Romantic Kazakhstan in 8 days: mountains, a canyon and a lake

What it does have, if you want a trip that is about being somewhere rather than being looked after, is one of the best-sited cities in Asia with high mountains at the end of the street, a red canyon that empties in the late afternoon, and a chain of alpine lakes where the accommodation is a village house and the evening is a fire and a sky with nothing in the way of it.

So this is a short route with three bases, no internal flights, and no day that requires you to be anywhere at a particular time except sunset.

Who it suits: couples who would rather walk and eat well than sit by a pool, and anyone who wants the mountains without a trek. Two walks, both optional, neither more than four hours.

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 one of the small design hotels in the centre rather than a business tower, with the room held from the night before because the flight lands at four in the morning.

Day one is nothing at all. Day two is the city slowly: the Green Bazaar in the morning, Zenkov’s wooden cathedral in Panfilov Park, the Golden Man at the Central State Museum, and an afternoon at the Arasan baths, which is the closest thing to a spa tradition the country has and is a proper one. Dinner is the reason to give Almaty three nights: the modern Kazakh restaurant scene here is doing serious work with steppe meat, wild herbs and Caspian fish, at prices that would be absurd in Europe. We book three tables and tell you which is which.

Day three goes up: the cable car to Shymbulak at about 7,400 feet (2,260 m), the chairlift to the ridge, and Big Almaty Lake at about 8,200 feet (2,500 m) in the afternoon, an hour up a gorge on a road that gets better the higher it goes.

Day 4: East to Charyn, and on to Saty. A late start and three and a half hours east. Charyn canyon in the last three hours of daylight, which is when the red sandstone does what it is supposed to do and when the coaches have gone. Walk the Valley of Castles down to the river, about ninety minutes there and back. Then two hours to Saty, a village at about 5,900 feet (1,800 m) below the Kolsai lakes, and a guesthouse dinner cooked by the family you are staying with.

Days 5 and 6: The Kolsai lakes. Two full days and no schedule. Day five is Kaindy in the early morning, up a rough track, where the trunks of a spruce forest drowned by a 1911 landslide still stand out of the water, and then the first Kolsai lake in the afternoon with a rowing boat. Day six is the walk up to the second lake at about 7,600 feet (2,300 m), four hours return through spruce forest, with lunch at the top and nobody else there after ten in the morning. Or a day on horseback with a local family, which is the better version if you both ride.

Two nights in the same guesthouse. We choose the best house in the village and we will describe it honestly, which means clean, warm, wooden, family-run, and simple.

Day 7: Back to Almaty. Five hours west, broken with lunch. Afternoon at the hotel, an evening at Kok-Tobe for the view over the city with the mountains behind, and a last dinner at whichever of the three tables you liked most.

Day 8: Departure. A free morning and a day room, because almost every long-haul flight out of Almaty leaves after midnight.

What is included

Seven nights of accommodation with breakfast, including three in a small Almaty hotel chosen for character and two in the best guesthouse at Saty, a private car with an English-speaking driver on every day of travel, a 4×4 on the Kaindy and Big Almaty Lake roads, licensed English-speaking guides on three half days rather than four full ones, the Shymbulak cable car, the Arasan baths, three booked dinners in Almaty, all park permits and entries, 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

• Celebrating something? Tell us. A table on the ridge at Shymbulak, a private boat on the first Kolsai lake at dawn, or a dinner cooked outdoors at Saty are all straightforward for our partner to arrange and none of them is expensive.
• Want a genuine luxury week? Then Almaty for five nights and day trips out, because the good rooms are all in the city. It is a less interesting trip and we will say so, but we will build it well.
• Want the desert? Mangystau on the Caspian is the most extraordinary landscape in the country and it is camping and 4x4s. Some couples want exactly that. Add four days and we will build it.
• Travelling in winter? Almaty and Shymbulak for skiing, plus the Arasan baths and the restaurants, is a genuinely romantic and very cheap week. Kolsai is not accessible and we would not pretend otherwise.

Honest notes

The good rooms are in Almaty and nowhere else on this route. Saty is a village guesthouse. It is clean, warm, wooden and hospitable, with a shared bathroom in some houses and a set dinner rather than a menu. There is no premium option at Kolsai, and this is the country rather than a compromise we failed to negotiate. Couples who understand that before they book have a wonderful two days there. Couples who expected a lodge do not.

There is no beach and no resort. The Caspian coast is a working oil region and the lakes are cold. If what you want from a honeymoon is a pool and a spa menu, this is the wrong country and we would rather say so than sell you a disappointment.

Charyn in the late afternoon is a different place from Charyn at noon, which is why day four starts late. It also means arriving at Saty after dark, which is fine and which we mention so it is not a surprise.

Almaty flights arrive and depart in the middle of the night. We hold rooms at both ends. It costs two extra part-nights and it is the difference between starting the trip rested and starting it in a lobby.

Built by your named Kazakhstan specialist.

Related

• Kazakhstan: the complete guide
• Boutique Kazakhstan in 10 days
• Classic Kazakhstan in 10 days