Central Asia Group Tour14 days | Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan

I would like to say thank you for all your hard work putting this trip together. Everything went flawless from beginning to end. We couldn't have asked for anything more.

Thank you so much for the wonderful trip through the Stans. We really enjoyed the itinerary. We especially appreciated all the hard work that went into arranging hotels, guides, sightseeing when we decided not to attempt to enter Turkmenistan. The extra days spent in Uzbekistan were amazing. Our Hotel in the Ichan-Kala complex was an incredible place to stay and we loved being able to walk around the sights by the fortress. The folklore fashion/music performance was a highlight. Uzbekistan women are so fashionable and we loved seeing what they wore as they went about their daily business.

Firstly, I would like to say I am very happy with the services and tour which had been provided by Advantour.

One point; Kyrgistan was for me after all too short, I would suggest an evening flight or a second night at the hotel. As well, I was with the breakfast in Sofia Int. (Bishkek) not so happy. They shall provide more fresh food/bread options.

All guides and driver were reliable, helpful, knowledgeable and very kind!

Turkmenistan, border entering & exit was quite interesting, to be frankly. But it went well.

Thank you very much as well for all the information, specially about bordering Turkmenistan.

From Australia
Date of experience: 13 May, 2019

Thank you, Advantour, for a well organized 14 day tour, it went smoothly.
Samarkand was the highlight for me. Tajikistan scenery was beautiful.
Guides were good, Alex had the best English and managed the group timings etc best; shame we had to change guides, but Sanjar had good information!

Glad to have seen the 5 Stans, but Uzbekistan is where I highly recommend to come.

Thanks again for your professional arrangement of this tour!

From the USA
Date of experience: 13 May, 2019

Thanks for a wonderful vacation.
We had a great time.
We enjoyed having a smaller group and our guides Alex and Sanjar, were awesome.
All of the local guides and drivers were excellent.
Thanks again for a wonderful adventure.

Debbie & Yeral P.

From Great Britain
Date of experience: 22 April, 2019

Thank you, Advantour, for arranging the tour. We found your communications were excellent, timely and quick.

Regarding the trip.

Almaty, the hotel was ok, bit disorganized was not able to cope with the Chinese group at breakfast time.

Bishkek, the guide is ok, interesting and worth having it.

Tashkent, good flight, city tour bit short and rushed, a lot of spare time before catching the train, we were struggling to kill the time.

Train to Samarkand, good experience, the hotel was ok. The city tour was fine and the visit to all the sites, good learning and experience.

Tajikistan, the best part of the tour, very scenic and very interesting country and people,

Bukhara tour of the old city and sites were good, the show was good.

Turkmenistan:
Ashgabat, what an experience, somewhat unique city, the hotel was excellent, the food was very good, site seeing was very good. Drive to Darwaza was comfortable and better than we expected.
Camping was comfortable and viewing the gas crater was an experience.
Drive through the Karakum was interesting and speed at which we had gone through was surprising (guide here was very helpful)

Khiva - very good sightseeing tour, best guide of the tour as he was very knowledgeable which made the tour very interesting.

Thank you again for arranging our trip!

ZIYA & SOPHIE

From the USA
Date of experience: 08 April, 2019

I enjoyed the trip a lot and signed up for this tour based on the great experience I had last year when I used Advantour to go to Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia and what people on that tour had said about the `Stan tour. The hotels (great locations, clean and friendly staff), transportation (comfortable and on time), guides and itinerary were very good overall. The guide in Turkmenistan was the best, she spoke great English, was energetic and very informative.
Advantour is a great company and I will recommend your tours to anyone. Thank you for all your coordination and support ensure this was a great tour.

From Switzerland
Date of experience: 18 March, 2019

First of all, it was just such a WONDERFUL trip! I had a great time and really enjoyed the tour :-)
Thanks to the amazing effort and organization of Advantour. It was a very diverse and good program with all important destinations which were worth to see in such partly big countries.
All in all I can say, a very very well organized tour! I was very impressed, that everything went so well, we never had to wait for our transportation, it was there always on time. Very good local guides, super main tour leader, nice people in the office who organized the visas and everything in the background like the hotel bookings, transfers etc.
A very good itinerary, diverse and interesting, with the highlights of each countries. A nice mix of culture, cities and nature but as well with museum visits.
I also found it very sweet, that we got from every tour guide (I think) a little present from the country that we visited with him. So we have from every country a typical souvenir which is a really nice gesture.
THANK YOU FOR SUCH A WONDERFUL EXPERIENCE!

From Germany
Date of experience: 18 March, 2019

I`ve traveled already 140 countries and Central Asia really surprised me. Not knowing much about it, the countries are so diverse and beautiful and have so much history. I really enjoyed the trip.
Having worked with over 1000 tour guides in my professional career, I have to say Zahid is awesome. He was so well organised, but still flexible, looking after all of us. He gave great information and was always there. Bravo. All other tour guides in the countries were also very professional and informative.
Whoever designed the itinerary did a fabulous job. I loved the diversity of it. It was nicely paced. Very very well done. Amazing.
All in all, I had a fabulous time and really enjoyed my trip to Central Asia. I have posted my pictures and some friends are interested.
Thank you for all your organization, I am very glad that I booked kind of last minute and traveled to these amazing countries.

From Finland
Date of experience: 18 March, 2019

I just loved our tour in the “5-stans”!!!! We were so lucky with the weather, our tour leader Zokhid was just great! All the local guides were very good and all the hotels/accommodations were superb: I loved both the Tajikistan mountain homestay and the yurts with the beautiful variation of nice hotels!
All in all, I was very impressed with the tour company and will be happy to travel with you again!

From Switzerland
Date of experience: 18 March, 2019

I want to say thanks to all the team of Advantour for the wonderful trip.
All was perfectly organised by Advantour and I will never forget this part of the world. A special thanks to Zokhid, my tour guide, he is so nice and so professional, I learned a lot with him because he had really feel the spirit of everyone of us in the group and he just gave us the best and the very interesting things of all these countries. He gave all the group so many attentions, I was sad to leave him. In those countries, people are so nice, everywhere I smell the taste of the great history off this part of the world, it`s so important, it was very great, thank you. The group was perfect, we all had a good feeling all together and had a lot of laughs.

Excellent trip for those for want to see a lot in a short amount to time - hotels and transport all very good as were the guides (we had two - one for the first 4 days and the other for the last 10). The fast pace can tire some out so dont be afraid to ask for some rest time as you dodo need to see everything.
some tips
plan you big was day for day 8/9 in Bukhara they do a great job at the hotel and you pay by weight.
as someone else mentioned go out at night in Bishkek - its probably on of the more fun cities on the tour.
take some small bags (I used the fabric recyclable shopping bags - as the pack small) to use for the trip to the lakes and Turkmenistan when you will want to go light (you leave the big luggage at the hotel or they sent it to the next destination)
the food is great the whole trip and you can tend to over eat so be warned most meals have three courses
you will buy things on the tour so dont over pack leave some room
many solo trailers do this trip so dint be afraid to travel solo on this one.
enjoy
mike

Date of experience: 6 November, 2018

Advantour is an amazing company. If you are looking to travel to Uzbekistan and its neighboring countries, I highly recommend you to travel with them. I spent 2 weeks borders crossing the 5 Stans and this is definitely my most rewarding journey ever, so far!

I would like to thank Mr. Davron who made this trip a reality. Everything went very smoothly, from the conception of the trip till day one started.

We were 6 people of different citizenships and we were led by an amazing Tour Leader, Mr. Zokhid. He is a very smart person, not only he is textbook smart, but he is also very very streetwise. Crossing borders and custom checks felt really seamless with him. He speaks in a very crisp and clear voice. He is very patient and understanding. I learned a lot from you, Mr. Zokhid.

The itinerary was also systematically placed to make sure that we were all engaged. I felt like a kid (or a student) again because everything was so interesting and new. My favorite place is Khiva (contrary to popular choice, which is Bukhara). My best experience in Khiva was probably climbing the minaret to take bird view pictures of the walled city.

The hotels that Advantour provided for the whole trip were amazing. Some are very modern, some are homey and authentic. Breakfast was always scrumptious and the rooms were always clean and tidy.

Foods were also great, Advantour managed to cater us, 6 people from different backgrounds beautifully. Everyday I craved for more of what to eat next.

Transportations were amazing and comfortable, smooth sailing till the end. I felt safe and steady everyday.

To summarize it all, I can`t think of other company to choose other than Advantour. Surely, I had made comparisons with other companies on the internet, but, from the itineraries, prices, and facilities, Advantour thrived in every category. You know you are in a good hand if you travel with them.

Date of experience: 20 August, 2017

Overall it was a wonderful trip; I really enjoyed it and the itinerary was fantastic - a great opportunity to see many interesting places. I looked at many options to try to visit as many of the 5 stans as possible within the 2 weeks I was able to take off work, and Advantour offered the most affordable option.

The main improvement I would recommend is to devote less time to guided tours/lectures and more free to allow us to wander around and explore an area on our own.

Date of experience: 21 August, 2018

The Central Asia Group tour with Advantour was quite interesting and we saw some historical places such as Samarkand and Bukhara.

The sightseeings which were included were good and the local guide at each place and the overall guide were helpful and knowledgeable. The drivers at each place were skillful. We had interesting fellow travellers and overall the experience was good.