TOUR OVERVIEW
Ever heard of a national Melon Day before? Melon Day is one of Turkmenistan's many unique and oh so Turkmen national holidays, celebrating the abundance of melons that Central Asia is blessed with at this time of year. This tour is your chance to see the height of the melon season, but Turkmen style.
We'll start off this tour by exploring Ashgabat and experiencing everything that Melon Day has to offer, before heading out into the desert to see the Gates of Hell.
After returning to Ashgabat, we'll begin our journey west to visit the ancient ruins of Nisa, and the Turkmenbashy Mosque and Mausoleum, before swimming in Kow Ata, which is one of the few chances you'll have to see locals relaxing a bit. Venturing into the mountains we'll visit the village of Nokhur, famous for its unique cemetery, before going all the way to the west of the country to the Caspian Sea coast. Here you'll have the chance to explore the resort town of Avaza, built in the same over the top glamorous white marble and gold as Ashgabat. Next we'll drive out into the desert to see Yangykala Canyon, an old ocean, now a vast canyon with striped coloured walls. Finally we'll fly on Turkmenistan Airlines (an experience in itself!) back to Ashgabat and finish up our tour there.
View the full itinerary
If you like the look of this tour but the dates don't work for you, or you'd like to do part of the tour, please
get in touch
and let us know. All our tours are able to be split into smaller sections, we're always scheduling new tours and your dates might work for one of them, or we can always organise an independent tour.
There is also a
shorter budget version
of this tour available, for anyone who would like to see Ashgabat, the Gates of Hell and Nowruz, but doesn't have time to explore the rest of the country.