What does a trip to Kyrgyzstan cost?
Kyrgyzstan is the least expensive country in our library and the one where money buys the least improvement. Both halves of that sentence matter, and together they explain almost everything about how a budget here behaves.
Everything below is land only, per person, based on two people sharing, and excludes international flights, which we quote separately. It covers accommodation, meals as specified, the vehicle and driver, guiding, entries and permits.
These are planning figures. Rates move year to year and camp pricing in particular moves with the season, so we confirm the current numbers for your exact dates in writing before anything is booked.
The four anchors
These are the per-day figures our specialists price against, and they are the same numbers used in our complete Kyrgyzstan guide.
| Style | What it looks like | Per person, per day |
|---|---|---|
| Careful | Guesthouses, shared yurts, a shared vehicle on some legs, light guiding | $105 |
| Comfortable | Good hotels in Bishkek and Karakol, private 4×4 and driver, a guide throughout | $170 |
| Boutique | The best beds this country has, private yurts, more guiding, better vehicle | $285 |
| Luxury | Top of what exists here, plus a helicopter or charter day | $470 |
A ten-day trip therefore runs from about $1,050 to about $4,700 per person, and a fourteen-day trip from about $1,470 to about $6,580.
The unusual thing about this table is the top half. In most countries the step from boutique to luxury buys a substantially better room. Here it mostly buys a helicopter, because the hotel stock at the top end is thin and above a certain point there is nothing more to buy. The step that genuinely transforms the trip is careful to comfortable, which is mainly the difference between sharing a vehicle and having your own.
The vehicle, which dominates the budget
This is the line that makes Kyrgyzstan different from the rest of our destinations. There is no useful passenger rail and domestic aviation is a handful of flights, principally Bishkek to Osh. Everything else is road, and road here often means gravel over a pass.
A private 4×4 with a driver runs roughly $120 to $170 a day depending on the vehicle and the route, fuel included. On a ten-day trip that is $1,200 to $1,700 for the vehicle.
Split between two people it is the largest single line in the budget. Split between four it is half that per person, and split between six in a minivan on the asphalt sections it is less again. This is the one lever in Kyrgyzstan that genuinely moves the number, and it is why a group of four friends travels here at close to guesthouse prices in a comfortable-tier trip.
A 4×4 is not an upgrade on the tracks to Song-Kul, Kel-Suu, Altyn Arashan and Tash Rabat. It is the vehicle those roads require, and a driver who knows them is worth more than the vehicle.
Accommodation, described properly
Rates below are planning ranges. Hotel and guesthouse rates are per room per night for two sharing. Yurt camps are per person, because that is how they are sold and because you may be sharing the yurt.
| Type | What you get | Rate |
|---|---|---|
| Guesthouse in Kochkor, Naryn, Arslanbob | A family home, three to six rooms, shared or private bathroom, a very large breakfast | $25 to $45 per room |
| Good hotel, Bishkek | Proper four star, restaurant, city centre | $70 to $120 per room |
| Boutique hotel, Bishkek | Small, particular, the best beds in the country | $130 to $200 per room |
| Hotel, Karakol | Comfortable small hotels, breakfast, walkable | $50 to $90 per room |
| Issyk-Kul lakeside, the good ones | Modern, on the shore, few of them, full in August | $90 to $170 per room |
| Soviet-era sanatorium | An experience rather than a hotel, and worth one night | $50 to $100 per room |
| Yurt camp, shared yurt, full board | Four to eight mattresses on the floor, outdoor long-drop, no shower | $30 to $50 per person |
| Yurt camp, private yurt, full board | The same camp, your own yurt | $60 to $100 per person |
Two notes on the yurt line. First, it includes dinner and breakfast, because there is nowhere else to eat on a jailoo. Second, the price gap between a good camp and a poor one is small, so we choose on the family running it and the position rather than on the rate. What a yurt night is actually like is described in Song-Kul and horse trekking.
Food
Cheap, plentiful and mostly good.
- Ashlan-fu, the Karakol cold noodle dish, at a market stall: $1 to $2
- Laghman at a town restaurant: $2 to $4
- Dinner in Karakol at a good place, with a beer: $8 to $15
- Dinner in Bishkek at a serious restaurant: $15 to $30
- Full board at a yurt camp: included in the camp rate
Budget $20 to $30 a day and you will eat well. Out on the jailoo you have no choice and no opportunity to spend, which is one of the reasons the careful tier works here. Detail in what to eat in Kyrgyzstan.
Guiding, horses and permits
A guide runs roughly $60 to $100 a day. We recommend a guide or a driver-guide throughout, and the reason is not signage. It is that what a guide adds at a yurt camp, translating a conversation with the family you are sleeping beside, is the difference between watching a way of life and taking part in one.
Horses cost about $20 to $35 a day for the horse, plus $25 to $40 for a horseman if you are riding out rather than pottering round the camp. A multi-day supported horse trek with a cook and pack animals runs higher, and is priced per group.
Border zone permits for Kel-Suu and parts of the Alay are inexpensive, perhaps $15 to $25 per person, and take days rather than hours to issue. The cost is trivial. The lead time is not, and it is a reason to plan a Kel-Suu trip early.
Three complete ten-day budgets
Each is ten days, per person, two people sharing, land only, on the northern route: Bishkek, Burana, Issyk-Kul, Karakol, Song-Kul.
The careful trip, about $1,050
Guesthouses and shared yurts, a shared vehicle on the long asphalt legs and a private 4×4 only for the Song-Kul days, a guide for four days rather than ten, half board in the guesthouses and full board at the camps.
| Line | Total |
|---|---|
| Accommodation, 9 nights | $270 |
| Food outside included meals | $200 |
| Transport, shared and part-private | $380 |
| Guiding, entries, horses, incidentals | $200 |
| Total | $1,050 |
Nothing here is a compromise on what you see. The compromise is on the vehicle, and on some days that means waiting for other people.
The comfortable trip, about $1,700
Good hotels in Bishkek and Karakol, a lakeside hotel on Issyk-Kul, guesthouses in Kochkor, two shared yurt nights at Song-Kul, and a private 4×4 with driver plus a guide for the whole trip.
| Line | Total |
|---|---|
| Accommodation, 9 nights | $520 |
| Food outside included meals | $260 |
| Private 4×4 and driver, share of $1,200 | $600 |
| Guide, ten days | $240 |
| Horses, entries, permits, incidentals | $80 |
| Total | $1,700 |
This is the shape of most Kyrgyzstan trips we build and it maps onto classic Kyrgyzstan in 10 days.
The boutique trip, about $2,850
The best hotel in Bishkek, the best lakeside property on Issyk-Kul, the best small hotel in Karakol, a private yurt at Song-Kul, a better vehicle, a senior guide and a horse day with a horseman.
| Line | Total |
|---|---|
| Accommodation, 9 nights | $1,150 |
| Food outside included meals | $400 |
| Private 4×4 and driver | $700 |
| Senior guide, ten days | $450 |
| Private yurt supplement, horses, extras | $150 |
| Total | $2,850 |
Boutique Kyrgyzstan in 10 days is this written out, including the one deliberate exception where we put you in a shared yurt anyway because the alternative is worse.
What actually moves the number
- How many people share the vehicle. Four instead of two takes roughly $300 per person out of a ten-day comfortable trip. Nothing else comes close.
- The month. July and August rates on the Issyk-Kul shore run well above June or September. The rest of the country barely moves. Kyrgyzstan month by month has the detail.
- Private yurts. A supplement of $30 to $60 per person per night, and worth it for some travellers and pointless for others.
- Trip length, in a good way. The vehicle is the fixed cost, so days eleven to fourteen cost less per day than days one to ten. Fourteen days is better value per day than ten, which is one of several arguments in the best two weeks in Kyrgyzstan.
What you cannot buy here
Worth saying plainly, because it prevents disappointment.
There is no five-star hotel on Song-Kul and there will not be one. There is no luxury tented camp of the East African kind. There is no road that makes the drive to Kel-Suu smooth. Above the boutique tier, what money buys in Kyrgyzstan is a helicopter to skip a drive, a charter flight to Osh, a private yurt and a better guide. It does not buy a better mountain, and the mountain is what you came for.
Plan this trip
Tell us your dates and how many of you there are, because in Kyrgyzstan the second number changes the price more than the first. Free first proposal, no obligation.
Keep reading
- Kyrgyzstan: the complete guide to planning your trip
- How many days do you need in Kyrgyzstan?
- Kyrgyzstan month by month
- Song-Kul and horse trekking, honestly
- Classic Kyrgyzstan in 10 days
- All our Kyrgyzstan trips
Frequently asked questions
Is Kyrgyzstan cheap?
Do these figures include flights?
How far ahead should we book?
When do you confirm the real numbers?
Plan a trip to Kyrgyzstan, a country with a four-month door All Kyrgyzstan, a country with a four-month door trips
