Silk Road Tour & Travel Companies

Had a great experience, very well organised tour, thanks.

Ich habe die Tour vom 10.05.23 bis 30.02.2323 mitgemacht. Die Tour hat mir außerordentlich gefallen. Unsere Guides Elena (Kirgistan und Kasachstan), Porbat (Tadjikistan) und Barit (Usbekistan) haben mit Ihrer Umsicht und Kompetenz die Reise für mich zu einem außerordentlichen Erlebnis werden lassen. Danke auch an die Fahrer und meine Mitreisenden. Besonderen Dank möchte ich auch an Odil aussprechen. Er hat für mich, da aus unerklärlichen Gründen ich kein Visum für Turkmenistan erhalten habe, eine interessante Alternative nach Urkut und zum Aralsee ausgearbeitet. Und diesen Tourabschnitt habe ich praktisch als Individualreisender mit privatem Guide erleben dürfen. Auch die Unterkünfte waren äußerst zufriedenstellen. Vielen Dank

My Uzbekistan Cultural Tour experience ran hot and cold. The itinerary was good with two nights in all cities but Khiva so I requested additional nights there and on my arrival in Tashkent. The tour company, Steppe Journeys, accommodated my request for additional nights but fell short securing train travel which meant excess hours on bad roads. My guide was more a handler than guide, offering scant information, however, the driver was excellent considering he drove half the tour. Accommodations were fine with the exception of Bukhara which was run down despite an excellent location. I was the solo participant on this tour and i think I could’ve done a better job on my own.

Ben the booking agent was extremely attentive and quick to respond to all my requests and concerns. The guides were excellent, The meals at local restaurants very excellent. Meals at tourist restaurants were not marginal. The hotels were clean, The customer service at the hotels for the price was marginal. The staff did not speak English, never helped with the luggage, we had to call for toilet paper, they did not know what an iron was and then said they did not have irons at a 4-5 star hotel.

Too many mosques Too much repetition R

We traveled with East Site two years ago. They obtained our visas. All the hotels were 4* and centrally located. Professional guides. Daily unlimited bottles of complimentary water.

It was exceptionally great experiences. Ephesus full of history, Cappadocia Is wonderful, balloon ride was fantastic, great view of the town. The highlights of this tour is the hot air balloon ride, open museum and climbing Mt. Nemrut to see an amazing sunset. Food is excellent, hotels are nice except Nahrin Hotel and Art in Urfa. The room wasn’t cleaned, sheets wasn’t changed, garbage wasn’t collected, no hot water, dirty bedsheets were in the closet and the small bottles of used bathroom products were not replaced. I called the attention of my tour guide he immediately came. He himself collected the used sheets and showed to the staffs. The room was sanitized after I complained. Breakfast wasn’t ready @ 7:30 my tour guide woke up the hotel staff. Other guests left without breakfast. We waited for the food but not that long. Am not a picky person but this hotel is not for me. That’s the only one that turned me off the entire journey. On the other hand, however, the places we’ve visited are wonderful and great. I learned a lot more about Turkey from the tour guides. In conclusion: the Silk Road Tour is great, full of history and excitement. I highly recommended but most importantly deep in my heart I give much credit to the friendly tour guides, Goksu Pamir and Uygar Emre Aras down-to-earth personalities, very knowledgeable of the places visited. They deserve an accolade. Ditto kudos to the quiet tour drivers for driving and maneuvering the roads at ease and safety. I love the Turkish people, they’re kind and helpful. They’re the best. New Jersey 10/2020

An amazing tour company and exceptional tour, our guide Genghiskan was knowledgeable and extremely educated, spoke fluent English and answered all of our questions, he went above and beyond to accommodate any request we had. he really had passion for his job and he did it in a perfect way. The driver Murat was also exceptional . Will go back

I was not used to that much free time and that it was not actively filled by the Tourguide - next time I will prepare at home.

Long travel days.The highlights were good, although I had higher expectations of a few.

Incredible countries

Fascinating peek into a country at the crossroads of this part of Asia, taking influences from those who have passed through, those who have conquered and those who have always been here

Second tour manager in Uzbekistan was also good. With excellent local knowledge.

Overall arrangement is quite smooth and flexible to adjust if need be. Guide is very knowledgeable to share with us the history and makes the journey a lot more interesting. I am a pescatarian-there’s one dinner they specially make me special dumpling according to my diet. For internal flight , plane didn’t prepare my food (seafood/vegetarian) - not sure if the airline company don’t have such arrangement or travel company forgot to inform.

A wonderful trip through Central Asia and we enjoyed the tour enormously, as well as the company of the other tour members (a great group of people) and the company of our wonderful guide Diana whom we cannot praise enough. We are delighted that we were able to visit Ayaz Qala and Khiva as part of the tour and feel that it was certainly one of the highlights and we were able to realize a dream we have had for years to visit these wonderful places.

It is interesting to read Gwen’s review. We could say the same about our recent Sundowners Fully Escorted Silk Road Adventure. Just 7 days before our tour was to begin in Tashkent we were advised that we would not have a Tour Leader accompanying us. The Tour had been downgraded to an Experience Tour for the 2015-2016 season. It is important to note that this 3 week tour includes a completely new section, and Border Crossings never before travelled by Sundowners. We were guinea pigs, on our own, with never any offer of or agreement to compensation. We were assured we would have the standard local guides. These people knew only what happened in their own territory, not the onward journey. Accommodation and train bookings had not always been made in advance. Information provided by the company was questionable. Do not trust the website, the itinerary or the map – some information is incorrect. Just one example - this statement from Sundowners’ “Fully Escorted Silk Road Adventure” link on their website “Every Sundowners Overland group is accompanied by a Tour Leader.”

Very good and price was reasonable and duration was optimal

This trip should've been brilliant but turned out mediocre. Thinking Madventure, just don't. Spend the extra for a much better run organisation. Karen, the company owner, was devious & deceitful in her dealings with us. Only after we had paid did she inform us of the change in transport even though we had been in contact with her & she had told some of the other travellers at least 3 weeks before. Some of the travellers were never informed by her but found out accidentally. Instead of 100% truck we toured 3 weeks in China by public transport. That was ok but we didnt want to lug our camping gear around so we posted it forward. No compensation from the company. Yes I know the itinerary can change but whats the excuse for mode of transport change & not telling participants? At this time Karen also let us know that our trip with 50% camping had other participants joining for 5 weeks of our 13 week trip that were sold a "no camping" trip. Hmm, so one lot sold camping & one lot sold no camping on the same trip. Sounds dodgey, she certainly is. Thats 3 weeks China plus 5 weeks equals 8 weeks no camping from a 13 week trip. Once contacted she replied we could set up our tents in the yard of our hostel etc. if we really wanted to camp. Really? Terrible attitude. What's the excuse for being deceitful to 2 groups of travellers? I could've stayed at home & camped in my backyard. Unfortunately my $ had all been paid. Once we caught up with the truck, the extra travellers & driver in Kazakhstan we quickly learnt the driver was brilliant at driving but not much else. He was continually moaning about his job, boss etc. I ended up not socialising much with him as most of us were sick of listening about his Paleo diet with not much other content he could talk about. When we spoke to the driver & guide about our concerns of the trip he quickly also complained about his working conditions yet had stayed working for Karen for 10 years. This was not what I expected & didn't wish to listen to more of his moaning. I wasn't really interested in his problems.He also said he was ready to quit the job, dump the truck and us and leave. This was in Bishkek, I think less than 2 weeks on the road with him. I really wish he had of in hindsight. The veiled threats of dumping us continued. Things only got worse. Budget adventure also means budget repairs on the truck. A broken truck spring in Tajikistan saw us left at the isolated town of Alichur when the guide & driver could've fitted half of us in their taxi they took to the main town of Khorog. Half the group paid their own way to Khorog instead of staying & the next afternoon the rest followed once the guide figured it wasn't such a great idea. The guide was pretty much ineffectual on the trip overall. Yes, I understand there can be breakdowns but a cheap, ineffectual repair in Khorog saw the same spring break in Turkmenistan. This time the driver even abused a passenger who just wanted to know if we were stopping for awhile so he could inject his insulin. At this point we weren't even informed of what had happened to the truck but guessed it was the spring.The truck is extremely rough to travel in & there's no way you could inject safely while in motion. Very bad behaviour from a crew member. So now we were limping along, had to miss sights along the way. Some of our lunch stops were just shops without proper food. Just biscuits, chips etc no fruit bread. Some "restaurants" had 2 mear dishes on the menu, not great when we had a vegetarian travelling in the group. One stop even had NO FOOD at all for sale. Our crew had 5 years of doing this trip yet couldn't organise a decent lunch stop. There was even more crap to come... I was accused of swearing at a crew member but didn't. This confrontation happened in front of the crew & travel members so I certainly had plenty of witnesses to back me up but one of the crew must've seen fit to lie to Karen about what occurred. Occasionally we left before the included breakfast at hostels was served but found out later the hostel were serving breakfast at the time we couldve eaten. The itinerary ended up with 1 night in Baku...our guide said there was nothing to see there. Everyone disagreed but they wouldnt change to adapt for us. The truck left without all of us. The crew travelled on and cut out a night's stop even though this is what we had asked for. I found the crew childish, the guide passive aggressive in her attitude & they both treated us as cattle to be transported. The driver was overbearing. The guide joined in some of the bullying that was happening in the group of one of the travellers. Not impressed. Some travellers were bullied and berated by the crew when they were supposed to know something that they hadn't been told. You couldnt enter the truck in the morning as the guide slept inside the truck. We had to wait till " her highness" got out of bed even though everyone else was up and cooking breakfast. We even were expected to sleep on a ferry terminal floor one night. No hotel would be provided, no camping available & we knew the next night we'd be sleeping on the floor of the ferry.Most of us opted to pay for the hotel ourselves organised by the Turkmenistan guide. At least he was half decent! The truck is unbelievably uncomfortable to ride in. It's slow, even without breakdowns, which means a lot of your holiday will be wasted sitting in the truck. The Silk rd trip I did was 3 months, 10 countries, sounds great but too ambitious. You'd think the tour company would know this but they're only interested in your $. Take a trip where you actually see the sights of a country. In Kazakhstan we had 5 days, 4 in Almaty, 1 camping in Charyn canyon. That's not seeing a country. All our crew were interested in were stopping somewhere so they could get pissed. Find another company. We met up along the way with a group from Oasis & speaking to them they had a great crew and great company behind them. Of the 8 people who started in Beijing only 3 of us stayed till Istanbul. Nobody left due to illness, they left voluntarily as they didn't wish to continue with this company. In the end I wasn't even bothering to talk to the crew, they were that pathetic. Just don't do it. Find a better company and have a brilliant trip.

The countries we visited were amazing,the tour guide was not knowledgeable nor polite , she was always swearing with a bad language at the driver “her boyfriend “ , she didn’t help the group to be happy, nor her boss Karen , the owner of Madventure. Madventure told us that we couldn’t enter Iran due to visas issues , they never provided an official letter to confirm that , we have met another company Oasis at the same time that entered Iran , they had the same mix of nationalities as we did . Also Madventure told us that our truck was no’s not allowed to enter Thailand , without providing an official letter. I have realized all these problems ,

Our experience with Anvar was great from start to finish. Special thanks also to professional guides (Akmal, Munisa and Dill) and skillful drivers who took us promptly to and from airport and train stations. If I have to find one minus, that was the hotel Gur Emir Palace in Tashkent. Hotel was trying to charge us extra once we arrived to Tashkent and also when we stayed there on our way home. (that of course is not Global Connect´s fault). Nice people, lots of historical places, clean and safe. We felt in LOVE with Uzbekistan and our excellent travel agency. I will be happy to recommend Global connect tour to everyone who is going to Uzbekistan!

We visited sunny Uzbekistan with our family. Lovely people, excellent cuisine!!! Only positive experience can be checked in this country. Thank you GLOBAL CONNECT!