While I’m all for letting the stars decide where to travel next, and I’m intrigued by astrocartography—a type of astrology that tries to determine the best places to visit—that day I was looking for insights into love and the career. I wasn’t there looking for travel advice, and I found his ominous words thought-provoking.
According to family lore, a psychic told my mother when she was in her 20s that she would experience a terrible loss at age 40, and two months after she turned 40, her younger brother, my uncle Howard, died of AIDS.
More than a prediction, it felt like a curse. I spiraled. Shouldn’t I travel because, God forbid, my plane might crash? Is nuclear war imminent? Or, worse yet, could something happen to my parents?
But as my birthday approached, I, a longtime writer and semi-nomad, was eager to re-explore a place that has had such a strong impact on me.
I ignored the astrologer’s advice and went with my gut
And so, I decided to ignore his advice and booked a last minute trip to Uzbekistan.
I first moved to New York in 2007 after receiving an undergraduate degree in Middle East and Central Asian Security Studies from University of St. Andrews in Scotland. It was a summer language program I attended in Samarkand, a legendary Silk Road city, that always left me wanting to return to Uzbekistan.
When I returned to New York, I pursued opportunities to keep the country in my life, from adding it to The New York Times’ list of 52 places to go in 2019, to finally taking the job of English editor at The Bukharian The Times, a Bukhari- Jewish newspaper published in Queens.
That new job opportunity landed on my plate a few months before my 40th birthday and I took it as a sign.
Planning my trip to Uzbekistan
I booked a $1,100 ticket to Samarkand on Turkish Airlines, with a free stopover in Istanbul. I then convinced my boyfriend to do the same and join me on the trip. Despite being only six months into the relationship, and in a relationship of age – we are 14 years apart; I’m older – he was totally up for the adventure.
While my birthday trip was my fourth visit to Uzbekistan, it was the first that I had planned and organized myself. A lot has changed since my first trip to Uzbekistan in 2007, when I flew with a handwritten airline ticket my father got for me with a money order at a Brooklyn travel agency because Uzbekistan Airways didn’t accept credit cards.
Now, thanks to a series of economic reforms, you can book flights and apply for visas online.
The author and her boyfriend visited the Ark of Bukhara in Uzbekistan Erin Levi
It was also my first international adventure with my boyfriend. I made sure we’d hit all the highlights, like Samarkand’s Registan Square (we tipped the guard about $20 to climb to the top of the crooked minaret), Bukhara’s walled historic center, and the bustling Chorsu bazaar of Tashkent.
When my birthday came
On my actual birthday, we enjoyed brunch on the hotel balcony. Filled with balloons, the balcony overlooked the old Soviet canals that have become the backdrop to Samarkand’s newest attraction: the Eternal City.
After lunch we flew from Samarkand to Tashkent. We had seen business class tickets for $50 per seat, so it was an easy, last-minute splurge. We checked into the InterContinental and I blew out more birthday candles at the rooftop restaurant that evening.
While I experienced a bit of paranoia that day, wondering if flying on my birthday was too dangerous, everything went smoothly.
As much as the trip to Uzbekistan was a birthday present to myself (it ended up costing us about $2,500 each), the real gift, I realized, was shaking the family curse—and learning to trust myself.