I’ve written a lot about my time exploring Central Asia and traveling along the Silk Road, and something people always ask me is if I can recommend some good tours for the region. Now, I traveled through Central Asia independently, but I also met a lot of travelers on tour groups, I’ve since heard from readers who chose to join a tour, and I’ve done a lot of research into Central Asia and Silk Road tours.
Why? My trip through Central Asia and the Silk Road was life-changing and I want everyone to be able to experience the area. I even convinced some family members to do a tour through Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and they loved it. Y A Y !
Should you travel Central Asia and the Silk Road independently or as part of a tour?
This was a question I had to ask myself when planning my own journey through China, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. I ultimately decided to do the trip independently because I had a lot of time (four months), two of my friends wanted to do the same trip with me, and – this is a big one – I speak some Russian.
The four months I spent traveling through China, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan are filled with some of the greatest memories of my life. In fact, I kind of can’t imagine what my life would have been like if I hadn’t gone on that backpacking trip. Fun fact: I started travel blogging in Central Asia, so I might not otherwise have become a full-time blogger.
It was also really, really difficult. I’m not saying this to discourage you from going – like I said, I’m so glad I did! – but if you’re going to do Central Asia independently, you should also be prepared. Kyrgyzstan is set up quite well for tourism now, but the other countries we visited were pretty crazy.
The three of us hitchhiked crammed into the back of trucks, knocked on random doors hoping for a home stay in places with no hotels, and my friends actually learned a lot of Russian, thanks to the lack of English anywhere.
It was incredibly fun, but also maybe not for everyone.
I would consider doing a tour of Central Asia and/or the Silk Road if any of the following apply to you:
- You’re on a tight schedule and have specific sites you want to see
- You don’t speak any Russian/won’t be able to learn any Russian before your trip
- You prefer organized transport and accommodation over hitchhiking and finding your own home stays
- You’re planning this trip solo but want to travel with a group
- You want to see or do things that would be hard to organize on your own
- You work a lot and don’t want the added work of planning this trip yourself
- You have a specific budget in mind that you want to stick to
I remember meeting a couple in Kyrgyzstan who had just finished a tour of the region and were then taking the time to explore a bit on their own afterwards, which I think can also be a really good idea. The tour took them to all the hard to reach, off the beaten track places and gave them a sort of crash course on Central Asia, but then afterwards they were able to experience a bit of independent travel in Central Asia as well. Win win!
The Best Central Asia and Silk Road Tours
So, I don’t know if you’ve already done a lot of research into Central Asia and Silk Road tours, but there are a lot of options out there. That being said, I’d say there are two obvious front runners in the business: Intrepid Travel and G Adventures.
These are big name tour companies, which means they’re incredibly reliable. So if you sign up with them you know you aren’t going to get scammed (something that ugh, is all too common), your guides are going to be professional, and everything is going to run smoothly.
Both Intrepid Travel and G Adventures boast:
- a strong commitment to sustainable travel
- high safety standards
- flexible schedules so you can have free time during your days or add optional activities to your tour
- off the beaten path adventures (perfect for Central Asia!)
- nearly 30 years of experience
Intrepid and G Adventures also both offer a nice variety of tour itineraries (suitable for different budgets and timeframes) for Central Asia and the Silk Road. In fact after hearing about people’s experiences on some of their Central Asia tours, especially some of the off the beaten path places they were able to visit, I’m dying to do them myself!
Intrepid Travel vs. G Adventures for a Central Asia or Silk Road tour
Okay, so you’ve narrowed down your preferred Central Asia tour operators to Intrepid Travel and G Adventures – which one do you choose?
You’ll hear a lot of opinions on which of the two tour companies is better (often depending on which company a person is working for/getting a bigger commission from) but to be perfectly honest, I’ve heard amazing things about both companies in Central Asia.
The general consensus is that G Adventures’ tours are slightly cheaper, while Intrepid Travel has somewhat smaller groups and a more consistent quality level across the board. But when looking specifically at their Central Asia tours the quality and prices are quite similar. I would recommend reading through all the itineraries and choosing based on which tour description and departure dates appeal most to you.
Intrepid Travel and G Adventures Central Asia and Silk Road Tours
Now for the fun part: choosing your tour!
There are a lot of options out there, but I’m going to list my top choices below. I’ll order these according to length, because that’s usually the biggest factor when choosing a tour.
Here are Intrepid Travel and G Adventures top Central Asia and Silk Road tours, ordered from longest down to shortest duration:
80 Days: Xi’an to Istanbul with Intrepid Travel
This is the ultimate Central Asia tour. If you have the time and the money to dedicate to this one, please, please do it!
This tour starts in Xi’an, China and finishes in Istanbul, Turkey, while passing through Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. It gets you truly off the beaten path in these places for some once in a lifetime experiences.
Click here for the full itinerary, prices, and start dates
29 Days: The Great Silk Road with Intrepid Travel
Again, this is a long tour, but that also means that you will experience SO much on this journey.
This tour starts in Beijing, China, and continues through Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan before finishing in Tashkent. It covers all of the main Silk Road sites while also including some remote, lesser-known locations as well. If you’re into the Silk Road, this is the tour for you.
Click here for the full itinerary, prices, and start dates
23 Days: Central Asia – Multi-Stan Adventure with G Adventures
This incredibly comprehensive tour will give you all of the top experiences of a Central Asia trip – from sleeping in yurts to staying in home stays to mountain and desert landscapes to exploring stunning Silk Road buildings. With this tour you can experience it all on a relatively short time frame and surprisingly small budget.
If you want to truly get to know Central Asia in just a few weeks, this is the tour for you.
Click here for the full itinerary, prices, and start dates
16 Days: Central Asia Explorer with Intrepid Travel
I’m fairly obsessed with Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, and this tour takes you through all of my favorite locations in both countries. It begins in Bishkek and ends in Tashkent, while taking you through some of the region’s most stunning landscapes and villages.
Click here for the full itinerary, prices, and start dates
15 Days: Best of Tajikistan & Uzbekistan with G Adventures
I would say that Tajikistan and Uzbekistan were the two most challenging countries to travel to, so this tour is perfect for anyone who wants to leave the organizing up to someone else!
I also think that seeing Uzbekistan and Tajikistan together is a really good combination, as Tajikistan will give you those amazing mountain landscapes and off the beaten path experiences with locals, whereas Uzbekistan is rich in its Silk Road history and amazing buildings, as well as yurts in the desert.
Click here for the full itinerary, prices, and start dates
14 Days: Central Asia Adventure – Almaty to Tashkent with G Adventures
This two week tour shows you the very best of this remote region. It does an impressive job of covering all the must-see sites of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan while also taking you off the beaten path to some places that would be hard to reach independently. If you want to see a variety of Central Asia, this is the perfect tour.
Click here for the full itinerary, prices, and start dates
13 Days: Tajikistan Discovery with Intrepid Travel
Tajikistan was my favorite country in Central Asia (I mean, that landscape!), so I’m definitely a bit partial to this tour, which takes you through all of the country’s amazing sites and scenery. It starts in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, and finishes in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, while taking you up over the Pamir Highway (over 5,000 meters high!) and right along the Afghan border so you can see right into Afghanistan.
I particularly love that this tour includes five nights of home stays in Tajikistan, as my best experiences in the country were of staying with local families.
Click here for the full itinerary, prices, and start dates
10 Days: Expedition – Baikonur & Kazakhstan with Intrepid Travel
This is hands down one of the coolest and most unique tours ever.
It takes you through Kazakhstan, way off the beaten path to corners few people in the world have explored, and it includes a visit to the Russian spaceport of Baikonur, the seat of the Russian space program, where you’ll even get to see a rocket launch!
Click here for the full itinerary, prices, and start dates
10 Days: The Best of Uzbekistan with G Adventures
To be honest, I’m more of a mountain person, so Uzbekistan wasn’t my favorite country in Central Asia, but my friend I traveled with is obsessed with history and architecture and it was her favorite! This tour includes visits to Uzbekistan’s main Silk Road cities, as well as nights spent in desert yurt camps and riding camels. I love the variety here, and that it covers so much in just 10 days.
Click here for the full itinerary, prices, and start dates
9 Days: Best of Kazakhstan & Kyrgyzstan with G Adventures
This tour includes the perfect miss of cities and must-see sites with some truly off the beaten path adventures into the countryside. It’s also surprisingly cheap, and might actually be one of the most cost-effective ways to see the region.
Click here for the full itinerary, prices, and start dates
6 Days: Highlights of Tajikistan with G Adventures
Tajikistan was my favorite country I visited in Central Asia, but it was also the most difficult and expensive to travel through. And that’s what makes this tour so perfect – it takes you to those remote, hard to get to locations and is actually surprisingly cheap.
You could either do this tour as a quick taster trip of Tajikistan, or include it as part of a bigger journey through Central Asia.
Click here for the full itinerary, prices, and start dates
If you do decide to book a tour through Intrepid Travel or G Adventures, please consider starting the booking process by clicking on one of my links. The price will remain the same for you, but I’ll earn a small commission which will help cover the cost of running my site. Thanks a billion!
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Jordan says
How cool, I’d love to travel through Central Asia! Now I need to go back and read some of your older posts 🙂
Silvia says
Yesss I think you would love it!
Mehdi says
Hi,
I think you forgot a very important of Silk Road ” Persia” which connects East Asia to Europe !!!!!
Marianne - Glimt av verden says
What a great guide! I did the 14 days Central Asia Adventure with G Adventures in June last year. It was the second time they ran that tour. I chose a tour mainly because I had limited time and wanted to make the most out of it. But we (me and my sister) travelled to Samarkand independently. I absolutely LOVED the region! I want to see more!
Silvia says
Oh no way, I know a couple who did that same tour, but I think it was actually the first time they ran it! I really want to see more of Central Asia too – I feel like I’ll be returning there over and over, haha.
Annika says
Cool! I’ve been wanting to visit Uzbekistan for a long time and might be able to next year. I’ll bookmark this page. I love your blog – you always have excellent advice for the (more or less) average traveller!
Silvia says
Oooh I hope you do – Uzbekistan is amazing!
Anne says
I’d love to get the chance to explore this part of the world. I much prefer independent travel, but I can see how a tour here might be a good idea. Especially if time is limited.
Silvia says
Yeah I think of all the places I’ve traveled to Central Asia would be the one I would most recommend taking a tour through.
Sean says
This was a fantastic read. Thank you for publishing. Am currently reading a book on the silk roads and thought Central Asia would be a great place to visit. Thanks fir the travel advice.
Silvia says
It really is such an amazing place to visit!
Lis Sowerbutts says
We leave in under 3 weeks -taking over 3 months to travel from Shanghai to Istanbul! I couldn’t find a tour that would combine a trip along the Pamir Highway and a launch from Baikonur! I think you’ve missed the obvious compromise. We travel independently – but we use agents when we need to – but we use locals. So we’ve used a company to buy our Chinese train tickets, and we’ll use a local driver for the Pamir Highway, and a Kazakhstan based company to arrange the permits for the Cosmodrome. And yes I’m learning some Russian!
Luca Laesser says
Hi Lis Sowerbutts,
I would be interested to hear how your two tours turned out, especially the Baikonur one? Which company in Kazakhstan did you use?
Thank you!
Luca
Bravo says
Brilliant! Great photographs, fascinating travel destinations. I’d love to travel more in that part of the world some day. Thank you for sharing the tips and ideas.
Silvia says
It really is such an interesting area – I hope you make it there eventually!
Maria says
Great blog! What time of year did you do your Central Asia trip? My boyfriend and I are planning to do the Silk Road on our own but curious what month did you travel? Thank you and I enjoyed your blog!
Kanika Bakshi says
Hey Silvia, Thanks for sharing such an awesome for post about these lesser known road trips loved it.
Agness of Etramping says
Exploring Central Asia and traveling along the Silk Road seems like an awesome recommendation, Silvia. These tours seem so worth considering and I would definitely choose one of those Silk Road tours when in Central Asia! Thanks for the suggestions!
Vinodh says
Hi. Loved reading your blog. I live in India and my wife and I would like to travel through all the five ‘stans’. We can spare about 4 to 5 weeks and would like to do the highlights of each country. Could one of these companies organise a customised itinerary for us?
Thank you.
Silvia says
Hm, I’m not sure – you could try getting in touch with them.
Nazo says
Hi,Vinodh! My name is Nazo, born and raised in Samarkand. I am working as trip leader for foreigner groups throughout Uzbekistan. I am also working at the travel agency, EWES (East West Elite Service), as an out of office product manager. I would like to explain you about Uzbekistan travel market a little more & give you and idea of the trips I could help in organizing for you.
Nazo says
Hi Silvia, I like your stylish, bright blog. You are surprising person! All information is provided unostentatiously, interestingly. You are very interesting person also do very necessary serious work.
Kanika Bakshi says
India is one of the best countries one can visit and explore some many histories with a lot of amazing facts India is a budgeted country you can spend money and satisfy your needs you can visit India just to see how colorful it is and it is the country of joy this is such a comprehensive and helpful article for someone just starting to plan a trip to Asia, and with so many useful links. Thank you so so much!
Michelle says
Hi Silvia! I am so glad I found your blog! I love the photos – Central Asia is so beautiful!
My husband and I are just starting to toy with the idea of taking 3.5 months to travel through Central Asia. We have used Intrepid Travel a few times before and they are a good company, but we do like independent travel which gives us more flexibility to explore the place a bit more rather than being dictated by a group itinerary. However, there is one aspect of using a tour group that I really like – the opportunity to go to places that are a bit off-the-beaten-track and have experiences that I may not have necessarily known about / been exposed to if not for a tour guide telling me about it.
(An example is on our recent trip to India with Intrepid where we visited a Sikh temple and were guided to the community kitchen where we sat with the locals rolling out dough for chapatti – without the guide, we would probably have just walked around the temple, not knowing about the community kitchen, or known that we could partake in making chapatti, and left).
You mentioned in your blog: “In fact after hearing about people’s experiences on some of their Central Asia tours, especially some of the off the beaten path places they were able to visit, I’m dying to do them myself!”
Would you mind being more specific about the off the beaten path experiences you are wanting to try after hearing other people’s experiences? Are these things you could have done if you had known at the time?
Thank you for writing this blog – it answers exactly what I was asking!
Silvia says
That sounds like it will be an amazing trip! I would say if you are able to rent a car and speak pretty good Russian then you should be fine on your own. The main things I missed out on were going to the really random small towns or scenic spots, because I was hitchhiking so couldn’t just drive myself wherever I wanted. And then the same goes for meeting people – my Russian is pretty good so it wasn’t too much of a problem, but if I had been able to communicate fluently like the guides then I think I could have had much more meaningful conversations with people and more local experiences. Ideally I would have started with a tour and then afterwards continued to explore independently, as by then I’d have had a good feel for the countries.
Hope that’s helpful – and have fun!
Paul Hardyman says
Hi Silvia,
Im in Australia and planning a post Covid self drive trip through central asia with friends (ideally camping on the roof of a 4×4 Land Cruiser for example). Ive done a similar thing twice in southern africa and intend to take the back roads and dirt tracks into the remotest areas of Central Asia if we can. We would take maybe 3-4 months. Im having difficulty finding anywhere in eastern europe or central asia to rent off road vehicles for our trip. Are you able to steer me towards any. Maybe in Turkey or ??? to start our trip.
Paul Hardyman says
Hi Silvia,
Im in Australia and planning a post Covid self drive trip through central asia with friends (ideally camping on the roof of a 4×4 Land Cruiser for example). Ive done a similar thing twice in southern africa and intend to take the back roads and dirt tracks into the remotest areas of Central Asia if we can. We would take maybe 3-4 months. Im having difficulty finding anywhere in eastern europe or central asia to rent off road vehicles for our trip. Are you able to steer me towards any. Maybe in Turkey or ??? to start our trip.
Thanks Silvia