Boutique Kazakhstan in 10 days: four places worth the rate
The honest position first. Kazakhstan does not have a boutique hotel circuit. Almaty has a genuinely good set of hotels, several of them small and designed with some thought, and Astana has international business towers. Outside those two cities the market is guesthouses, park lodges and, in the des
- Duration
- 10 days
- Pace
- Relaxed
- Hotel changes
- 4
- Best months
- May, Jun, Sep
- From
- $3,300 per person
That is not a problem if the trip is built around it, and it is a disaster if it is not. What we do here is spend properly where spending buys something: three nights in the best small hotel in Almaty, two at a mountain lodge with the range in front of it, three in a private mobile camp in the Mangystau desert with a crew and a cook, and one in a courtyard house at Turkistan. Four places, four hotel changes, and no night that is simply somewhere to sleep between drives.
Who it suits: travellers who care where they sleep and are willing to accept that in one of the four places it is a tent, because the tent is in the best landscape in the country. Optional walking throughout.
Your specialist: a named Kazakhstan specialist here, with our long-standing Almaty partner running the ground.
Day by day
Days 1 to 3: Almaty. Three nights in a small hotel in the centre, chosen for the building and the service rather than the brand, with the room held from the night before because the flight lands at four in the morning.
Day one is arrival and an early dinner. Day two is the city: the Green Bazaar in the morning, Zenkov’s wooden cathedral, the Golden Man at the Central State Museum, an afternoon at the Arasan baths, and dinner at one of the modern Kazakh kitchens that have made Almaty a genuine eating city in the last decade. Day three goes up into the mountains: Shymbulak by cable car to about 7,400 feet (2,260 m) and Big Almaty Lake at about 8,200 feet (2,500 m).
Days 4 and 5: The Tien Shan lodge. East to Charyn canyon in the late afternoon, walking the Valley of Castles when the light is right and the coaches have gone, then on to a lodge in the mountains near Saty. Day five is unstructured: Kaindy lake in the early morning with the drowned spruce trunks standing out of the water, the first Kolsai lake, or a horse day with a local family. Dinner at the lodge both nights.
Day 6: Back to Almaty, fly to Aktau. The drive west in the morning, an afternoon in the city, and the evening flight across the country to the Caspian, three and a half hours. Night in Aktau.
Days 7 to 9: Mangystau. Three nights in a private mobile camp with a crew, a cook and proper tents with beds, moved each day so that you wake up in a different landscape.
Bozjyra first: a chalk escarpment with free-standing peaks below it, which is the image of Kazakhstan that people who know the country use. Then Sherkala, an isolated massif that looks like a tent from one side and a lion from the other, and the valley of stone spheres at Torysh. Then the underground mosques cut into the rock at Beket-Ata and Shopan-Ata, which are live pilgrimage sites and the reason to have a guide who knows how to behave in them. Between those, chalk canyons, salt flats, and a coastline that almost nobody photographs.
This is the best landscape in Kazakhstan and it is reached in 4x4s with spare fuel and satellite communication. It is also, at this level, comfortable: a proper bed, a shower tent, a cook and a table with a cloth on it in the middle of a desert.
Day 10: Aktau, and out. Back to the coast in the morning, a shower and a hotel day room, and the flight to Almaty for the international connection.
Alternative if you would rather not camp
Replace Mangystau with Turkistan and Shymkent. Fly to Shymkent instead, stay two nights in a courtyard house at Turkistan for the Khoja Ahmed Yasawi mausoleum, and two in the Sayram-Ugam foothills. It is a comfortable route with a roof every night, it contains the best building in the country, and it is a less remarkable trip than the desert. We will say that when we send it, and we will build whichever you choose properly.
What is included
Nine nights of accommodation, including three in a private mobile desert camp with a crew and a cook, two internal flights, private vehicles with English-speaking drivers throughout, 4×4 vehicles and a support vehicle in Mangystau, licensed English-speaking guides on six days, all park permits and desert access paperwork, the Shymbulak cable car, the Arasan baths, booked dinners in Almaty, satellite communication in the desert, a day-by-day document, and a WhatsApp group with your consultant and our Almaty partner team for the whole trip.
What we would change, and when
- Want both the desert and Turkistan? Add three days. It is a thirteen-day route with three internal flights and it works.
- Want Astana? We will add two nights and we will ask first whether a purpose-built capital is your kind of city, because on a boutique route the two nights would otherwise go to the mountains or the desert, and most of our travellers prefer them there.
- Travelling in July or August? Mangystau is very hot and we do not run desert camps then. The route becomes Almaty, the Tien Shan and Turkistan, and we will say plainly that you are missing the best part.
- Travelling in winter? Almaty and Shymbulak only, with skiing and the baths and the restaurants. Everything else on this route is closed or unpleasant.
Honest notes
Three of your ten nights are in a tent. A good tent, with a bed, bedding, a shower tent and a cook, moved by a crew who do this for a living. It is not a hotel and there is no hotel in Mangystau worth the flight. If sleeping under canvas is not acceptable, take the alternative route above, and do it without embarrassment, because it is a reasonable preference.
Mangystau is remote in a way that matters. Fuel and mobile coverage are hours apart. We run two vehicles and satellite communication as standard rather than as an upsell, and we will not send a single car into the Bozjyra area.
The mountain lodge near Saty is good rather than luxurious. It is the best building at the Kolsai lakes and it is a lodge in a village, not a resort. The premium you can pay in Almaty does not exist there.
Almaty is where the money buys something. The hotels, the restaurants and the baths are all genuinely good and inexpensive by international standards. Three nights is right; four is comfortable.
The underground mosques are live pilgrimage sites. People come to Beket-Ata to pray, sometimes after a long journey. Modest dress, no photography where it is asked for, and a guide who will tell you when to stand back.
Built by your named Kazakhstan specialist.
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