VacationSelector
A madrasa and its minarets on the Registan, Samarkand
SamarkandA madrasa and its minarets on the Registan
Mountain Village under snow, seen from the gondola, Telluride
TellurideMountain Village under snow, seen from the gondola

Photos: Samarkand by Yaşar Başkurt, Pexels License; Telluride by Murray Foubister, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Samarkand or Telluride?

Our verdict in twelve categories, each scored against the same fixed benchmark cities, and the climate month by month, so you can choose for your trip.

Choose Samarkand for

  • prices
  • culture and sights
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on Samarkand’s own page.

Choose Telluride for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • families
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on Telluride’s own page.

Scoreboard

Twelve categories on one fixed scale from 0 to 100. The shaded stretch is the gap between the two.

Beaches & swimming. Samarkand 4, Telluride 5: Telluride leads by 1 points.
Food & drink. Samarkand 54, Telluride 38: Samarkand leads by 16 points.
Culture & sights. Samarkand 84, Telluride 20: Samarkand leads by 64 points.
Nightlife. Samarkand 14, Telluride 20: Telluride leads by 6 points.
Nature & outdoors. Samarkand 40, Telluride 93: Telluride leads by 53 points.
Day trips. Samarkand 72, Telluride 30: Samarkand leads by 42 points.
Good for families. Samarkand 30, Telluride 45: Telluride leads by 15 points.
Getting around. Samarkand 58, Telluride 66: Telluride leads by 8 points.
Shopping & style. Samarkand 42, Telluride 25: Samarkand leads by 17 points.
Affordability. Samarkand 80, Telluride 7: Samarkand leads by 73 points.
Live music & performing arts. Samarkand 24, Telluride 35: Telluride leads by 11 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Samarkand 32, Telluride 45: Telluride leads by 13 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Samarkand and Telluride.

Your match

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders, and both match scores follow your weighting.

Samarkand
Best match
45match

Wins on prices and culture and sights with your weighting.

Telluride
36match

Wins on nature and the outdoors and families with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Samarkand in July

34 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
2 mmrain in the month
12 hsunshine a day
15 hdaylight a day

Telluride in July

23 °Cdaytime high
12 °Cnight-time low
58 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

020406080JFMAMJJASOND
SamarkandTelluride

Where the figures come from

Telluride has no rain gauge within 25 km of the centre, so its rainfall comes from a gridded climate dataset read at the city rather than from a gauge further away.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Samarkand: 1991-2020 normals, Samarkand (10 km from centre). Telluride: 2006-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Telluride / Lime (8.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureSamarkandTelluride
Official languageUzbek-
CurrencyUzbekistan Sum (UZS)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsCFI220 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+5UTC-7, UTC-6 in summer
Emergency number112911
Elevation702 m2,667 m
Main airportSamarkand International Airport (SKD)5 km from centre29 non-stop destinationsMontrose Regional Airport (MTJ)64 km from centre11 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year-12 days

By the numbers

MeasureSamarkandTelluride
City population546,3032,607
People per km²5,0581,372
Museums within 10 km110
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Samarkand or Telluride somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Rainfall where no rain gauge is within 25 km is from the TerraClimate 1991-2020 climatology (Abatzoglou et al. 2018, Scientific Data), read at the city. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Non-stop route lists from the "Airlines and destinations" tables on English Wikipedia airport articles, by Wikipedia contributors, reused under CC BY-SA 4.0. Currency from the ISO 4217 register maintained by SIX, cross-checked against country data from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0). Price level from World Bank open data (PPP conversion factor for private consumption and official exchange rate), CC BY 4.0. Time zones from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0); clock offsets computed from the IANA time zone database. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm.

Category scores are our editorial verdict under rubric v3, each placed against the same fixed benchmark cities; the climate figures are measured. How the scores are set. Snapshot generated 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.