Originally Posted by SanDiego1K

And yet I encourage you to visit. Uzbekistan was amazing. There was so much to see. We booked thru Advantour who arranged a custom trip for two of us. Arrangements were impeccable. We had superb guides and excellent drivers. We were pleasantly surprised by how well we ate. Restaurants routinely offered half a dozen to a dozen salads and half a dozen soups. We loved their shish kebabs, and started asking our drivers to seek out such places.

What can you do to travel as comfortably as possible?

• Go the right time of year, either April or May, or September or October. Guides spoke a lot about extreme summer heat of 50 degrees. I couldn't spot that on the weather charts for this year, but did see 44C (111F) many days.
• Enjoy fresh fruits and vegetables. There was a lot in season, including tomatoes, watermelon, plums.
• Work with the agency to book upgraded rooms as much as possible. I focused on this but should have done even more of it, moving hotels in order to get larger rooms. It really made a different to have a suite at Oguzhent and Samarkand Grand.
• Book an upgrade on the high speed train between Samarkand and Tashkent. $25 per person gave us seats on the VIP car. There were 3 seats across instead of 4, and we were served a light meal.
• We arrived in Tashkent in business class. The three of us in the C cabin were met on arrival and whisked thru customs and immigration. (We only had carry on luggage.) Despite having to submit two custom declaration forms, we were thru and outside in 10 minutes.
• Flights within the country are coach only.

Be wary of agencies who allege to offer luxury travel. There simply aren't luxury hotels. I saw agencies charging as much as 3x what we paid, offering the same hotels in Khiva and Bukhara.

Be aware that outside of hotels, you will generally only find Asian toilets.