Uzboy Hotel

Recognisable by its bright turquoise façade, the Uzboy is a modest, central hotel in Dashoguz that makes a practical base in a region with limited tourist infrastructure.

It keeps things functional and reliable — clean rooms, a restaurant serving Turkmen and Central Asian dishes through the day, a bar, a conference room, Wi-Fi and parking — and its staff are used to welcoming foreign guests, sometimes arriving without notice.

It is about an hour’s drive from the UNESCO monuments of Kunya-Urgench, the main reason travellers come this far north.