An astrologer warned me against traveling around my 40th birthday. I didn’t listen and booked a trip to Uzbekistan.

According to family lore, a psychic told my mother when she was in her 20s that she would experience a terrible loss at the age of 40, and two months after she turned 40, her youngest brother, my uncle Howard, died of AIDS.

More than a prediction, it felt like a curse. I spiraled. Am I not meant to travel because, God forbid, my plane could crash? Is nuclear war imminent? Or, worse yet, might something happen to my parents?

But as my birthday loomed, I, a longtime travel writer and semi-nomad, was too 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 flout his advice and booked a last-minute trip to Uzbekistan.

I first moved to New York in 2007 after earning a graduate degree in Middle East and Central Asian Security Studies from St. Andrews University 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.

Back in 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 recently taking on the job of English editor at The Bukharian Times, a Bukharian-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 just six months into dating, and in an age-gapped relationship — we’re 14 years apart; I’m older — he was totally down for the adventure.

While my birthday trip was my fourth visit to Uzbekistan, it was the first one I’d planned and organized myself. A lot has changed since my first trip to Uzbekistan in 2007, when I flew on a hand-written airline ticket my dad 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.

It was also my first international adventure with my boyfriend. I made sure we’d hit all the top sights, like Samarkand’s Registan Square (we slipped the guard about $20 to climb to the top of the crooked minaret), Bukhara’s walled historic center, and Tashkent’s bustling Chorsu Bazaar.

When my birthday arrived

On my actual birthday, we enjoyed brunch on the hotel balcony. Replete with balloons, the balcony overlooked old Soviet rowing canals that have become the backdrop for Samarkand’s newest attraction: Eternal City.

After brunch we flew from Samarkand to Tashkent. We had spotted business class tickets for $50 a 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 did experience some paranoia that day, wondering if flying on my birthday was too risky, all 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.