Khiva
Uzbekistan
A walled city of mud brick in the desert, intact from the gates to the minarets, and the one Silk Road town you can walk round on the wall
Photo by Farkhod Saydullaev on Unsplash
Photos by Evgeny Matveev, Farkhod Saydullaev, Noor Design and Noor Design on Unsplash
Best time to visit all of Uzbekistan
April to May, and September to October (summer is 42°C in the desert; winter is bitter and windy)
Climate month by month
The next sixteen daysOpen-Meteo
Average high and low · °C
Rainfall · mm per month
Best months to visit This month · wettest 15mm in Mar
Where it is
41.38°N, 60.36°E Open in Google Maps
Things to do
Weeks of it- Walk the walls at sunrise
- Climb the Islam Khoja minaret
- Count the pillars in the Juma mosque
- Eat shivit oshi
- Drive out to the desert fortresses of Ayaz-Kala
Khiva travel tipsthe general rules
Currency budget Uzbekistan
Good valueSom, which comes in big numbers — a coffee is 30,000. The black market is gone since 2017 and the banks and exchange booths give the real rate; dollars change easiest. Cards are taken in the cities now, Humo and Uzcard locally and Visa in hotels.
ATMs & cards
Machines that take foreign cards are common in Tashkent and Samarkand and fewer in Khiva and Bukhara’s old towns; Kapitalbank and Ipoteka are reliable. Decline the conversion, and withdraw in the city before the desert.
Avoid these
- the machines in the old-town tourist lanes, which charge
Use these instead
- Kapitalbank
- Ipoteka Bank
- Uzpromstroybank
Decline the conversion. Withdraw in the city before the desert; Khiva and the Bukhara old town have few machines that take foreign cards.
Wherever you are: if the machine offers to charge you in your home currency, decline. That is dynamic currency conversion and the rate is set by the ATM's operator, not your bank.
Safety all of Uzbekistan
Very safeVery comfortable, and small. The ticket touts at the gate sell a combined ticket that is real; the ones selling "guides" are less so. The walls have no railings and the minaret stairs are steep and dark. The desert heat is the hazard.
Where to walk, and where to pay attention (4 areas)
Comfortable, including after dark
Worth more attention
- the walls and the minaret stairs — no railings, and dark
- the gate touts — the combined ticket is real; the guides less so
Our own assessment, not a sourced index.
Entry & visa Uzbekistan visa rules
No visa neededup to 30 days
Thirty days without a visa, and the old requirement to register with the police every three nights is now handled by the hotel automatically — ignore older advice about collecting slips of paper.
Other passports
e-Visa requiredup to 30 daysUSD 20
Applied for online at e-visa.gov.uz and issued in two or three days.
e-Visa requiredup to 30 daysUSD 20
How to get it: Apply at e-visa.gov.uz — the government site — at least a week ahead. There is an industry of lookalike sites charging several times the twenty dollars.
Entry rules change often and depend on your passport, not where you live — the official page above is the authority, and the airline checks before you board.
Health & emergencies all of Uzbekistan
LimitedRequired to enter
No vaccinations are required for entry from Europe or North America.
Jabs worth having, and what happens if you need a doctor
Worth having
- Hepatitis A
- Typhoid
- Tetanus up to date
- Rabies for a long or rural stay
Getting treated
Adequate in Tashkent, where there are private clinics used to foreigners; thin in Samarkand and thinner beyond it. Anything serious means a flight to Tashkent or out of the country, so evacuation cover matters.
Do not drink the tap water. Stomach upsets from bazaar food and dairy are the common complaint. The heat in July and August is over 36°C with no shade at the monuments, which is what actually sends visitors to a clinic.
Orientation, not medical advice — entry rules change and what you need depends on your own history. Check with a travel clinic four to six weeks before you go.
Food tip
GoodShivit oshi — green dill noodles with a meat sauce — is Khiva’s own dish. The restaurants inside the walls cook for tourists at tourist prices; outside the gates the chaikhanas do the same food for half. Melons from the Khorezm oasis are the best in the country.
Getting around
Limited- Yandex GoWorks here
- MyTaxiWorks here
- inDriveWorks here
- UberNot here
- BoltNot here
- GrabNot here
- From the airport
- From the airport to the centre 30,000–70,000 sum, depending on the city
- Against a taxi
- Cheaper than flagging down a private car, which is also normal and negotiable here.
Time zone and your working day
Asia/Tashkent — 9 hours ahead of you
0 hours of overlap with a 09:00–17:00 day where you are — — your time, — theirs.
No overlap with a 09:00–17:00 day where you are. Working from here means one of you keeps odd hours — their day starts at 00:00 on your clock.
office hours both at once night
Their 09:00–17:00 is 00:00–08:00 on yours.
The difference from the UK, Europe, the US and ten more
Worked out against America/New York, which is where this request looks like it came from.
Internet speedall of Uzbekistan
Why these are Uzbekistan's numbers and not Khiva's
Home broadband — Fair. Video calls and streaming for one or two people — fine for a holiday, thin for a household working. Broadband here runs at 73% of the global median of 130 Mbps.
Mobile data — Fair. Maps, calls and streaming; tethering a laptop works for an hour, not a day. Mobile runs at 60% of the global median of 109 Mbps.
Ookla publishes no separate figure for Khiva, so these are medians for all of Uzbekistan. Cities usually beat the national number and remote islands and national parks fall well below it — treat this as the country's shape, not as a measurement of the street you will be staying on.
A median is the middle of every connection tested there, old copper and new fibre together — so in a country part-way through laying fibre it sits well below what a fibre line actually delivers, and a rental on one can run several times this number. Half of the connections are slower; a fibre flat is rarely one of them. It says what a place can do, not what your rental does, so every listing on Holistay carries its own measured speed and the date it was tested.
Getting online: Airalo or Holafly — a data eSIM for Uzbekistan, installed before you fly and working the moment you land.
Source: Ookla Speedtest Global Index · measured June 2026
Must-see
Nearby day trips
Say a few words
Uzbek
- HelloAssalomu alaykumas-sa-LOM-oo a-lay-KOOM
- PleaseIltimosil-ti-MOS
- Thank youRahmatrah-MAT
- Yes / NoHa / Yo'qha / yoke
5 more phrases
- Excuse meKechirasizke-chi-ra-SIZ
- How much is it?Qancha turadi?KAN-cha too-RA-di
- DeliciousMazalima-za-LI
- BreadNonnon
- GoodbyeXayrkhayr
Written in Latin script since the 1990s, so signs are readable. Russian is widely understood by anyone over thirty-five and is often the easier fallback; English is spreading fast among the young.
Religion
Sunni Muslim, in a strongly secular state
Around 90% Muslim and observance is quiet and cultural rather than strict — alcohol is sold openly and headscarves are the exception. The madrasas at the Registan are monuments; the working mosques beside them are not, and the difference is worth asking about before you walk in.
Do's and don'ts
Do
- Accept the bread first and break it with your hands, never a knife
- Greet older people first, and with a hand on the heart
- Take your shoes off before stepping onto a tapchan, the raised platform you eat on
- Cover shoulders and knees at the madrasas, which are working religious sites as well as monuments
Don't
- Do not place bread upside down, which is an insult to it
- Do not refuse tea; it is poured shallow on purpose so it is refilled often, which is the hospitality
- Do not photograph inside a mosque during prayer, or people at prayer anywhere
- Do not tip heavily — rounding up is generous here and more is embarrassing
Where to stay in Khiva
No Holistay rentals in Khiva yet — the platform is just opening up. Every listing here will have a video tour and the option to negotiate the nightly price directly with the host.
In the meantime, here is Khiva on the sites that do have the inventory — each search is already filled in:
- Booking.com hotels, guesthouses and apartments — the widest coverage almost everywhere
- Airbnb whole homes and apartments, and the better option for a week or more
How to get there
Fly into Urgench UGC
40 minfrom the airport· 35 km as the crow flies
40 min by taxi.
Google Flights · Rome2Rio for the trains, buses and ferries as well as the flights
