Nukus is not a destination that rewards aimless wandering. The Soviet-built city is flat, functional, and dusty, and the streets are wide in the way that cities planned by people with no shortage of land tend to be. The reason to come is the Savitsky Museum, which contains one of the great art collections in Central Asia. Everything else — the bazaar, the textile collection, the short excursions to Zoroastrian ruins — is secondary.
The real Nukus experience is the combination of the museum and the day trip to Moynaq, the ghost town on the former Aral Sea shore. Together they make a visit that is genuinely unlike anywhere else.