Turkmenistan: Six Attractions and Natural Wonders

An isolated country with a genuinely unique landmark

Turkmenistan, one of the most closed and tightly controlled countries in Central Asia, remains difficult to visit independently, with most tourism channelled through guided group tours and limited visa access. What tourism does exist centres on one of the most genuinely singular sights on earth — a crater of natural gas that has burned continuously since Soviet engineers reportedly set it alight in the 1970s to stop poisonous gas escaping, and still burning decades later, though its fires are now much reduced.

The six below are spread across the Karakum Desert and the country's historic and modern urban centres. Guided tours remain by far the most practical way to see any of these sites, given the country's tightly managed visa and travel system.

1. The Darvaza Gas Crater

The Darvaza Gas Crater, nicknamed the "Door to Hell," formed when a Soviet drilling operation reportedly collapsed into an underground gas cavern in 1971; engineers set the escaping gas alight, underestimating how much gas there was, and the crater has burned ever since. In 2022 the government announced plans to extinguish it; wells have since been drilled around it to capture the gas, and by 2025 the flames had shrunk to a few pockets of fire. Visiting at night, when the flames are most visible against the dark desert, has long been the centrepiece of most Turkmenistan itineraries.

2. Ashgabat

Ashgabat, Turkmenistan's capital, was rebuilt on a vast scale following a devastating 1948 earthquake and later, under independence, transformed again into a city of gleaming white marble buildings and monuments — since 2013 the city has held a Guinness World Record for the highest concentration of white marble buildings anywhere on earth, giving it an unusually uniform, almost surreal architectural character.

3. Merv

Merv, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, may have been the largest city in the world in the 12th and 13th centuries and a major Silk Road trading hub before its devastating destruction by Mongol forces in 1221, an event that killed a substantial share of its population. Its extensive ruins, including fortress walls and mausoleums, make it the oldest and best-preserved of the Silk Road oasis cities of Central Asia.

4. Kow Ata underground lake

Kow Ata, a warm underground lake in a cave near Bäherden, lying some 55 metres below the entrance, offers a genuinely unusual swimming experience — mineral-rich water at 33–38°C in a cave no sunlight reaches, reached by a long stairway descending into the cave. It remains one of the more accessible natural curiosities included on most organised Turkmenistan itineraries.

5. Nisa

Nisa, 18 kilometres west of central Ashgabat, was a Parthian fortress, reputedly a residence of the Parthian kings, more than 2,000 years ago — now reduced to eroded earthen ramparts, but a UNESCO World Heritage Site (2007) whose excavations have yielded a looted treasury, elaborate ivory drinking horns and other Hellenistic works of art.

The mounded ruins offer little in the way of standing architecture, but reward visitors with sweeping views over the surrounding plain.

6. The Akhal-Teke horse

The Akhal-Teke, Turkmenistan's national symbol and one of the oldest horse breeds in the world, is famous above all for a metallic, almost golden sheen to its coat that earned it the nickname "Golden Horses". Prized for speed and endurance, with ancestors that may date back 3,000 years, the breed appears on the national emblem and banknotes alike.

Visitors can see the horses at stud farms and at the Turkmen Horse Day celebrations held on the last Sunday in April.

Turkmenistan is realistically visited only through an organised tour given its restrictive visa system, with a trip typically combining Ashgabat, the Darvaza crater, and Merv over a week or so.