What we would skip in Mongolia

That is why this list matters here more than it does in most countries. The discipline that makes a Mongolia trip good is subtraction, and almost every itinerary we are asked to review has too much in it.

Here is what we would take out.

1. Driving to the Gobi instead of flying

Ulaanbaatar to the Khongoryn Els dunes is about 620 miles (1,000 km), of which most is not paved. Two long days each way.

On a ten day trip, that is four of your days spent getting to and from one place. The domestic flight to Dalanzadgad costs a fare and buys back all four.

Skip the drive unless you have fourteen days and you specifically want the overland transition from gravel to grass, which is a real reason and the basis of our two-week route. Otherwise fly.

2. Two nights in the Gobi

The most common under-service in Mongolian itineraries. Two nights means one day arriving and one day leaving, and the dunes reduced to a single sunset climb.

Skip the two-night version. Three nights minimum, four if you can, with a full day at the dunes. What is actually out there explains why the fourth night is the one that changes the trip.

3. A third and fourth day in Ulaanbaatar

The capital is worth a day and a half and it is not the reason you came. Gandan monastery, the National Museum, which is genuinely good and explains everything you see afterwards, the Choijin Lama temple, and an evening. Then a final night at the end, because the domestic flights move and that night absorbs it.

Beyond that, itineraries fill the time with a dinosaur museum, a memorial hill, a cashmere factory tour and a folklore show. None of those is bad. All of them are a day you could have spent in the countryside.

Skip the extra days. Add them to the Gobi or to the Orkhon valley.

4. The Chinggis Khaan statue as a destination

The 131 foot (40 m) stainless steel horseman at Tsonjin Boldog, with a lift up through the body and out onto the horse’s head, is exactly as strange as it sounds and it is a genuinely good twenty minutes.

It is not a half-day excursion from Ulaanbaatar and back, which is how it is frequently sold.

Skip the dedicated trip. Stop there on the way to Terelj, which is where it sits anyway.

5. Crossing the whole country in ten days

We are shown itineraries that take in the Gobi, Kharkhorin, Lake Khovsgol in the north and Bayan-Olgii in the far west inside ten or twelve days. They exist because the map makes it look plausible.

Ulaanbaatar to Olgii is 1,000 miles (1,600 km). Nobody drives that on holiday, and doing it by air means three or four domestic flights on thin seasonal schedules with small aircraft, a baggage allowance around 15 kg and a real chance of a change.

Skip the national tour. Pick two regions for ten days, three for fourteen, and take twenty-one days if you want all four. How many days you need sets out what each length buys.

6. The far west on a first ten day trip

Bayan-Olgii is Kazakh rather than Mongol, Muslim rather than Buddhist, mountain rather than steppe, and it is three hours by air followed by six to seven hours of 4×4 tracks to reach the good parts, where you sleep in tents.

It is one of the best things we sell and it needs at least five days to justify the flying.

Skip it on a first short trip. It is the obvious answer for a second one, and it fits properly inside fourteen or twenty-one days.

7. Naadam in Ulaanbaatar, if you wanted the countryside

The national festival on 11 to 13 July is a genuine spectacle and the opening ceremony at the stadium is worth seeing once. It is also crowded, ticketed, hot, and much of the day is spent watching from a distance.

And it fills every bed in the country. City hotels sell out months ahead, rates rise, and the effect ripples out to countryside camps because domestic travel peaks in the same week.

Skip the stadium if what you actually want is the wrestling up close. Provincial towns hold their own naadams in the days around the national one, on a scale where you stand at the edge of the ring and the horses come past close enough to hear. Better still, do the opening ceremony and then leave the city while everyone else is still in it.

Skip the second week of July entirely if you want empty countryside and lower prices. Late August gives you the same itinerary for less. The cost article covers what Naadam week does to a quote.

8. Promises about eagle hunting in summer

Golden eagles are hunted with in winter, when there is snow and the foxes show against it. In summer you meet the families, handle the birds, see the equipment and understand the practice, which is a genuinely good morning.

You do not see a hunt in July.

Skip any operator who says otherwise. They are selling a photo session. If the hunting itself matters to you, the Golden Eagle Festival near Olgii on the first weekend of October is the honest answer, and it needs a shorter cold-weather trip built specifically around it.

9. Paying for luxury on every night

Mongolia has a small number of genuinely good lodges and they are worth using. It does not have a luxury tier that runs the length of a route, and a fully luxury itinerary spends a lot of money moving between the few properties that exist, which distorts the routing.

Skip the wall-to-wall upgrade. Put two or three of the best nights after the longest drives, take good camps with private bathrooms where they exist, and accept that in some places the good camp and the simple camp are the same camp. We say so rather than charging for a better name.

10. Chasing the Tsaatan reindeer herders as a day trip

The Tsaatan live in the taiga north of Lake Khovsgol and reaching their camps properly is a multi-day horse ride through forest and bog. It is a serious undertaking.

What is commonly sold instead is a visit to a summer camp within reach of the lake shore, which is a real family living a real life and which is not the taiga.

Skip the version that pretends otherwise. We will tell you honestly what is reachable in your dates and what it involves, and if you want the full journey we will build it as the expedition it is.

What we would never skip

For balance, the things we would defend against any cut:

• The National Museum on day two. Two hours that improve the following week.
• Four nights in the Gobi, with a full day at the dunes.
• The Orkhon valley, for Erdene Zuu and for the best accessible riding in the country.
• Ongi, on the northward leg, and the conversation with the monk there.
• A herder family afternoon, paid properly.
• The Tsenkher hot springs, placed late in a long overland route, which is the day that fixes everybody.

Plan this trip

Tell us what you want out of Mongolia and we will tell you honestly what to leave out. One of our Southeast and Central Asia specialists writes the first outline, with real drive hours and the bathroom stated for every night. Free, no obligation.

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Keep reading

• Mongolia: the complete guide to planning your trip
• The best two-week route in Mongolia
• The Gobi in detail
• How many days do you need in Mongolia?
• Classic Mongolia in 10 days
• All our Mongolia trips

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