Classic Kazakhstan in 10 days: Almaty, Charyn, Kolsai, Astana and Turkistan

Two decisions shape it. The first is that we fly rather than drive between regions, because Almaty to Astana is 750 miles (1,200 km) of flat steppe and a 1 hour 50 minute flight. The second is that Charyn canyon and the Kolsai lakes get an overnight rather than a day trip, which is the single biggest quality difference between this route and the standard Almaty operator version.

Who it suits: first-time visitors, couples, pairs of friends, and anyone who wants mountains, canyon, steppe and one great building in one trip. One walk of about four hours, everything else optional.

Your specialist: a named Kazakhstan specialist here, with our long-standing Almaty partner running the ground.

Day by day

Day 1: Arrive Almaty. Most flights land in the small hours or the early morning, and we hold the room from the previous night so you can sleep rather than wait. Nothing scheduled before the afternoon. A first walk in the evening along Panfilov Street and dinner we book, because Almaty’s restaurants are genuinely good and the hotel one is not the place to start.

Day 2: Almaty on foot. The Green Bazaar in the morning for the horse sausage, the dried fruit, the honey and the cheese, with someone who can explain what you are looking at. Panfilov Park and Zenkov’s wooden cathedral, built at the start of the twentieth century without nails and still standing after the earthquakes that flattened the rest of the city. The Central State Museum for the Golden Man of Issyk, a Saka warrior’s gold-plated burial suit from around the fourth century BC, which is the object the country puts on its currency. Afternoon free. Evening in the streets around Almaly for dinner.

Day 3: The mountains above the city. Twenty-five minutes to Medeu, the high-altitude skating rink in a gorge, then the cable car up to Shymbulak at about 7,400 feet (2,260 m) and the chairlift above it to the ridge. In the afternoon, Big Almaty Lake at about 8,200 feet (2,500 m), a turquoise reservoir in a bowl of peaks, reached by a road up a gorge that takes about an hour. This is the day that makes people understand what Almaty is: a city of two million with high mountains forty minutes from the centre.

Day 4: East to Charyn, and on to Saty. Three and a half hours east across the plain. Charyn canyon in the middle of the afternoon rather than at midday, walking the Valley of Castles end to end, about ninety minutes down and back, with the light on the red sandstone getting better as you go. Then two hours on to Saty village at about 5,900 feet (1,800 m). Guesthouse night, simple and warm, with dinner cooked by the family.

Day 5: Kaindy and Kolsai. Kaindy lake first, in the early morning, reached by 4×4 up a rough track: a lake formed by a landslide in 1911 with the bare trunks of a drowned spruce forest standing out of green water, which is one of the strangest things in Central Asia and which almost nobody sees before ten in the morning if they came from Almaty. Then the first Kolsai lake, and the walk up to the second at about 7,600 feet (2,300 m), roughly four hours return with real height gain and a good path. Second night at Saty.

Day 6: Back to Almaty, and fly to Astana. Five hours west, broken with lunch, arriving in the afternoon for the evening flight. One hour fifty minutes north. Two nights in Astana. If you would rather take the overnight Talgo train, which is comfortable and saves a hotel night, we will price it and we recommend it to people who like trains.

Day 7: Astana. The purpose-built capital. Bayterek tower on the central axis, the Khan Shatyr tent, Norman Foster’s Palace of Peace and Reconciliation, the Grand Mosque, and the National Museum, which is the best of the buildings for actual content. We give you a guide who will talk about why the capital was moved here in 1997 and what it was meant to do, because that conversation is what makes the day interesting rather than a walk past large buildings. Afternoon free, and there is a good modern restaurant scene in the older left-bank part of town.

Day 8: Fly to Shymkent, and on to Turkistan. Two and a half hours south by air, then two and a half hours by road, or the direct flight to Turkistan when the schedule allows. Afternoon at the mausoleum of Khoja Ahmed Yasawi: a fourteenth-century Timurid building left unfinished when Timur died, with the largest brick dome in Central Asia and a two-tonne bronze cauldron inside. It is the finest building in Kazakhstan and it is worth the flight. Late afternoon is the right light. Night in Turkistan.

Day 9: Turkistan and Sayram-Ugam, back to Shymkent. A second look at the mausoleum in the early morning when the pilgrims are there and the visitors are not, then the old citadel mound at Otrar or the Arystan Bab mausoleum on the way south. Afternoon in Shymkent, which is a working southern city with the best bazaar in the country, and an evening flight or the night train to Almaty.

Day 10: Almaty and departure. A last morning: the Arasan baths, the Kok-Tobe hill for the view, or the shops on Zhibek Zholy. Day room held if your flight is in the evening or the small hours, which most of them are.

What is included

Nine nights of accommodation with breakfast, including two in a Saty guesthouse, two internal flights, a private car with an English-speaking driver on every day of travel, 4×4 vehicles on the Kaindy and Big Almaty Lake roads, licensed English-speaking guides on six days, all park fees and site entries, the Shymbulak cable car, a day-by-day document with honest drive times, and a WhatsApp group with your consultant and our Almaty partner team for the whole trip.

What we would change, and when

• Not interested in a purpose-built capital? Drop Astana and use those two days at Altyn Emel instead, with the Singing Dune and the Aktau coloured hills. Several of our travellers make that swap and none has regretted it.
• Have four more days? Add Mangystau, flying to Aktau, for chalk escarpments, the Bozjyra tract and the underground mosques. It is the most extraordinary part of the country and it needs its own four days in 4x4s.
• Travelling in April? The mountains are still closed and the tulips are out. We rebuild the route around Aksu-Zhabagly, Turkistan and Almaty, and we say plainly that Kolsai is not in it.
• Want to add a country? Kyrgyzstan is four hours by road from Almaty. Our 14-day route does exactly that.

Honest notes

Charyn and Kolsai are not a day trip. Almost every operator in Almaty sells them as one, and the result is twelve to fourteen hours in a vehicle to stand at a canyon rim at midday. The night at Saty costs one extra guesthouse night and changes the whole experience. This is the single strongest recommendation in this document.

Astana divides people and we will not pretend otherwise. It is a capital moved to a steppe town in 1997 and built almost entirely since. Some travellers find that genuinely fascinating as an exercise in nation-building and spend two days on it happily. Others find the boulevards empty and the scale inhuman and wish they had stayed in the mountains. We will ask you which you think you are before we finalise the route.

Much of Kazakhstan is flat and stays flat. The steppe is a real landscape with a real effect on people, but it is not scenery in the sense of a viewpoint every twenty minutes. If you need constant visual variety, this is the wrong country and we would rather tell you now.

Saty is a village guesthouse and nothing more. Clean, warm, hospitable, a shared bathroom in some houses, and a set dinner. There is no premium option at Kolsai and paying more does not produce one.

Internal flights are the correct answer. We know some travellers dislike them on principle. Driving Almaty to Astana is a full day on a straight road across flat ground, and the train is the only land alternative we would recommend.

Built by your named Kazakhstan specialist.

Related

• Kazakhstan: the complete guide
• Boutique Kazakhstan in 10 days
• Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, 14 days