgench and save a very long drive to Karakalpakstan.

Driving

• Hiring a car and driver is far more common than self-driving, costs little, and removes the problems below.
• Traffic police checkpoints are frequent and want to see documents.
• Road quality is uneven and night driving is genuinely dangerous - unlit vehicles, livestock, no markings.
• Fuel is often methane or propane rather than petrol, and queues at gas stations can be long.