Book your next trip to Central Asia

If you merged the Soviet Union under Stalin with an ancient Japanese Empire with modern-day Japanese technology peeping its eye above the walls, you have modern day Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. And of all the countries in the world, certain of them are just really a “thing.” The US is a thing. Japan is a thing. Great Britain is a thing. India is a thing. There are just some countries that have such well-known cultures, that are so storied, that are so widely discussed and regularly parodied that they become their own category of thing.

But with its old Czars, communism and its Soviet flag and its writers, composers, ancient empires and its vodka and its И’s and Я’s, Central Asia may just be the ‘thingiest’ region in the world. Prior to this trip, I had never been outside of my country, and my experience with Central Asian/Russian culture really did go well. So, I really had little idea what to expect and experience too even though I had a well planned itinerary. Now that I have wrapped things up after more than two weeks there…let’s dive in.