Tashkent to Khiva: UZS cash, the Afrosiyob high-speed train, plov, and data that is strongest in the cities on the rail spine.
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Uzbekistan is tilework that looks computer-generated until you stand under it, and a high-speed train — the Afrosiyob — that yanks Tashkent, Samarkand and Bukhara into the same long day. The som (UZS) still comes in large numbers; ATMs and cards have improved in the cities and remain a comedy in a village chaikhana. Plov is a morning event in Tashkent if you go where the locals queue.
Book Afrosiyob seats early on the railway site or app. Tickets are tied to a passport name. Khiva is a longer hop — sleeper or a slower rail day — not a casual add-on after lunch in Bukhara. Summer heat in the brick cities is a physical fact; spring and autumn are when the courtyards are kind.
Hotels commonly handle the registration paperwork visitors used to chase. Rules change — follow what your hotel does, not a 2017 blog. Russian still helps. Uzbek helps more. This is not a generic 'Stans' page: the train is the point, and the cities are the reason.
Essentials
Traveler tips
Real advice from people who have been to Uzbekistan, curated by our team with links to the original sources.
Passport name, seat map, 45-day booking window in many seasons. If the official site hates your card, try again or use a station desk with time to spare. The shared taxi is Plan B, not the romance.
Go to a dedicated plov centre at lunch-start hours, not a hotel buffet. Samarkand and Bukhara will feed you well; the Tashkent plov line is the civic monument.
The old town is compact and lit after dark. Arrive, walk the walls, sleep. A same-day in-and-out is how you see a museum and miss the place.
A single huge note at a bread stall is a delay. Break money at a supermarket or hotel. Count the zeros twice; menus still look like a phone number.
Hand over the passport as they ask. Do not invent a police-station quest because a blog from the visa-on-arrival era said you must. If a rule changes, your hotel will know before Reddit does.
TripAdvisor Forums
The Silk Road line ends in a walled town whose airport is Urgench. Travelers who fly that last hop skip the long backtrack to Tashkent; starting in Khiva is the other way to save the same flight.
View sourceTripAdvisor Forums
You can cover Bukhara's old core on foot in a focused day or two. Samarkand's monuments sit farther apart, so the extra night is walking time, not leftover souvenir hours. Khiva is the smallest of the three if you arrived in daylight.
View sourceFAQ
You need it to book, to show a QR and to find the right vokzal exit. On board there is often power; signal comes and goes. Unlocked iPhone XS, Pixel 3 or Galaxy S20+ can keep the ticket on an Uzbekistan eSIM.
Maps, tickets and photos: about 1–2 GB a day, so 15–20 GB covers Tashkent–Samarkand–Bukhara–Khiva if you are not hotspotting every hotel night.
Possible, with your passport. An eSIM means the first Yandex and the railway login happen before you find the correct currency ATM.
Only on a regional plan that lists them. The Tashkent–Shymkent road is close; a country plan is not a Central Asia roam.
That is how UZS is denominated. Look at the number of zeros, not the drama of the word thousand. Cards help in cities; keep cash for the bazaar.
eSIM plans
Tashkent airport has SIM counters and a queue. The Afrosiyob departure board does not wait. An Uzbekistan eSIM is online for the railway app, Yandex and a translation of a chaikhana menu.
Install it before you fly. Download the train QR. City 4G is the useful part; the desert between stops is a screenshot.