Interesting. A good friend of mine had Turkmenistan a clear last after her visit to the stans. IIRC due wider effect of oppressive regime.
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We have done a few visits to the Stans region but only the one trip into Turkmenistan mainly as Iām not really into being forced on tours.
Yes they are fairly oppressive in some areas but we were freely allowed to walk the cities on our own and werenāt watched 24/7 but you just need a tour to sponsor your visa and book hotels etc. The tour operators were great and I really enjoyed the scenery and some of the historic regions. I didnāt find anything really overbearing there are such except around military or government buildings.
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Been on my list for a while, too. Assume youāve booked a group tour. Iām not sure how practical (or even possible) independent travel is in those parts.
So youāre saying those $7.50-8.00 coffees I had in Oslo last year were an absolute bargain!
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Iāll be in Copenhagen/Oslo in Octoberā¦ bracing myself!
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Hope you like pizza/pasta! Anything further up the food chain is big $$$$. Definitely no alcohol.
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two of my brothers are traveling with us, and are both vegan - looks like vegie pizza/pasta will be their menu!
Sounds terrible 
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Yes on the first, through G Adventures. Had good experiences with them in the Arctic and Central America previously. Planning to add on a little bit of independent wandering prior/after.
And yep if you found a coffee for that equivalent over there itās actually quite reasonable!
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We have hired rental cars in both Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, both very easy places to get round independently.
For Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan we have used a combo of drivers and tours.
Turkmenistan was tour only and that tour did the 5 Stanās I mentioned above.
What time of year are you going? Most tours Iāve seen run roughly April-Sep.
Honestly donāt know Iād trust myself to drive in those places. My first preference is always train travel which I assume might be ā¦ difficult.
Uzbekistan has a pretty decent rail network connecting the major cities. Both Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan have some decent routes aswell.
I trust my driving better than some of the local drivers we have had who do 120 clicks in pitch black out in the middle of nowhere on roads that shouldnāt even be called roads 
Fine as long as youāre staying only in the cities. Iām assuming that some of the sites you referred to in the earlier post would not be easily accessible by train.
All within May, partly to fit with other life circumstances but also keen to avoid the peak summer and tourism season in the region
Some are outside the cities and you can hire a driver for the day or even take smaller group tours but in Uzbekistan for instance Tashkent is linked to Bukhara, Samarkand and Termez. Learning some basic Russian phrases and being able to read Cyrillic is very handy