 | Flytrippers cofounder |
I spent 7 days in Turkmenistan back in February, and it was the most unique country I’ve been to in a while. The famous ever-burning “Gates of Hell” gas crater, the capital Ashgabat’s white marble buildings that turn full of colors at night (and the white cars) are only part of what makes this place interesting. I’d gladly go back!
My girlfriend Caroline and I went with 2 other friends. This trip was different from most trips, as Turkmenistan’s entry rules meant we needed a tour and a guide to get the visa that allows you to visit more than just the capital.
I’m sharing how an unusual trip like this works, including what a week with almost no internet access was like. Flytrippers aims to help you travel for less through our 3 types of content, namely flight deals, travel rewards, and tips/inspiration/news.
Here’s the overview of my trip to Turkmenistan.
Reason for my trip to Turkmenistan
I’m sharing why I’m doing this trip, to get straight to the point.
Here are the 2 main reasons:
- Exploring a fascinating new country
- Fill a gap between the UAE and Jordan
Exploring a fascinating new country
Turkmenistan was country #103 for me on my quest to visit every country in the world (on the UN 193 list). This is one of the few countries where you can’t just book on your own and show up.
We usually prefer to travel independently, but you pretty much need a guided tour to get the Turkmenistan visa. There have been rumors that the entry rules would be loosened, but it’s been years now, and there’s no guarantee that will happen.
Our local guide was really good and knowledgeable and made our trip easy and fun, at least. And the tour company handled everything for us. The visa was 130 USD including the negative COVID-19 test (yes, they still wanted a test certificate in 2026, but it’s done there when you land).
The tour itself was 775 USD per person for 7 days. That included our hotels, transportation, breakfasts, and some little extras (flights were our own responsibility). Packages are usually overpriced, but this was not too bad to be able to visit a very unique country.
Fill a gap between the UAE and Jordan
We already had trips to the United Arab Emirates and Jordan booked before and after.
We had a 7-day gap between them. It was the perfect amount of time for an intense and busy travel week in a new country where we couldn’t stay too long anyway.
Indeed, we couldn’t really work from Turkmenistan due to the lack of internet access; I’ll share more below. So it was the perfect time to visit the most distinctive of the 5 Stan countries of Central Asia.
This trip actually made me even more excited to be back in the region for my trip to Kazakhstan later in the year (I had already loved Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan). I am now only missing Tajikistan.
Itinerary of my trip to Turkmenistan
I’m sharing the general itinerary of my trip, to give you the outline of the destinations I visited (maybe you saw them in my stories if you follow my personal Instagram account).
Here’s my itinerary on a map.
We flew in and out of Ashgabat; from Abu Dhabi and to Amman via İstanbul.
This trip lasted 7 days, from February 15 to 21, 2026.
Here are the destinations I visited during my trip:
- Ashgabat, Turkmenistan 🇹🇲
- 4 nights (3 at the start, 1 at the end)
- Merv, Turkmenistan 🇹🇲
- Day trip from Ashgabat
- Darvaza, Turkmenistan 🇹🇲
- 1 night
- Konye-Urgench, Turkmenistan 🇹🇲
- Day visit, then night train to Ashgabat
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan 🇹🇲
The most striking thing on arrival is that there is basically no usable internet in the whole country, which is pretty unique in 2026. People are not on their phones all the time even though the country is still modern, and for us it was a real vacation because no work was possible there.
Ashgabat is the capital, a unique white marble city right at the foot of the Kopetdag mountains and on the edge of the Karakum desert.
We stayed at the Wedding Palace Hotel, one of the city’s landmarks, in this really cool-looking building, and we did indeed see a wedding on that street when we were there.
At night they light up the white buildings in all these colors, and that was really cool.
Turkmenistan felt safer than pretty much any country I have been to. Our guide would just warn us when we were not allowed to do something, like take photos of certain monuments (anything with guards in front).
We saw a few of the huge monuments around the city, including the Arch of Neutrality and the Independence Monument.
We also went by the Alem Cultural and Entertainment Center, the building with the big indoor Ferris wheel.
We could not ride it because it was too windy that day, but the architecture was very cool, and a lot of the other buildings in town are too.
The city has more white marble buildings than anywhere else in the world. To match the all-white aesthetic, (almost) all cars are also white, as darker colors were banned! It’s very impressive.
One of our best days from Ashgabat was the trip out to Kow Ata, this underground lake in a cave where you can actually swim. We did, and it was really cool.
That same day we stopped at the mosque and museum in Geokdepe, then went to a private farm to see Akhal-Teke horses, one of the oldest horse breeds in the world. We got to ride them with traditional clothes.
We finished that loop at the Turkmenbashi Ruhy Mosque in Gypjak, this huge mosque with one massive dome just outside the city.
After visiting the 3 other destinations below, on the last day of our trip, we returned to Ashgabat and visited the National Museum of Turkmen Carpet.
We also walked through Gulistan Bazaar, the city’s main market, for our last-day shopping.
The cost of traveling here would be so low if not for the tour guide requirement. The currency is the Turkmen manat (TMT) and the official rate is around 3.50 manats per US dollar, but the black-market rate everyone actually uses is 19-to-1, so prices on location were really affordable.
Merv, Turkmenistan 🇹🇲
From Ashgabat, we did a long day trip out to Mary and Ancient Merv.
Merv is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the desert, one of the old Silk Road oasis cities.
It’s a stack of cities built up over thousands of years, and for a while it was the capital of the Seljuk Empire. Today it is this huge archaeological park of walls and ruins.
The brick mausoleum of Sultan Sanjar was the building that stood out the most.
Darvaza, Turkmenistan 🇹🇲
We took the road out into the Karakum desert to the Darvaza gas crater, the most famous attraction in Turkmenistan.
We stayed the night in a traditional Turkmen yurt camp. It got pretty cool at night, but we had a stove in the yurt.
We had a BBQ dinner, and then we just sat there, looking at this giant hole in the desert that has been on fire, uninterrupted, for decades (for 55 years to be precise; since 1971).
On the morning we drove to the crater, we first stopped at Old Nisa, another UNESCO World Heritage Site just outside Ashgabat.
It is basically the mud-brick ruins of a Parthian fortress from a couple thousand years ago.
Konye-Urgench, Turkmenistan 🇹🇲
The next day we continued north to Konye-Urgench, another UNESCO World Heritage Site.
It was the old capital of Khorezm, and we could see the Kutlug Timur minaret from far away. It’s a tall brick tower about 60 meters high and one of the tallest old minarets in Central Asia.
We also walked around some of the other monuments there, like the mausoleums of Tyurabek Khanum and Najm al-Din al-Kubra.
In Dashoguz, before taking the train, I had a dry-aged steak that was amazing. It cost 170 manats, which was about 9 USD at that 19-to-1 rate!
Our original plan was to fly back to Ashgabat from there, but we took the night sleeper train instead to try it out and save money, and it was nice.
The train got us back for one more night at the Wedding Palace Hotel in Ashgabat before flying out to İstanbul and then Amman.
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Summary
I spent 7 days in Turkmenistan in February 2026 with Caroline and 2 friends on an intense tour through Ashgabat, Merv, Darvaza, and Konye-Urgench. It was the most unique country I had been in in a while, and I would gladly go back, even if it was just to hang out in Ashgabat.
What would you like to know about my trip to Turkmenistan? Tell us in the comments below.
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Featured image: Turkmenistan (photo credit: Kevin Gagnon/Flytrippers)
