Things to Do in Uzbekistan: City Guides & Audio Tours

Things to do in Uzbekistan range from exploring Silk Road cities and Islamic architecture to understanding the country’s layered history, languages and changing landscapes. This Central Asian country is especially rewarding for travellers interested in ancient cities, scholarship, music and the enduring legacy of movement across the region. Neywo offers free audio guides for 4 cities in Uzbekistan, with 176 narrated places in total across 12 walking tours.

What to see and do in Uzbekistan

The best cities to visit in Uzbekistan each reveal a different part of the country’s history. Together, Bukhara, Khiva, Samarkand and Tashkent show how Uzbekistan developed through empires, trade, religion, science and modern political change.

Explore Bukhara’s Islamic architecture

Bukhara grew wealthy as a city on the Silk Road and became an important centre of the Islamic Golden Age. Its musical tradition is equally significant: Shashmaqam, a form of Central Asian classical music, arose here in the late sixteenth century, when Bukhara was a regional capital.

Neywo’s Bukhara guide includes 36 narrated places. Among its highlights are the Kalyan Minaret, the Ark of Bukhara, Chor Minor and the Po-i-Kalyan complex. These landmarks offer a concentrated introduction to the city’s religious, political and architectural history.

Discover Khiva inside Itchan Kala

Khiva is one of the country’s key historic cities and a natural stop for anyone searching for Khiva, Uzbekistan. Its most important sights include Itchan Kala, the walled historic area, as well as the striking Kalta Minor. The Ko’hna Ark and the Said Niyoz Sholikorboy mosque add further layers to the city’s story.

Neywo narrates 15 places in Khiva. An audio guide is particularly useful here because the city’s monuments are closely connected: listening as you move between them helps place the architecture within Khiva’s wider history.

Follow the Timurid story in Samarkand

Samarkand became the capital of Timur’s Timurid Empire during the 1380s. Under Ulugh Beg, it developed into a centre of science during the Timurid Renaissance. Its history also reflects the wider role of Central Asian cities as meeting points for rulers, scholars and travellers.

The city’s essential sights include the Registan, Shah-i-Zinda, Bibi-Khanym Mosque and Gur-e Amir. Neywo’s Samarkand guide covers 34 narrated places, allowing visitors to explore these monuments while hearing the historical context behind them.

See the contrasts of Tashkent

Tashkent is the capital and largest city of Uzbekistan. It represents a more modern side of the country, while still preserving traces of its religious, imperial and Soviet past. The city’s history forms part of Uzbekistan’s larger story, from Russian imperial expansion and Soviet rule to independence in 1991.

Neywo’s Tashkent guide includes 91 narrated places. Its highlighted stops include the Amir Timur Museum, the Palace of Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich Romanov, Tashkent, Tashkent Tower and Kukeldash Madrasah. Together, they show the range of the capital’s architecture and historical influences.

Understand Uzbekistan’s history

Uzbekistan’s past was shaped by successive migrations and empires. The earliest recorded settlers were Eastern Iranian nomads known as Scythians, who founded kingdoms in Khwarazm, Sogdiana and Bactria. Achaemenid, Greco-Bactrian and Sasanian rule followed, before the Arab conquest and the spread of Islam among local communities.

The Mongol invasion destroyed the local Khwarazmian Empire. Later, Timur became the dominant force in Transoxiana, establishing the Timurid period that made Samarkand a political and intellectual centre. Uzbek forces subsequently invaded Transoxiana, and the Russian Empire absorbed most of Central Asia. Uzbekistan then became a Soviet republic before declaring independence in 1991.

This history is visible in the country’s cities, but it also survives in its cultural traditions. Uzbek is the official language and is written in both Cyrillic and Latin scripts. Russian remains an important shared language, while Tajik is significant in southern areas including Samarkand and Bukhara. Uzbekistan is a secular state, although Islam is the dominant religion.

Food is closely connected to the country’s agriculture. Grain farming gives bread and noodles an important place in Uzbek cuisine, while football is the country’s most popular sport. These everyday traditions add another dimension to the monuments and historic sites.

See the landscapes behind the cities

Uzbekistan is doubly landlocked, bordered by Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan. Much of the country consists of desert plains and arid regions, making water stress an important concern as the climate changes.

The Aral Sea is central to this environmental story. It was once the fourth-largest inland sea on Earth and helped humidify the surrounding air and irrigate arid land. Decades of Soviet policies intended to increase cotton production caused severe damage, with agriculture contributing to air and water pollution and wider environmental devastation.

The country’s environmental challenges also include worsening air pollution. Domestic emissions, Soviet industrialisation and the later growth of heavy industry, oil refining and chemical production have all contributed to the problem. Uzbekistan’s natural setting is therefore more than a backdrop to its historic cities: its arid landscape continues to shape daily life and the country’s future.

Explore Uzbekistan with Neywo’s free audio guides

Download Neywo to explore Uzbekistan independently. The app covers 4 cities—Bukhara, Khiva, Samarkand and Tashkent—with 12 walking tours and 176 narrated places in total. Narration is available in 11 languages.

Each story plays as you reach the place, at your own pace. There is no group and no schedule: simply walk through the city and let the app tell you the story of each monument when you arrive.