Choosing your first Mongolia trip

Most first-time Mongolia travelers reach the booking stage with three open questions: where to go, how long for, and when. The site answers each on the relevant page, but here is the short version we send most often.

Where to go on a first Mongolia trip

Mongolia is large, about 1,500 kilometers from Ulaanbaatar to the Altai, and most of the country off the paved network. The five regions trade off quite differently:

• Central Mongolia is the obvious first trip. Karakorum, the Orkhon Valley UNESCO site, Tovkhon Monastery, and Tsenkher Hot Springs sit on a road that is paved most of the way out of Ulaanbaatar. The region fits a five- to nine-day window without leaving most of your time behind the wheel.
• The Gobi Desert is the obvious second trip. Tsagaan Suvarga, Yolyn Am ice canyon, the Khongor Singing Dunes, the Bayanzag Flaming Cliffs. Distances are longer and the roads are mostly dirt, six to ten days, depending on whether you also want Karakorum on the return.
• Northern Mongolia (Khuvsgul Lake, the Tsaatan reindeer herders) and Western Mongolia (the Altai, the Kazakh eagle hunters) are usually third or fourth visits, or focused trips for travelers with a specific interest in those landscapes.
• Eastern Mongolia is for travelers who already live in or visit Ulaanbaatar. Khentii history, Naadam, day trips.

If you have one to two weeks and have not been to Mongolia before, the answer is almost always Central, the Gobi, or the two combined on a single 8 to 10 day loop.

How long for

A good rule of thumb: a Mongolia trip needs at least one more day than your map suggests. Driving distances are real, the country is open, and the days of nomadic-family stays and ger camps work better when they are not rushed.

• Five days is the minimum for a complete Central Mongolia tour.
• Six days is the minimum for a complete Gobi loop.
• Ten days combines both regions cleanly via the Gobi-and-Central tour. This is the most popular itinerary we run.
• Twelve to twenty days opens up the Tsaatan reindeer-herding visit and the long Western drives.

If you have less than five days and still want to see the countryside, the right answer is usually a 1- to 3-day trip to Terelj National Park rather than a rushed Central tour. The longer routes do not compress well.

When to go

• June through August is peak season for the countryside tours. Long days, green steppe, all ger camps open, mountain passes accessible.
• May and September are good shoulder months. Fewer travelers, cooler nights, the green still on the steppe in May and gold leaves in September.
• July 11–13 is Naadam, Mongolia’s national festival, wrestling, archery, and horse racing in Ulaanbaatar. The 4-day Naadam tour is timed to the festival days. Plan months ahead; city accommodation fills.
• Early October is the Golden Eagle Festival in Bayan-Ölgii, with the Kazakh eagle hunters in the Altai. The 8-day Golden Eagle tour is timed to it.
• November through April, we do not run countryside tours. Most ger camps close and the unpaved sections become unreliable in the cold.

What we tell every traveler before they book

The trip you book is your trip. Group sizes are two to six guests; we do not run scheduled departures with strangers. Pricing is consultative, we shape the route around your dates and group size first, then quote. Buya joins each trip in person; he founded Imperial Nomad Tours and has been working in Mongolian tourism for eleven years. The drivers are people we have worked with for years. The route changes if the weather changes.

If none of the fixed itineraries fits, we build a custom one. About a quarter of our trips are custom, a specific group, specific dates, a specific subject like photographing eagle hunters in Bayan-Ölgii or riding through Khangai for two weeks. Custom trips are not more expensive than fixed ones; they take the same care.

If you want to compare itineraries side by side, the Plan a trip page lays out the four most common shapes by length and season. Otherwise, write to us with your dates and what you most want to see. Baska replies personally, in your language, within a week.