Nuratau and Aydarkul: village homestays and a yurt night

Homestay, yurt camp or both: choose the night first

Nuratau is a mountain range that runs about 200 km north-west from the Turkestan range into the Kyzylkum desert, and the Nurata State Reserve in its central part climbs to 2,169 m. Its guesthouse villages sit in side valleys off the road from Bog’don, the centre of Forish district, to Nurata town. Aydarkul lies north of the range in the desert, and a night in one of its yurt camps is a different trip: you arrive by car and ride a camel instead of walking.

Pick the night before you pick the car. A village house gives you evenings with a family and a day on foot: two nights in one house leave an arrival evening, a full day out and an unhurried breakfast, while one night gives only the evening and the morning. A camp needs one night for its fire, a camel ride and a morning by the lake. Both fit between Samarkand and Bukhara, and Nurata town, with its spring and fortress, is the lunch stop on the way to either.

Sentob for one base, Hayat, Uhum and Asraf for a walk

The villages straddle a regional border. Sentob belongs to Nurata district of Navoi region; Hayat, Uhum, Asraf and Mojrum are in Forish district of Jizzakh region, on the edge of the Nurata State Reserve. One road serves them all: their turn-offs are at km 33–50 of the road from Bog’don towards Nurata, and each village lies 3–9 km up its own valley.

Sentob is the base for day walks and the village most set up for visitors. It opened as an official tourism village in March 2023 with 20 family guesthouses and 3 hostels, a repaired 5-km access road and a tourist information centre. UN Tourism named it one of its Best Tourism Villages the same year and counts 22 guesthouses for 2,024 residents in 701 households. Hosts offer horse riding, cooking classes, beekeeping and crafts taught from master to apprentice.

Hayat, Uhum and Asraf are the villages for walking from house to house. The reserve lists 4 guesthouses in upper Hayat, 3 in upper Uhum and 3 in Asraf. Upper Hayat, 45 km from Bog’don, also has the reserve’s 16-ha breeding enclosure for Severtzov’s argali, the wild sheep of these mountains. Above Mojrum, 55 km from Bog’don, grows the 2,000-year-old oriental arborvitae that the reserve counts among its sights.

Spellings vary, and drivers go by them: Sentob is also Sentyab, Uhum is Uxum, O‘xum or Ukhum, Hayat is Hayot, Asraf is Asrof, and Mojrum is Majrum or Majerum. Keep the host’s spelling next to the map pin.

Getting there by car from Samarkand, Bukhara or Jizzakh

Every plan ends in a car. From Samarkand the road runs 100 km to Jizzakh, 71 km north-west to Bog’don and then 37–57 km along the Nurata road and up the valley: 208–228 km in all, for which drivers allow about 4 hours. From Bukhara the villages are 285–301 km away, and the operator’s tours that leave Bukhara at 09:00 reach Hayat by lunch.

Public transport covers part of the way. The local operator describes the trip in stages: to Jizzakh, onward to the Forish district around Bog’don, and a car for the last stretch to the village. Arrange that pickup with the host before you set out.

The final kilometres decide the vehicle. For Sentob’s opening as a tourism village in 2023, 5 km of its access road were repaired; in September 2025 the state news agency UzA reported a damaged stretch on the approach to Uhum. Ask the host about that road in the week you travel, and take the car they recommend.

The yurt camps use a different road. Samarkand to Nurata is 178 km, 3–3.5 hours by car, and the camps are about an hour further into the Kyzylkum; Nurata is also 85 km from Navoi. The legs, the stops and the drive on to Bukhara are in the road route with a yurt night.

Walks of 11–12 km between villages, or a day to Fozilmon lake

The classic walk joins the Jizzakh-side villages in two days. Day one climbs from Hayat over the Guzar and Sari Bedak passes to upper Uhum; day two follows the Uhum valley down to Asraf, past a community watermill that still pumps water without electricity. Each stage is 11–12 km and 4–5 hours on foot, and the operator rates the effort as moderate to strenuous. A local mountain guide with basic English leads, and your bags go ahead to the next house.

From Sentob the goal is Fozilmon lake at 1,644 m, 18 km from the village. No road reaches it: you walk or ride a donkey there and back, and it takes the day. Almost every household keeps donkeys, and in April 2022 a day’s hire cost 50,000–150,000 som depending on the destination.

Shorter days exist in every village. The operator’s Sayyod walk covers 6 km in about 3 hours with 327 m of ascent, and from Asraf a morning out to Eski Forish and back (11 km, 4 hours) runs along the reserve’s buffer zone with views over Lake Aydar and the Kyzylkum plain. Ask for distance and ascent together; a label such as ‘easy’ tells you neither.

No published rule requires a permit to stay in the villages or to walk between them; they lie outside the strict reserve. Entering the reserve itself, for example the argali enclosure in upper Hayat, needs the administration’s permission under the law on protected natural areas, and a government regulation sets a per-day visitor fee. The operators’ village tours include the enclosure visit.

Rooms, bathrooms, meals and registration

A Nuratau homestay is a family house with guest rooms around a garden. The three houses on the operator’s Hayat–Uhum–Asraf walk have 4–12 guest rooms each, with beds or kurpacha floor mattresses, towels and bedding. Rahima’s house in Sentob has 4 rooms for up to 16 guests and a new block with a flush toilet and a shower. On the Hayat–Uhum–Asraf route most houses share the toilet and shower across the yard; the operator’s Uhum house has its own.

• Meals: breakfast and dinner with the family, and a packed lunch on walking days; the operator’s 3-night walk includes 3 breakfasts, 4 lunches and 3 dinners. You eat on tapchans in the garden in warm months and in the kitchen when it is cool. Vegetarian and vegan meals are available on request.
• Registration: the host registers your stay, so hand over your passport on arrival. The rules for foreign visitors are on the visa and registration page.
• Signal: on the Hayat–Uhum–Asraf route the Hayat house has Uzmobile coverage, the Asraf house UMS and the Uhum house none; the Hayat and Uhum houses have Wi-Fi. Save the map pin and the host’s number before you leave the city.
• Money: houses are listed at EUR 30–35 per person, about 409,000–477,000 som at the Central Bank rate of 14 September 2026. Carry som in cash for the house, the guide and a donkey; cards and exchange are covered on the money page.
• Village life: help your host cook plov, watch bread baked in the tandir, and ask before you photograph people or step into a neighbour’s yard.
• Heat and cold: in July and August ask about shade and a fan in the guest room; from November to March stay only where the host heats the room.

Samarkand to Bukhara by road, with a yurt night near Aydarkul

The desert version takes five nights and replaces the Samarkand–Bukhara train with two days by car: 2 nights in Samarkand, a drive north on day 3 to Nurata and a camp, then Bukhara on day 4 for 2 more nights. It suits a second visit, families with children who want a camel, and anyone who wants the Kyzylkum without the long trip to Khiva.

Nurata is the lunch stop on day 3. Its Chashma complex has a spring that stays at about 20 °C all year, a Friday mosque above it and, across from it, the ruins of the Nur fortress that local tradition credits to Alexander the Great. It is a working pilgrimage site, so dress as for a mosque.

The camps stand in the desert, not on the shore. The national tourism portal lists Aydar, with 11 yurts 10 km from the lake, and Safari, with 20 yurts 60 km from Nurata; operators place the main camps near the village of Dongelek, 5–7 km from the western shore. The listed camps run a similar evening: dinner, a fire and a camel ride, then breakfast and the lake.

Day 4 is the long one: about 300 km and 5.5 hours of driving before stops. Sarmishsay, 40 km from Navoi, holds about 10,000 petroglyphs in a gorge protected as a state museum-reserve; an hour on foot covers the main panels. The 11th-century portal of the Rabati Malik caravanserai stands beside the highway, with a restored sardoba, a domed cistern, across the road: allow 15 minutes. Gijduvan’s family ceramics workshops take visitors by arrangement, so let the driver book the visit.

No public transport links the camps with Nurata or with the stops on the way to Bukhara, so book one car and one driver for both days, priced per vehicle: pickup at the Samarkand hotel on day 3, a night at or near the camp, drop-off at the Bukhara hotel on day 4. Ask what the price covers: fuel, the driver’s meals and bed, waiting time, and entry at Chashma and Sarmishsay. The route works in reverse, a Tashkent night at the start makes it six nights, and without the camp the same stops fit into one long day. The train alternative is on the Samarkand to Bukhara page.

• Camp bed: a shared yurt with mattresses and blankets. Aydar has toilets with showers, a dining yurt, a restaurant and electricity.
• Camp food: dinner and breakfast; Aydar bakes bread and samsa in its own tandirs.
• Camp evening: folk music or songs by a local akyn around the fire.
• Camel ride: 20 minutes to 2 hours, depending on the camp; Aydar also runs jeep trips to the lake and to Sarmishsay.
• Camp price: one operator lists EUR 65–100 (about 887,000–1,364,000 som at the Central Bank rate of 14 September 2026) for the night with all meals, registration, a 20-minute camel ride, the drive to the lake and transfers.

Twelve days: four cities and two nights in the villages

Twelve days fit all four cities and the mountains: 1 night in Tashkent, 3 in Samarkand with a day in Shahrisabz, 2 in a village guesthouse, 2 in Bukhara, 2 in Khiva and a last Tashkent night after the morning Manguberdi. The car that takes you into the mountains from Samarkand drops you in Bukhara, so the village nights replace the Samarkand–Bukhara train rather than add a detour. The city days follow the Bukhara and Khiva guides.

Choose the village by day 6. For one base and a day walk, sleep both nights in Sentob. For the walk from house to house, sleep in Hayat on night 5 and in Uhum on night 6, and your bags follow by car. Keep one driver for days 5 and 7, with one quote for Samarkand hotel → guesthouse → Bukhara hotel.

Day 4 crosses the Takhtakaracha pass: 87 km and about 2 hours each way. Snow shuts it for hours in winter, so from late November to March ask the driver the evening before; on Sundays the Afrosiyob goes round the mountains through Karshi instead. The three Timurid sites and the pass rules are in Shahrisabz from Samarkand.

The Manguberdi makes twelve days enough: 8 h 02 min from Khiva to Tashkent on one ticket, with an evening in the capital and a buffer night before the flight. It does not leave Khiva on Mondays, so a Monday day 11 means the flight from Urgench. Sales open 60 days ahead at 10:00, and the Manguberdi fills early: on 27 September only 5 of its 17 departures to Khiva up to 16 October still had seats. The steps are in how to buy tickets.

• 10 days, no Khiva: Tashkent 1, Samarkand 3, village 2, Bukhara 2, Tashkent 1; back by Afrosiyob from Bukhara on day 9.
• 13 days: a third village night, walking Hayat → Uhum → Asraf on consecutive days.
• 11 days: skip Shahrisabz and keep 2 Samarkand nights, or keep 12 days and give Bukhara a third night.
• Exit from Urgench: drop the last Tashkent night and fly home from Urgench after 2 nights in Khiva.

When to go, and what to settle before you pay

Spring and autumn suit both halves of the trip. The walking operator names March–May and September–November; the camp operators run from about April to the end of October, some from March to November, and call July and winter uncomfortable. As early as 2017 the state news agency described spring and autumn as the Aydarkul camps’ visitor seasons. Month-by-month weather for the cities is in the best time to visit.

Settle five things in writing before you pay: the house or camp by name and map pin; who drives the last kilometres, and when the driver comes back; the walk, with distance, ascent and the guide’s language; the bathroom and the meals; and the price per person or per room, what it covers, and cash or card.

Watch out

• The camps are not on the lake. Aydar stands 10 km from the water and the Dongelek camps 5–7 km from the shore, so the morning at the lake is a drive.
• Day 4 of the road route is long: about 300 km and 5.5 hours at the wheel before any stop. In July and August start early and keep Sarmishsay short.
• The last kilometres can be rough. UzA reported a damaged stretch of road into Uhum in September 2025, and every village lies 3–9 km up a side valley. Ask the host about the road in the week you go.
• Shared bathrooms are the norm. Most houses on the Hayat–Uhum–Asraf walk have the toilet and shower across the yard. If you need your own, book a house that lists one.
• Patchy signal. The Uhum house on the classic walk has no mobile coverage at all; save maps and phone numbers before you leave Samarkand or Bukhara.
• The reserve is separate. The argali enclosure needs the reserve’s permission and a per-day fee, and a room booking does not include it.

Common questions