How many days do you need in Mongolia?

Mongolia is about the size of Western Europe with roughly three and a half million people in it, most of them in one city. Between the places you want to see there is very little, and the tracks that connect them are travelled at 20 to 30 miles an hour (30 to 50 km/h). Ulaanbaatar to the Khongoryn Els dunes in the south Gobi is about 620 miles (1,000 km), of which most is not paved, and it is two long days by road.

So the question is not how many days you need. It is how many of them you are willing to spend in a vehicle, and what you are willing to fly over.

The rule we build to

Two long driving days back to back is our maximum, and we use a domestic flight wherever one exists that saves a whole day.

That rule is what turns the numbers below into real itineraries rather than lines on a map. It is also why our documents publish drive hours rather than distances: 200 miles (320 km) means nothing in Mongolia, and six hours means something specific.

Under eight days

Ulaanbaatar, Terelj, and one more thing.

This works if it is genuinely the time you have. Ulaanbaatar is worth a day and a half: the Gandan monastery with its 87 foot (26.5 m) gilded standing Buddha, the National Museum, which is the single most useful two hours of any Mongolia trip because it explains everything you see afterwards, and the Choijin Lama temple. Terelj is ninety minutes from the city, has granite outcrops, meadows and the most comfortable ger camps in the country, and gives you a genuine ger night without a driving day.

What it does not give you is the Gobi. Reaching it properly needs three or four nights and a flight, and squeezing that into a week leaves you flying in, driving hard and flying out.

Verdict: possible, honest, and not the Mongolia in the photographs. If you have a week and a flexible year, we would build it next year at ten days.

Ten days

The classic, and the length that most first visits should take.

Ulaanbaatar and the National Museum. Then west by road to Kharkhorin and the Orkhon valley, about 230 miles (370 km) and mostly paved, five to six hours, for Erdene Zuu monastery, built in 1586 from the stones of the abandoned Mongol capital and walled by 108 stupas, and for the best riding country in the accessible part of the country.

Then back to the capital, and a domestic flight south to Dalanzadgad for three or four nights in the Gobi: the Yolyn Am gorge, which holds ice into July in a good year, the Khongoryn Els dunes, which run for about 110 miles (180 km) and rise to around 1,000 feet (300 m), and the Bayanzag red cliffs, where the first identified dinosaur eggs were found in the 1920s.

That flight is what makes ten days work. Without it you are driving two days each way and there is no trip left. Classic Mongolia in 10 days is the route written out.

Verdict: the right answer for most first visits, and the shape we build most.

Fourteen days

Two genuinely different options at this length, and they are not variations on each other.

The overland loop. South from Ulaanbaatar into the Gobi, west along the desert to the dunes, north out of the sand into the Arkhangai hills for the Khorgo volcano, Terkhiin Tsagaan lake at about 6,700 feet (2,040 m) and the Tsenkher hot springs, then back east. About 1,550 miles (2,500 km), most of it not on a road, and eleven days in a vehicle. Our repeat Mongolia clients choose this one. The route is here.

The Altai and horses. Fly three hours west to Bayan-Olgii, which is Kazakh rather than Mongol and mountain rather than steppe, spend five days riding and walking around the Tavan Bogd glaciers and the high lakes, and come back east for the Orkhon valley. Harder, colder, and the one people talk about afterwards.

Verdict: fourteen days is where Mongolia stops being a highlights trip. Choose the loop for landscape, the west for the mountains and the riding.

Twenty-one days

The only length that reaches all four of the countries inside Mongolia: the Gobi in the south, the Arkhangai hills in the centre, the larch forest and Lake Khovsgol in the north at about 5,400 feet (1,645 m), and Kazakh Bayan-Olgii in the far west.

It needs three or four domestic flights, and that is the risk as well as the enabler: thin seasonal schedules, small aircraft, a baggage allowance around 15 kg, and a real chance of a change. We build soft days in deliberately. The 21 day route is here.

Verdict: what Mongolia actually asks for, if you have it.

The three things that change the answer

Group size. Mongolia is priced on the vehicle, so four people pay much less per head than two. If your budget is the constraint on length, adding travelling companions moves it further than shortening the trip does. The cost article explains.

Flights. Each domestic flight buys back one to three driving days. On a short trip that is the difference between reaching the Gobi and not.

Tolerance for the vehicle. This is the honest one. Six to eight hours on tracks is a normal day in the Gobi and in the west. People who love Mongolia love exactly that. People who want to arrive somewhere should take a shorter trip with more flights in it, and we would rather build that than have them endure the long version.

What we would add first, with a spare three days

1. A third and fourth night in the Gobi. Most itineraries under-serve it and it is the reason most people came. What is actually out there.
2. The Arkhangai hills. Greener, higher, cooler and much less visited than the Gobi.
3. Lake Khovsgol. The best setting in the country, and it needs a flight to Murun plus three or four days.
4. A second night everywhere you currently have one. The single most underrated change to a Mongolia itinerary.

Plan this trip

Tell us how many days you have, how many of you there are and how much driving you can genuinely tolerate, and one of our Southeast and Central Asia specialists will tell you honestly what that buys. Free first outline, no obligation.

Start planning

Keep reading

• Mongolia: the complete guide to planning your trip
• The best two-week route in Mongolia
• The Gobi in detail
• What does a trip to Mongolia really cost?
• Classic Mongolia in 10 days
• All our Mongolia trips

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