Ashgabat Mid-range
Plov, shashlik, the Turkmen bread from a tandoor, and dograma (a bread-and-meat soup). The restaurants are few, formal and cheap at the official rate; the bazaar cafés are the real food. Camel milk chal, fermented, if offered.
Budget travel in Turkmenistan
What a visitor's money does in Turkmenistan: every guide rated from very cheap to very expensive, cheapest first, then the things that cost travellers money without buying anything — the ATM, the taxi, the SIM.
Mid-range average across 1 guide · 5 is very cheap
Money
Turkmen Manat (TMT) · 1 EUR = 4.05 TMT · 1 USD = 3.5 TMT
Manat, at an official rate of 3.5 to the dollar that nothing else in the country believes. Change only at a bank or the hotel — the street rate is several times better and dealing on it is a crime with real consequences for a visitor. Bring dollars in new notes; cards barely exist.
ATMs
Avoid: every machine outside the big Ashgabat hotels, which will not work
Use: the machines in the Ashgabat hotels
Cards barely exist here. Bring dollars in new notes for the whole visit and change at the bank or the hotel — never in the street, which is a crime.
Getting around
From the airport: From the airport to the centre 20–40 manat in a taxi, or the guide meets the flight, which is how most visitors arrive
City by city, cheapest first
The cost rating is this site's own, for a visitor, from the guides' authors and the corrections readers send in. The general rules — the conversion prompt, shoulder season, the airport taxi — are in budget travel tips.
