A Quick Guide to Khiva City, Khiva, Uzbekistan

Khiva is one of Uzbekistan’s big 3 ancient cities. Whilst it may be a pain to get to, it is totally worth the visit! After spending 3 days in Khiva city, it is safe to say it stole our hearts. Here is our short guide.

Khiva city is often missed out by travellers visiting Uzbekistan, mainly due to its long distance from either Bukhara or Tashkent. It’s understandable to disregard Khiva, considering once you have experienced Samarkand and Bukhara, you may feel you have experienced the best of the fascinating architecture. This made visiting Khiva a difficult decision for us. That being said, the fact that EVERYONE we met exploring the Silk Road cities of Samarkand and Bukhara, choose to leave out Khiva. It made us want to go there even more. And we are glad we did!

Getting to Khiva is quite easy from Bukhara. In Bukhara you will need to go to Kharvan bazaar (opposite Hotel Mohitobon) just outside the city center. From here you can take a shared taxi straight to Khiva city. Tourist prices start at $20 per person, but we stuck to our guns knowing full well that $10 was a fair price to pay. We were told by our hostel in Bukhara and in Khiva that the cost of a shared taxi should be $10. The journey is supposed to take 7 hours but we managed to do it in a hair-raising 4.5 hours. ...... (follow the instructions below for accessing the rest of this article).