
Two Days in Khiva: The Magic of the Walled City
Khiva is one of Uzbekistan's most beautiful cities, but it's often one that travellers skip as it's harder to get to than the likes of Bukhara or Samarkand. If you're going as part of a guided tour, Khiva might already be on your itinerary, but for a self-planned trip, here's...

Things to do in Khiva: Discovering the Magic of the Desert City
One of the ancient cities of the Silk Road, Khiva is often the Uzbek city that most tourists miss. Because it's harder to reach, most travellers to Uzbekistan tend to focus on the "Golden Trio" of Tashkent, Samarkand, and Bukhara. While Samarkand has the grand scale of the Registan and...

Uzbekistan as a Vegan: What’s it Really Like?
Let me start off by saying: I was an idiot when I visited Uzbekistan. I did minimal planning and took the very Irish approach of "it'll be grand" to exploring Uzbekistan as a vegan. It was not grand. It was how I ended up in my hotel room in Samarkand,...

The Silk Road By Rail: Uzbekistan’s High-Speed Afrosiyob and Beyond
Here's a fun fact for you: In Russian, a large train station is called a "vokzal" (вокзал), and it gets its name from London's Vauxhall. Vauxhall was my first local tube station when I moved to London in 2010, and a vokzal was where I found myself on a sunny...