Itchan Kala Walking Tour

Itchan Kala is the walled inner town of Khiva and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, inscribed in 1990, and a guided walk there is the easy half of a stay in Khiva. Book Tourmania Uz’s Khiva: Historical City Highlights Guided Walking Tour, 4 hours with a licensed guide, from US$26 a person (checked November 2026). Choose the option with entrance tickets if you want them included; climbing the minaret and entering the Pahlavon Mahmud mausoleum cost extra either way.

The walk started at 10:00 AM and 3:00 PM on the dates we read. Free cancellation runs until 24 hours before.

The old town on the map

UNESCO describes Itchan Kala as the inner town of the old Khiva oasis, protected by brick walls some 10 m high, and the last resting place of caravans before they crossed the desert to Iran. The property covers 37.5 ha, and its best-known buildings are the Djuma Mosque, the mausoleums and madrasas, and two palaces built at the beginning of the 19th century by Alla-Kulli-Khan (UNESCO World Heritage Centre, checked November 2026). On the map, the whole of it is a few hundred metres across.

What the walk covers

Tourmania Uz’s walk starts at the Allakuli Khan madrasah and goes on to the Islam Khoja minaret, the Pahlavon Mahmud mausoleum and the Juma Mosque, with Tosh Khovli palace, Kalta Minor, Kuhna Ark and three more madrasahs on the way. Traditional tea is included, and the guide speaks English, Uzbek or Russian. The starting point depends on the option you book.

It costs US$26 a person. The price depends on the option and on how many of you go: for one adult on 8 December 2026 the group tour with entrance tickets was US$34, and the private option US$65 a person on both dates we read.

See walk dates

Tickets and extras inside the walls

We found no official price list for the old-town tickets, so the figures here are the tour companies’ own. On Tourmania Uz’s walk, entrance tickets come with the option that includes them; climbing inside the Islam Khodja minaret costs 100,000 UZS (Uzbek som) and entering the Pahlavon Mahmud mausoleum 25,000 UZS, on top of any option. Yoqut Tour puts the entrance ticket for its Ichan Kala walk at 250,000 som a person.

Flash photography is not allowed inside some of the sites. On Yoqut Tour's walk, shorts are not allowed and a headscarf is required at the religious sites.

The other walk

Yoqut Tour’s Khiva: Ichan Kala Walking Tour with Local Guide is shorter, 3 hours from the Ichan Kala west gate, with a local guide in English, French or Russian. It covers Kalta Minor, the Muhammad Amin Khan madrasa, Kuhna Ark, the Muhammad Rakhimkhan and Sherg’ozi Khan madrasahs, the Juma Mosque, the Islam Khodja minaret and Tosh Khovli palace, for US$24 a person, with the entrance ticket on top.

Pick a walk:

Prices, ratings and review counts from our November 2026 data check; operators use seasonal pricing, so treat them as the shape of the market, not a quote.

The walk and the fortresses in one day

Khiva Advanture’s fortress car day left at 6:00 AM on every date we read and takes 6 hours, so it is back in Khiva about noon. That leaves the 3:00 PM walk for the afternoon. Tourmania Uz’s walk is not for wheelchair users or people with limited mobility.