Solo Female Travel in Central Asia — The Country That Ranked #1 in the World
That it's safe to travel to Central Asia on your own, the sign showed up last year in the Solo Female Travel Safety Index, where Uzbekistan ranked number one in the world — not number one in Asia, not number one among "hidden gem" destinations, but first out of every country on Earth, which is the kind of result that makes people do a double-take when they read it. I wasn't surprised, though, and the reason I wasn't surprised is that I've watched it play out with our guests for years. The women who come here alone almost universally report that the hardest part wasn't safety. It was that locals wouldn't let them be alone. Here's what that means in practice. You sit down at a restaurant in Bukhara intending to have a quiet dinner with a book. Within ten minutes the grandmother at the next table has gestured for you to come over, ordered you a dish you didn't ask for, and started showing you photos of her grandchildren on her phone. You try to pay. She waves it off. You're eating with her family now. This isn't a story — this happens to the majority of our female solo guests in Uzbekistan, and it's consistently one of the things they mention when they tell us about their trip. A few practical things worth knowing before you go. ** **Dress. Uzbekistan is a Muslim-majority country and covering shoulders and knees at religious sites and in smaller towns is respectful and also makes you less conspicuous in places where you'd rather just blend in. In Tashkent and tourist areas people wear all kinds of things and nobody looks twice. In smaller villages and at mosques, a loose scarf in your bag costs nothing and smooths over the moments where it matters. It's not a burden, it's just reading the room. ** **Evenings. Walking alone at night in the old towns of Bukhara, Samarkand, and Khiva is genuinely fine. The streets are lit and there are other people around, and the main risk is getting lost because the old city layout doesn't follow any grid. Download an offline map. In bigger cities, use Yandex Go (the local Uber equivalent) rather than hailing random taxis, because it's tracked and metered and the driver knows you have the record. ** **Attention. Some areas, particularly bazaars, will bring more attention than you might be used to — shopkeepers wanting conversations, men being persistent. It's almost never threatening but it can get tiring. A direct "no thank you" in any language is understood, and if you want to move on, just move on. ** **Guides. We can arrange female guides in Uzbekistan for travellers who prefer that, or match you with our male guides who've worked with solo female travellers for years and understand the context well. Either works — tell us what you'd prefer when you message us and we'll sort it. One last thing. You've been thinking about this trip for a while. You should go.
