Things to know before you go

There is no internet as we're used to in Turkmenistan. There only exists a local and heavily censored version of Internet provided by state owned Turkmentelecom.  All the apps that we're used to in the west - Whatspp, Facebook, Instagram , Telegram, X (Twitter) etc. are blocked and while Google search works, search results are censored. Gmail and google maps seem to be working though.

You can in theory buy a local sim card, however it is not recommended as besides internet connection being of limited utility due to censorship, connection in Turkmenistan is not great and you will not have data access in most places, except for major cities such as Ashgabat and Mary, where bigger hotels have wifi access anyway.

If you're travelling for extended period of time, then it might be worth investing in local sim card and VPN access. While many sources online state that VPNs are heavily monitored and blocked immediately, reality seems to be different with local guide telling that both him and almost all of his friends living in the capital are using VPN services with no issues.

In conclusion, if you're travelling only for several days, you can use this time for a digital detox and in case of emergencies, your guide will likely have a way to contact the outside world.

Only if you're very lucky. Two main types of visa that you can apply for (unless you're a diplomat or have family in Turkmenistan) are transit and tourist visa.

Transit visa is theory can be acquired by people transiting Turkmenistan en route to other destination, however in reality it is notoriously hard to get. We've heard of multiple rejections and very few successes. This could still be an option if you have time, flexibility and absolutely want to experience the country without a chaperone. However, you need to patient and aware that this will likely require several tries.

We were travelling using tourist visa. This visa is easy to get as long as you're travelling with a licensed travel agency. Travel agencies issues a LOI ( letter of invitation ) upon presenting which you can even get visa on arrival.

Selection of travel agency and border crossing will be described in further sections. The process of getting tourist visa was rather uncomplicated, just be mindful that after you've submitted all the documents to your travel agency, it takes around 2 weeks for the migration office to process it and issue LOI. Therefore, start planning and paper work well ahead of time, as Turkmenistan is not a destination for spontaneous travel.

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The official currency of Turkmenistan is the Turkmenistan Manat (TMT), although dollars are also widely accepted. Note, you can only pay for your on arrival visa with dollars, so come prepared and make sure to have crisp / new dollar bills.

Important: while the official exchange rate of TMT - USD is 1 TMT =0.29 USD and you can withdraw manats in Ashgabat ATM, you definitely should not!

Why? Because black market rate is 1 TMT = 0.05 USD when we were visiting in 2024. Yes, instead of getting approx 3 TMT for your dollar, you can get 18 (!!!). Where to find those black market exchanges? If you're with the guide, it is very likely that he/ she will offer to do the exchange or guide you to the right place. We went to a fabric shop in the Russian market in Ashgabat that also moonlights a currency exchange.

If you're traveling alone after managing to get the coveted transit visa, try asking around but be mindful of cameras and policemen as locals will not help if they fear of getting into trouble.

 Turkmenistan is likely one of the cheapest countries you'll ever go to. Just imagine, price of a taxi for up to 10 km - 1-2 USD, meals can vary from 1-2 USD (street food) to 5-6 USD in a nice hotel, to 8-9 USD in a high end restaurants. During the 5 day Turkmenistan trip we were eating in all kinds of establishments and 40 USD for food, drinks and souvenirs were more than enough.

Turkmenistan official language is Turkmen, however Russian is widely spoken in the bigger cities. Staff in high end hotels do speak English, but outside of them be ready to use google translate (remember to download Turkmen and Russian languages for offline use) or rely on your tour guide.

Turkmenistan experiences continental desert climate, meaning it gets very VERY hot in summer and around 70% of the country is literally a desert. Unless for some reason you enjoy sightseeing when it's 40+ degrees Celcius (112+ Fahrenheit) I would advise against visiting in summer. Winter, likewise, is also not the best time as the temperatures can drop to almost freezing. Therefore, shoulder seasons of spring (March - May) or autumn (September-November) are the best times to visit Turkmenistan. However, do not expect very mild temperatures in spring either, visiting in e.g. May is still hot just more bearable than in the heat of the summer.

Road quality differ greater across the country, and while roads in the capital Ashgabat are close to perfect with multiple lanes, desert roads are far from maintained. Some roads are in fact so bad that there are more potholes than asphalt itself and our tour driver often chose to drive on the desert by the side of the road, rather than on the road itself, as it was less bumpy. Therefore, if you're motion sick, be sure to take pills with you and / or make sure to sit in the front.

 there are not many licensed travel agencies and fewer still that have a clear well laid out website and are good at answering emails.

We narrowed down to 2 agencies: Trawelco https://www.trawelco.com/ and Owadan Tourism https://www.owadan.net/. Both have clear websites and tour descriptions. In the end we decided to go with Owadan Tourism, as they were very good  (quick and precise) with answering our million questions about travelling in Turkmenistan, and adjusted their standard tour package to fit our wants and needs.

All tour agencies provide a selection of hotels where you can stay (3, 4 or 5*) and the cost of the tour is partially influenced how luxuriously you want to stay in Turkmenistan.

P.s. this post is not sponsored by any of the travel agencies

we were crossing Turkmenistan border from Uzbekistan. Shavat-Dashoguz border crossing is around an hour's drive away from Khiva in Uzbekistan. While getting the border was rather painless with a hired driver, border crossing itself was quite an experience. There were multiple checks of passports and Letter of Invitation even before arriving to the main customs building. There we were asked to fill in an arrival form .. which was fully in Turkmen language. We were initially hopeful about offline Turkmen- English Google Translate services, however the translation quality was close to unusable. Desperate, we started to look around for western looking people that knew what they were doing. Shortly, we encountered a tour guide that had an example entry form translated in English. We were saved for the time being and filled our forms, when our own designated tour guide arrived.

Yes, tour guides are allowed to be inside the customs building and support tourists with the border crossing formalities. This was super useful, as the border crossing process is anything but straightforward with none of the officials speaking English.

After we filled in the forms, guide took them and our passports and gave us some other forms with our names. Apparently, those forms had to be given to the PCR office (yes , they were still testing tourists for covid*). After we got our nostrils poked, we were ushered to another window, where we had to pay for the pcr test, migration tax and tourist visa on arrival. The price for that was communicated before (106 USD), however my payment was promptly rejected as apparently, as our guide explained, the dollar bills I had were not crisp enough!  Luckily, I had more than exactly 106 USD and manage to fish out fresher looking bills from my pocket which were then accepted. After the payment, our guide appeared again with our passports and shouldered his way towards another immigration window where we were supposed to get the actual visa. He only respected other  tour guides' place in the line but not so much the locals'.

After a brief wait, our fingerprints were taken and a massive full page visa was plastered into our passports.

After our bags were scanned, we saw a line of people whose suitcases and backpacks were turned inside out by custom's agents looking for illegal imports (e.g. Bringing in too many cigarettes from Uzbekistan is illegal). Our guide explained to the custom's agents that we don't smoke and they let us pass without the search. This seemed to have been the case with all foreign tourists and we only noticed locals (or Uzbekistan residents ) that were thoroughly searched.

After this border crossing experience we considered our quite pricey tour a worthy investment as this could have been much more stressful without the guide translating and helping us every step of the way!

*PCR test in Turkmenistan is a complete sham as confirmed by our tour guide, since none of the samples are actually tested for COVID. PCR testing is only used as a way to charge more money during border crossing. Go figure why they wouldn't accept fresh PCR tests from any other country!