Kazakhstan with children

Is it safe? Yes, comfortably. Is the food a problem? No. Is anything medically demanding? No. Will the children be bored? Only if you put them in a vehicle for six hours to see a canyon.

It is a genuinely good family destination with one severe constraint, and every family trip that goes wrong here goes wrong the same way: an itinerary built for adults, with adult tolerance for distance, handed to a nine-year-old.

Start with the distances, because they decide everything

Kazakhstan is about 1,050,000 square miles (2,725,000 km2), the ninth largest country on earth, larger than all of Western Europe together. Almaty and Astana are roughly 750 miles (1,200 km) apart. Inside a region, the drives are still long.

Our planning rules for a family route are stricter than for an adult one:

• No single drive over about three and a half hours.
• No more than one long transfer in any three days.
• Nothing reached by a round trip of more than five hours in a day.
• Two nights minimum everywhere, three where we can.

Applied honestly, those rules produce a ten-day trip with three bases. That is the whole design, and everything below follows from it.

What works, and why

Almaty itself. More than parents expect. The city sits at about 2,600 feet (790 m) with peaks over 13,000 feet (4,000 m) directly above it, and it is green, walkable and full of parks. Panfilov Park with Zenkov’s wooden cathedral, built without a single nail, is twenty minutes with children who like a good fact. The Central State Museum has the Golden Man of Issyk, a warrior’s burial suit of four thousand gold plates. The Green Bazaar is a good hour: dried fruit to taste, mountains of nuts, sweets, and the theatre of it.

The cable cars and the rink. Medeu is an outdoor speed skating rink at 5,550 feet (1,690 m), skateable in winter under mountains. Above it, the Shymbulak gondola climbs to about 10,500 feet (3,200 m) in three stages. Kok Tobe, the hill above the city, has its own cable car, a small fairground and a view. Three cable cars and a skating rink in one city is a strong hand at any age.

Big Almaty Lake. An hour of switchbacks to a turquoise lake at 8,200 feet (2,500 m) in a bowl of mountains. Short drive, immediate visible payoff, no long walk required to earn it.

Kaindy. The best single thing in Kazakhstan for a child, and it is a story rather than a view: an earthquake in 1911 knocked a mountainside into a valley, dammed a river and drowned a spruce forest, and the dead trunks are still standing out of the water a century later. You drive to within ten minutes of it.

The Singing Dune at Altyn Emel. A 500-foot (150 m) sand ridge on gravel plain that hums audibly when dry sand slides down its face. You climb it, you run down it, it makes a noise. Close to a perfect family sight.

The first Kolsai lake. Vehicle to the shore, an easy hour along the water, horses with handlers available. No walking required.

Horses. Riding is ordinary here rather than a tourist activity, handlers are competent, and an hour on a horse at a guesthouse is often the thing a child talks about afterwards.

The food. Genuinely easy. Plov, laghman noodles, manti dumplings, samsa pastries, grilled meat, bread, cucumber and tomato salad, and quantities of dried apricot and walnut from the bazaar. Nothing is spicy: Central Asian cooking uses cumin and dill rather than chilli. The full picture is in what to eat in Kazakhstan.

What does not work

Astana with children. We would skip it. It is a purpose-built capital designed to be looked at, with a long ceremonial axis, wide roads and very little for a child to do in it, plus two flights to get there and back. Adults split on Astana. Children do not. If it matters to you, one night, not two.

Charyn as a day trip. Seven hours of driving for two hours in a canyon. As part of the drive east to Saty it is excellent. As a round trip from Almaty with children it is the worst day of the holiday.

Mangystau. We do not build the Caspian desert for families with younger children. It is five to six hours a day on rough track in a 4×4, no shade, no mobile coverage, simple guesthouses or tents, and a long way from help. For teenagers who like that sort of thing it can be extraordinary. For anyone under about fourteen it is endurance with a view.

The Kolsai two-lake walk, for younger children. Roughly 5 miles (8 km) each way with 1,600 feet (500 m) of ascent. Fine from around ten upwards. Below that, do the first lake and take a horse. The honest version is in walking the Kolsai lakes and Kaindy.

Internal flights stacked up. Every flight costs a family most of a day once you count the transfer, the wait and the recovery. One in ten days is comfortable. Three is a bad holiday.

The route we build

Ten days, three bases, one internal flight at most. This is our family route and the shape is:

Nothing in there is over four hours in a vehicle. There is a pool at both ends, one guesthouse stretch in the middle that children usually like more than the hotels, and one desert section that ends before it stops being fun.

Ages, honestly

Under five. Almaty and its mountains only, inside a two-hour radius of the city. A good week, and not a Kazakhstan trip.

Five to nine. The route above works well. Cable cars, the dune, the drowned forest, horses. Skip the Kolsai walk above the first lake.

Ten to thirteen. The best age for this country. Everything above plus the walk to the second Kolsai lake, longer riding, and enough curiosity for the Golden Man and the bazaar.

Fourteen and over. Mangystau and the trekking become real options, and a two-week route with the desert in it is on the table, as in the best two-week route through Kazakhstan.

Practical notes for families

• Accommodation. Almaty has a full international hotel market and family rooms are easy. Saty has village guesthouses: clean, warm, twin rooms, sometimes a shared bathroom, and a family who eat with you. That is the whole market, with no premium option at any price.
• Altitude. Nothing on a family route requires acclimatisation. Big Almaty Lake at 8,200 feet (2,500 m) and the top of the Shymbulak gondola at about 10,500 feet (3,200 m) are the highest points, and both are short visits.
• Car seats. Available, specified in the vehicle brief, and we ask for ages at the quoting stage rather than at the airport.
• Language. Russian and Kazakh. English is common among young people in Almaty and thin elsewhere, including with drivers, which is one reason we put a guide on the days that need one.
• Cash. Cards work throughout Almaty and Astana. At Saty and in the villages, carry tenge.
• Season. July to early September for the mountains and the lakes. June is good and quieter. Winter works only as an Almaty and skiing trip, which Medeu and Shymbulak make a genuinely strong family week.

What it costs

Land only, per person, two sharing, excluding international flights. Children sharing a family room usually price below the adult figure and we quote it properly rather than assuming.

For families we usually recommend the comfortable tier, because the money goes into a private vehicle and driver throughout, which is what actually makes the days work. The full arithmetic is in what a trip to Kazakhstan costs.

Related

• Kazakhstan: the complete guide to planning your trip
• Kazakhstan with children, 10 days
• Almaty in three days
• How many days do you need in Kazakhstan?
• All our Kazakhstan trips

Frequently asked questions