Romantic Mongolia in 9 days
Mongolia is not a conventional honeymoon country and it is a very good one for a particular kind of couple. What it offers is space, silence and the near total absence of other people, which is rarer and harder to buy than a beach.
- Duration
- 9 days
- Pace
- Relaxed
- Hotel changes
- 4
- Best months
- Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep
- From
- $3,510 per person
This route is built on the two things that make that work. First, fewer moves: two nights or more in every place instead of the usual one, so you unpack. Second, camps with a private bathroom attached to the ger, which exist in a small number of places and change the experience completely.
Who it suits: couples who want quiet and landscape rather than a checklist, and who would rather have three good afternoons than nine sights. No hard walking.
Your specialist: Osnat Angerman or Paz Prosianoy, our Southeast and Central Asia specialists, working with our long-standing partner in Ulaanbaatar.
Day by day
Day 1: Arrive Ulaanbaatar. An hour from the airport into the city. A good hotel, a good dinner, and nothing else.
Day 2: Ulaanbaatar, then Terelj. Gandan monastery and the National Museum in the morning, which is worth two hours and makes the rest of the week legible. Then east to Terelj, ninety minutes, past the Chinggis Khaan statue at Tsonjin Boldog. Arrive in the afternoon at a camp with private bathrooms and a view of the granite.
Day 3: Terelj. Deliberately slow. A morning walk up to the Aryabal meditation temple, 108 steps and a swaying footbridge, or up onto the ridge behind the camp. Afternoon: led riding on the meadow, or nothing. A private dinner set up outside if the weather allows, which in July and August it usually does.
Day 4: Terelj to the Orkhon valley. Five hours west, mostly paved, with a stop at Khustai National Park to look for the takhi horses. Arrive at a camp in the Orkhon valley for two nights.
Day 5: Orkhon valley. Erdene Zuu monastery in the morning, 1586, walled by 108 stupas and standing on the site of the Mongol capital. Afternoon in the valley: riding out to the waterfall, or a walk along the river, or a picnic laid out somewhere with nothing else in sight, which in Mongolia is not a difficult brief.
Day 6: To the Tsenkher hot springs. Four hours west into the Arkhangai hills, which are greener and higher than the steppe you have crossed. The springs come out of the ground at around 185 Fahrenheit (85 C) and are piped into private pools at the camps. Two nights.
Day 7: Tsenkher. Nothing scheduled. A ride into the hills, a walk to a herder family, a book, and the pool. This is the day people remember, and it exists because we cut two sights from the route to make room for it.
Day 8: Tsenkher to Ulaanbaatar. The long drive east, seven to eight hours, which is the price of the western position and which we break properly with lunch and stops. Last night in the city, and a dinner that is not camp food.
Day 9: Departure. Transfer to the airport.
What is included
All accommodation, a good hotel in Ulaanbaatar and ger camps with private bathrooms in the countryside, full board outside the capital, a private vehicle with a Mongolian driver, an English-speaking guide throughout, all entries, the led riding, one private outdoor dinner and one picnic, the hot spring pool, a day-by-day document with real drive hours and the bathroom arrangement stated for every night, and a WhatsApp group with your specialist and our partner’s operations team, network permitting.
What we would change, and when
- Want the Gobi as well? Add three nights and a domestic flight south for the dunes and the cliffs. Nine becomes twelve, and the Gobi camps with private bathrooms are fewer.
- Want to fly rather than drive on day 8? There is no useful flight from Tsenkher. If the seven hour drive is the problem, we would replace Tsenkher with a second Orkhon valley base and shorten the return.
- Want it quieter still? Late August and early September. The camps are half empty, the light is better and the nights are colder.
- Naadam week? 11 to 13 July fills the country and it is the opposite of quiet. We would move your dates by a week either side.
Honest notes
Private bathrooms in gers are the exception, not the rule. This itinerary is routed specifically through camps that have them, which is why it is priced at our boutique tier and why the route looks slightly unusual. If you would rather save money and accept shared shower blocks, we will requote and the difference is significant.
Camp comfort is not hotel comfort even at the top. A ger is a felt tent with a stove and a door that does not lock. The good ones have a proper bed, a rug, a lamp and a bathroom. None of them have air conditioning, room service or soundproofing.
Nights are cold in every month and the stove goes out around two in the morning. This is worth knowing before it happens.
Day 8 is long. Seven to eight hours in a vehicle is the honest cost of ending in the west, and there is no flight that fixes it. We would rather tell you now than have you discover it on the day.
Camp food is simple and repetitive. Mutton, noodles, potatoes and soup. Two of the camps on this route cook noticeably better than that, and we choose them for it.
The season is short. Mid-June to mid-September. Outside it these camps are closed.
Built by our Southeast and Central Asia specialists, with our long-standing partner in Ulaanbaatar.
Related
Shape this trip around us All Mongolia, planned around a season that lasts four months trips
