Turkmenistan in 8 days: from the Caspian Sea to the Door to Hell

Highlights

• Nisa, sanctuary of the Parthian kings (UNESCO)
• Ashgabat, the “city of white marble”
• Ancient Merv and the mausoleum of Sultan Sanjar
• Barbecue dinner and a night by the Darvaza gas crater
• The Caspian Sea and the coloured cliffs of Yangykala
• Lunch with a family in Nokhur and the Akhal-Teke horses

By airBy road

1. 1 AshgabatDays 1–5, 7–8 By air → Ancient Merv
2. 2 Ancient Merv
3. 3 Darvaza gas crater
4. 4 Yangykala Canyon By road → Ashgabat

Positions are exact; lines show the order of the route, not the road.

1. 1
2. 2
3. 3
4. 4
5. 5
6. 6
7. 7
8. 8

1. Day 1Flight to Ashgabat

   International flight to Ashgabat, direct or via Istanbul.

2. Day 2Ashgabat and Nisa

   Arrival at Ashgabat international airport, meet our team and transfer to the hotel for rest and breakfast. Begin with Nisa (UNESCO since 2007), one of the first capitals of the Parthian Empire, founded by Arsaces I in the 3rd century BC as a royal residence and necropolis. In the afternoon, white-marble Ashgabat, named by Guinness World Records in 2013 for its number of white-marble buildings, with the Wedding Palace, the Ferris wheel, the Constitution Monument, the Arch of Neutrality, the Independence Monument and park, the Ertuğrul Gazi Mosque, the Olympic stadium and the memorial to the earthquake and the Second World War.

3. Day 3Ashgabat – Mary – Merv – AshgabatReturn by domestic flight

   Drive towards Mary. On the way, the ruins of the Seyit Jemaleddin mosque at Anau, built in 1456 and destroyed by the 1948 earthquake, and Abiwerd, once a trading town on the Silk Road between Nisa and Merv.

   Explore ancient Merv, the “Queen of the World”: the two koshks of Kyz Kala, the Askhab complex, the Gyaur Kala fortress, the Sultan Sanjar mausoleum and the mausoleum of Muhammad ibn Zayd. Evening flight from Mary back to Ashgabat.

4. Day 4Ashgabat – Darvaza

   Visit the Carpet Museum, with some 2,000 carpets of the Tekke, Yomud, Saryk and Chodor tribes, including the largest hand-woven carpet in the world (301 m²). Drive north to Darvaza with a stop in the desert village of Erbent. At dusk, see the gas crater that has been burning since Soviet geologists set it alight in 1971. Barbecue dinner and a night in the yurt camp.

5. Day 5Darvaza – Ashgabat – Caspian SeaDomestic flight to Turkmenbashi

   Breakfast at the camp and drive back to Ashgabat for the flight to Turkmenbashi on the Caspian Sea, the largest inland sea on the planet. Walks and time to relax on the beach.

6. Day 6Turkmenbashi – Yangykala – Balkanabat

   Visit the fish market by the Caspian, then drive to the Yangykala canyons, with a stop at the pilgrimage site of Gozli Ata. “Yangykala” means “fire fortress” in Turkmen: steep cliffs in white, yellow, ochre, purple and red, carved by wind and rain into fantastic stone castles. Walk in the canyons, then continue to Balkanabat.

7. Day 7Balkanabat – Nokhur – Ashgabat

   By 4x4 to Nokhur, a village in the western Kopetdag, for lunch at home with a local family. See the cemetery where graves are guarded by the horns of mountain goats, the pilgrimage site of Kyz Bibi with its plane tree hung with wishing cloths, and the sacred cave.

   Visit a stable of Akhal-Teke horses, a breed raised by the Turkmen for 5,000 years and never crossed with another. Continue to Ashgabat.

8. Day 8Departure from Ashgabat

   Transfer to Ashgabat international airport for your flight home.

Hotels, transport & meals

Gallery

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