Boutique Mongolia: 10 days in the best ger camps
Mongolia has a very flat hotel market outside Ulaanbaatar. Most tourist ger camps are close to identical: a ring of gers, a dining hall, a shared shower block, a generator that runs in the evening. They are perfectly fine and there are hundreds of them.
- Duration
- 10 days
- Pace
- Relaxed
- Hotel changes
- 5
- Best months
- Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep
- From
- $3,900 per person
Then there is a small group, perhaps a dozen in the whole country, where somebody has thought about it. Private bathrooms attached to each ger, insulated floors, proper beds, a cook who is not working from the same four dishes, staff who stay year after year, and a location chosen for the view rather than for the road. This itinerary routes through those, in the order that makes geographic sense.
The route is shorter than the classic because the good camps are not evenly distributed, and it uses a flight to reach the Gobi rather than driving two days to it.
Who it suits: travellers who want Mongolia without giving up comfort entirely, and anyone who has read about shared shower blocks and hesitated.
Your specialist: Osnat Angerman or Paz Prosianoy, our Southeast and Central Asia specialists, working with our long-standing partner in Ulaanbaatar.
Day by day
Day 1: Arrive Ulaanbaatar. An hour from the airport into the city. A good hotel and nothing else.
Day 2: Ulaanbaatar, then Terelj. Gandan monastery and the National Museum in the morning, which is the two hours that make the rest of the week make sense. Then ninety minutes east past the Chinggis Khaan statue at Tsonjin Boldog to Terelj. The Terelj camps are the most comfortable in the country and the granite outcrops behind them are the reason.
Day 3: Terelj. Walking to Aryabal, riding on the meadow, or a day of nothing. The camps here have private bathrooms, hot water that works, and a kitchen that can cook.
Day 4: Terelj to the Orkhon valley. Five hours west, mostly paved, with a stop at Khustai National Park for the takhi horses. Arrive at a valley camp for two nights.
Day 5: Kharkhorin and the Orkhon valley. Erdene Zuu monastery in the morning, 1586, ringed by 108 stupas. Afternoon riding to the waterfall, or walking the river, or a laid picnic in the valley.
Day 6: Orkhon valley to Ulaanbaatar. Five to six hours east with a stop at the Elsen Tasarkhai dunes. Night in the city and a proper dinner.
Day 7: Fly to the Gobi. A short flight to Dalanzadgad and a drive to the best of the Gobi lodges, which sits on its own among rock outcrops. Afternoon at Yolyn Am, the ice gorge in the Gurvan Saikhan mountains, walked in about ninety minutes each way on a flat path.
Day 8: The Gobi, Bayanzag. A morning at leisure at the lodge and an afternoon at the red cliffs where the first identified dinosaur eggs were found in the 1920s, timed for the light at the end of the day. Dinner outside if the wind allows.
Day 9: The Gobi, then fly back. A morning drive out to a camel herding family and the gravel plain, then to the airstrip and the flight north. Last night in Ulaanbaatar, which is also the buffer if the flight moves.
Day 10: Departure. Transfer to the airport.
What is included
All accommodation at the best hotel in Ulaanbaatar and at ger camps with private bathrooms throughout the countryside, full board outside the capital, both domestic flights, a private vehicle with a Mongolian driver, an English-speaking guide throughout, all park and museum entries, the riding, the camel herding visit, one laid picnic, a day-by-day document with real drive hours and the exact bathroom arrangement stated for every night, and a WhatsApp group with your specialist and our partner’s operations team, network permitting.
What we would change, and when
- Want the Khongoryn Els dunes? They are four to five hours west of the good Gobi lodge on tracks, and the camps out there are simpler. Add two nights and accept one or two shared bathroom nights, or do it as a very long day.
- Want the north? Lake Khovsgol has two or three camps of this standard and needs a separate flight. Add four days.
- Want the same route cheaper? Substituting standard camps for two of the countryside nights moves the trip toward our comfortable tier. We will price both and you can see the difference.
- Travelling in Naadam week? 11 to 13 July. The good camps and the good Ulaanbaatar hotels go first and rates rise. Book six to nine months out or move your dates.
Honest notes
A good camp is still a felt tent. Insulated floor, proper bed, a bathroom you walk into rather than across a field to, and a stove. It is not a hotel room. There is no air conditioning, no soundproofing and no lock on the door. Wind and rain are loud.
Even here, the stove goes out at night. Camps light it at dusk and often relight it before dawn. In between, the temperature drops sharply. Warm sleeping layers, in every month.
Private bathrooms mean hot water at scheduled hours in some camps. The water is heated by a boiler or a generator and it is not on all night.
The driving is the same driving. A better camp at the end of it does not smooth the track. Day 4 and day 6 are five to six hours each, and the Gobi legs are on gravel.
Domestic flights are the weak point. Small aircraft, thin seasonal schedules, roughly 15 kg of baggage and a real chance of a change. Day 9 is soft on purpose.
There are not enough of these camps to build any route you like. This itinerary is shaped by where the good camps are, which is why it visits Terelj, the Orkhon valley and one part of the Gobi rather than a wider loop. If your priority is the landscape rather than the bed, the classic route sees more.
The season is short. Mid-June to mid-September, and the best camps open latest and close earliest.
Built by our Southeast and Central Asia specialists, with our long-standing partner in Ulaanbaatar.
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