Kyrgyzstan with children, 10 days: horses, a lake and one night in a yurt
Kyrgyzstan is a better family destination than its reputation suggests, for one reason: everything children like about it is outdoors and free. Horses, a lake you can swim in, animals everywhere, space to run in, and families who will hand your child a bowl of something and get on with the milking.
- Duration
- 10 days
- Pace
- Relaxed
- Hotel changes
- 4
- Best months
- Jun, Jul, Aug
- From
- $1,700 per person
Four hotel changes in ten days, no drive longer than four hours, a whole week based on Issyk-Kul with day trips, and one yurt night rather than three.
Who it suits: families with children roughly six and up. Under six is possible but the drives get hard and the altitude is a bigger ask.
Your specialist: Osnat Angerman or Paz Prosianoy, our Southeast and Central Asia specialists, working with our long-standing partner in Bishkek.
The season. Kyrgyzstan is open for about four months, roughly June to September. Outside it the high passes close and the yurt camps are taken down and stored, so a family trip here has to fit that window or become a different holiday.
The honest bits, up front. The single yurt night is a shared yurt with mattresses on the floor, an outdoor long-drop toilet and no shower. Most children find the long-drop either hilarious or unusable, and there is no way to know in advance which yours will be, so we place it as one night with a hotel the following evening. And we take this route to Kyrchyn rather than Song-Kul, because Kyrchyn sits around 7,200 feet (2,200 m) rather than 10,000 feet (3,000 m), and that difference matters a great deal to a nine-year-old.
Day by day
Day 1: Arrive Bishkek. Most flights land before dawn. A hotel with a pool, a late start, and an afternoon in the city parks, which are genuinely good: fountains, ice cream, a Soviet-era funfair that is a curiosity for adults and a straightforward good time for children. Two nights.
Day 2: Ala Archa. Forty minutes from the city into a glacial valley. A walk as long as your family wants it to be, from thirty minutes by the river to two hours up the valley, marmots on the slopes and a picnic. Back in the afternoon so nobody is out for eight hours on day two.
Day 3: Bishkek to Issyk-Kul, via Burana. Two hours to the Burana tower. Children can climb the internal spiral staircase, which is dark, steep and the highlight of the day, and the field of carved stone figures around it is a good place to be let loose. Then two and a half hours more to the north shore of the lake. Four nights here in one hotel, which is the structural decision that makes this itinerary work.
Day 4: The lake. Nothing scheduled. Issyk-Kul is around 68°F (20°C) in August, sandy in places on the north shore, and it is a swimming day. Boat trips are available. So is doing nothing.
Day 5: Grigorievka or Semyonovka gorge. An hour from the hotel, into a green side valley with a river, pine trees and horses for hire by the hour. Half a day of riding for anyone tall enough, walking for anyone not, and back to the lake for the afternoon.
Day 6: Cholpon-Ata and the petroglyphs. A morning at the open-air field of Bronze Age rock carvings, where the game is finding the ibex and the hunting scenes in the stones, which children are much better at than adults. Afternoon free at the lake.
Day 7: To the Kyrchyn jailoo. Two and a half hours up into the summer pasture above the lake, at around 7,200 feet (2,200 m). A family camp with horses, eagles, felt-making that involves rolling wool with your feet, and a demonstration of the horse games. Riding in the afternoon, dinner in the family yurt, and a night sky without a single light in it. One night in a shared yurt, with the long-drop and no shower.
Day 8: Kyrchyn to Karakol. Back down and two and a half hours east to Karakol, arriving for lunch. A hotel with hot showers, which after the yurt is the correct order of events. Afternoon at the animal market if it is Sunday, or the wooden cathedral and the Dungan mosque if not, and then the town’s ashlan-fu noodles, which most children eat happily. Two nights.
Day 9: Jeti-Oguz. An hour from Karakol into the red rock valley, an easy walk in the valley of flowers, a picnic and horses again. Back mid-afternoon.
Day 10: Karakol to Bishkek, or a night on the way. Six hours back along the north shore. This is the one long drive in the itinerary and we normally break it with a lunch stop and a swim, or add a final night at Issyk-Kul and drive the last three hours on day eleven. Depart Bishkek.
What is included
Accommodation throughout, family rooms or adjoining rooms where they exist, breakfast daily and full board at the yurt camp, a private vehicle with a driver sized to your family, an English-speaking guide who works with families regularly, all horse riding with a leader for younger children, helmets where they are available, the felt workshop, all entries, airport transfers, a day-by-day document with real drive hours, and a WhatsApp group with your specialist and our Bishkek partner.
What we would change, and when
- Children under six? We drop the yurt night entirely and do Kyrchyn as a long day trip from the lake, returning to the same hotel bed. Nothing is lost except the sky.
- Teenagers who want more? We swap two lake days for the Ala-Kul trail out of Karakol as a hard day walk, or add the Altyn Arashan track, which is two hours of being thrown around in a 4×4 and is remembered fondly for years.
- Travelling in June? The lake is colder, around 60°F (16°C), so we weight the days towards the gorges and the horses rather than swimming.
- Worried about the altitude? Kyrchyn at 7,200 feet (2,200 m) is low enough that we rarely see any effect at all. If you would rather avoid height entirely, the whole route works from the lake shore with day trips.
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