Samarkand, Uzbekistan 5 Day Itinerary
For most of its existence, Samarkand was considered the geographic centre of the world. It sat at the intersection of the Silk Road routes connecting China to Rome, India to Persia, and every major trading civilisation of the medieval period passed goods, ideas, and scholars through it. The Registan, built in the 15th century under Tamerlane’s heirs, remains one of the most compositionally perfect public spaces on Earth. Five days allows time to see the monuments properly and to understand the city that surrounds them.
Visa and Entry
As of January 2026, US citizens can enter Uzbekistan visa-free for up to 30 days. Citizens of the UK, EU countries, Australia, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Israel, and most Latin American countries are also eligible for visa-free or e-Visa entry covering 30 days. The e-Visa (available at e-visa.gov.uz) is processed within two working days and costs around USD 20. All visitors must register with local authorities within three days of arrival; hotels handle this automatically. Keep the registration receipts for exit.
Getting There
Samarkand has its own international airport with direct connections from Istanbul, Dubai, Moscow, and several European cities. Alternatively, fly into Tashkent and take the Afrosiyob high-speed train to Samarkand: two hours and 15 minutes, trains run several times daily. Book tickets at least a week in advance; the popular afternoon departures sell out. The train is comfortable, punctual, and the right way to enter the city.
Currency
The Uzbek Som (UZS) is the only accepted currency for tourist sites; entry fees must be paid in cash. Exchange offices in Samarkand charge no fees and offer rates close to market; exchange in the city rather than at the airport. Attraction prices have risen significantly through 2025 and are subject to further increases: budget UZS 100,000 for Registan, UZS 80,000 for Shah-i-Zinda, UZS 40,000 for Afrosiab Museum. Keep small bills.
Day 1: Arrival and the Registan
Check in to a hotel within walking distance of the Registan. The Registan Hotel and several boutique guesthouses on the surrounding lanes offer this; staying near the square means you can visit at dusk and at night when the crowds thin and the blue-tiled domes take on a different quality in the low light. The night illumination is free to view from the exterior.
Buy your Registan ticket (currently UZS 100,000) and go in on the first afternoon. The square is framed by three madrasahs: Ulugbek (1420), Sher-Dor (1636), and Tillya-Kari (1660). Ulugbek’s is the oldest and was a functioning university in the 15th century; the ceramic tilework here is technically finer than in the later buildings, a detail that gets lost when visitors focus on the more dramatically decorated Sher-Dor facade. Look at the mosaics at eye level in the Ulugbek portal and compare them to the ones in Sher-Dor: two centuries of craftsmanship evolution are visible in the difference.
Dinner: Bibikhanum Teahouse near Siab Bazaar serves plov, samsa, and Uzbek tea in a covered courtyard. Simple and correct. A first dinner in Samarkand should not be at a hotel restaurant.
Day 2: Shah-i-Zinda and Afrosiab
Morning: Shah-i-Zinda is a necropolis of mausoleums built over seven centuries on a hill north of the old city. The entrance corridor is a lane of mausoleum facades in varying shades of turquoise, cobalt, and gold; the buildings closest to the entrance date from the 14th to 15th centuries and are among the most refined examples of Timurid tilework anywhere. Admission UZS 80,000; go early, before 9am, when tour groups have not yet arrived. The upper end of the complex overlooks the modern city; the contrast between the 14th-century ceramic surfaces in the foreground and the Soviet-era apartment blocks in the background is the most accurate visual summary of Samarkand available.
Adjacent to Shah-i-Zinda, Afrosiab Museum occupies the site of ancient Samarkand, the pre-Mongol city destroyed by Genghis Khan in 1220. The museum’s main hall contains a remarkable 7th-century fresco depicting an ambassadorial ceremony, discovered during Soviet-era excavations. Entry UZS 40,000. Most visitors spend 20 minutes here; an hour is better.
Afternoon: Siab Bazaar, directly behind Bibi-Khanym Mosque, is the city’s working food market. Go specifically for dried fruits (melon rolls, apricots, raisins the size of grapes), fresh non bread pulled from tandoor ovens, and the samsa stalls. The market is not a tourist attraction in disguise; it is where residents buy daily food. Buy dried apricots here rather than at the airport gift shops; the quality differential is significant and the price is a fraction.
Evening: walk through the lanes between the bazaar and the Registan as the day cools. The vendors selling embroidered textiles and ceramics that line these streets are worth browsing; the fixed-price shops are more reliable than the open-air stalls for quality, but both will negotiate.
Day 3: Gur-e-Amir and Ulugbek Observatory
Morning: Gur-e-Amir is the mausoleum of Amir Timur (Tamerlane), who died in 1405. The ribbed azure dome, 34 metres high, became the architectural model for later Mughal mausoleums including the Taj Mahal. The interior is faced in pale onyx and features the cenotaphs of Timur and his male descendants. The black jade gravestone covering Timur’s actual tomb below was cracked by a Soviet archaeologist who opened the vault in 1941, two days before the German invasion of Russia; the story is probably apocryphal but is repeated by every guide in Samarkand.
Afternoon: take a taxi north to the Ulugbek Observatory site. Ulugbek, Timur’s astronomer-grandson, built the largest quadrant sextant of the medieval world here in the 15th century, using it to calculate star positions accurate to within fractions of a degree. Only the underground arc of the instrument survives; a small museum above it explains how it worked. The site is rarely crowded and the absence of crowds is the feature, not a deficiency. The view from the hill over the city is good.
Day 4: Day Trip to Shahrisabz
Shahrisabz, 80 km south of Samarkand over the Takhta-Karacha Pass, was Timur’s birthplace and the site of his most ambitious construction project: the Ak-Saray Palace, begun in 1380 and never finished. Two enormous gate towers, originally 50 metres high, are all that survive of what would have been one of the largest palaces in the world. The scale of the surviving masonry, elaborately tiled in turquoise and gold geometric patterns, suggests a structure of extraordinary ambition. The rest of the old city was demolished and replaced with a Soviet-planned town in the 1960s; UNESCO listed the surviving monuments in 2000 but also threatened to delist them due to subsequent demolitions by local authorities. See them while they remain.
The road over the pass offers views of the Zerafshan range; hire a driver from your hotel for the day (around USD 40 to 60 return) rather than joining a group tour, which tends to rush both sites.
Day 5: Papermaking and Departure
Morning: the Meros Paper Mill in Konigil village, 10 km outside Samarkand, produces paper using a technique brought from China via the Silk Road in the 8th century. Workers demonstrate the process using mulberry bark; the resulting paper is sold in the workshop and is one of the better quality souvenirs available in the region. The mill is a working operation, not a reconstruction; entry is around UZS 20,000.
Return to Samarkand for a final plov lunch. Samarqand Osh Markazi (the city’s main plov centre, near the stadium) is the local benchmark: a canteen-style operation serving from large iron cauldrons from 11am until they run out, typically by 2pm. Plov here is rice cooked in cottonseed oil with carrots, chickpeas, and mutton in ratios perfected over generations. It is the most important dish in Uzbek food culture, and this is a place where locals go for it rather than a restaurant that performs it for tourists.
Depart from Samarkand airport or take the afternoon Afrosiyob train back to Tashkent for an international connection.
Practical Notes
Spring (April to May) and autumn (September to October) offer the best weather; summers are dry and very hot, reaching 38 to 40 degrees Celsius in July. The Registan and other major sites are busiest from 10am to 3pm; early morning visits are consistently better. Photography is permitted everywhere; some madrasah vendors will ask you to buy a small item before photographing their stall. This is reasonable. A registered guide for Shah-i-Zinda specifically adds value; the iconographic detail of the tile inscriptions requires Quranic literacy to decode properly and a good guide makes the difference between appreciation and understanding.