Ulaanbaatar is the trailhead. The country starts sixty kilometres out.
Which day trip actually reaches Terelj and the statue. What three days across Central Mongolia costs. Whether the Gobi repays two days of driving.
The statue, the wild horses, the dunes, and three days west.
Almost everything here leaves the capital after breakfast and comes back in the dark. These are the four travellers commit to before anything else.
01The full day eastGenghis Khan Statue NationalPark CamelRideForty metres of stainless-steel Chinggis at Tsonjin Boldog, then Gorkhi-Terelj and a camel on the way home. Eight hours, and the most-booked day in the country.
02The wild horsesDay tour to Hustai national parkTakhi grazing down the slopes at Hustai, ninety minutes west. They were extinct outside zoos until 1992 and several hundred range the hills now.
03Two days, one gerSemi Gobi and Ancient Kharkhorin TourSand at Elsen Tasarkhai and the stupa wall at Erdene Zuu, with a night under felt in between. The shortest trip that properly leaves the day-trip belt.
04Three days westCentral Mongolia Guided 3-Day TourKharkhorin, the old imperial capital and the grasslands around it, sleeping in ger camps. Where a week in Mongolia usually goes.
The eastern run, the western park, or a day inside the city.
Most visitors get one free day and spend it on the road east. Here is what each direction costs and roughly how long it takes.
Every Mongolian trip begins in the capital and then drives.
East to the statue and the granite at Terelj. West to the last wild horses and on to Kharkhorin. South to the Gobi, which is two days away and worth it. Six starting points, and the best day out from each.
Where everyone ends up: the statue, Terelj and the road west.
Every Mongolian tour →These fill up before anything else, and most of them run the same road east out of the city.
1
Genghis Khan Statue NationalPark CamelRide
Review of Ulaanbaatar’s Genghis Khan Statue and Terelj tour, with camel riding, eagle photos, lunch in a ger, and practical booking advice.
From · $86
Read our review →
2
Genghis Khan Statue Day Tour+National Park+Camel Ride+Eagle
from $49
3
Central Mongolia Guided 3-Day Tour
from $400
4
Small Group 3-Day Best of Central Mongolia Tour
from $425
5
Terelj national park transport /Best price tour
from $36
6
Chinggis Khaan Statue and Turtle Rock Day Tour
from $59
7
Semi Gobi and Ancient Kharkhorin Tour
from $270
8
Genghis Khan Tour – Mongolia’s #1 Daily Escape
from $49
A country still measured in horses.
There are more horses here than people, ridden short-stirruped and fast. Half-day treks out of the Terelj camps, camel strings across the Elsen Tasarkhai sand, and multi-day rides between gers with a herder out in front.
Ulaanbaatar: a gilded Janraisig, a wide square and the coldest winter of any capital.
The whole capital list →
The city is low, spread out and built against the cold. Give it a morning at Gandan, an afternoon in the museums and an evening at a concert hall. The rest of the country is a drive away, and the driving is the point.
Gandan, the square and the black market
Gandantegchinlen keeps a twenty-six-metre gilded Janraisig standing indoors, and Naran Tuul out on the eastern edge sells saddles, snuff bottles and deel by the rack. Most city days run both before lunch.
Choijin Lama, Aglag and the hill temples
The Choijin Lama temple survived as a museum when the rest did not, and Aglag sits an hour north in the forest with carvings set into the rock along the path up. Both stay open when the steppe camps have shut for winter.
A car and a driver for the day
There is no public transport worth planning a day around once you leave the city, and outside Ulaanbaatar the road is often just a set of tracks. A driver for the day is how most of this country actually gets seen.
Two days to the dunes, three to Kharkhorin, a week to the Gobi.
Past the day-trip belt the distances stop being reasonable and the trips get longer to match. Sand at Elsen Tasarkhai, the stupa wall at Erdene Zuu, and the Flaming Cliffs the better part of a thousand kilometres south.
- 1Central Mongolia Guided 3-Day Tourfrom $400
- 2Semi Gobi and Ancient Kharkhorin Tourfrom $270
- 3Semi-Gobi Desert Day Trip & Camel Ridefrom $175
The Chinggis Khaan statue is forty metres of steel, and you go up inside it.
Fifty-four kilometres east of the city, a stainless-steel Chinggis sits on a drum of thirty-six columns facing the place he is said to have found a golden whip. A lift and a short stair take you up through the horse’s mane onto a viewing deck on its head. Nearly every eastern day trip stops here.
Every trip to the statue →
Terelj is the steppe with granite dropped all over it.
Seventy kilometres out the grass gives way to weathered rock: Turtle Rock, the stair up to Aryabal, ger camps strung along the river and horses for hire at most of them. It is the closest thing to wilderness you can reach and get back from in a day.
- 1Terelj national park transport /Best price tourfrom $36
- 2Chinggis Khaan Statue and Turtle Rock Day Tourfrom $59
- 3A day trip to Terelj National Park and Statue of Chinggis Khanfrom $83
A wild horse, a wall of stupas and a house that folds up.
Grassland and desert run right across Central Asia. The last horse never domesticated, a monastery ringed by a hundred and eight stupas, and a family that will move home next month do not.
Hustai and the last wild horses
Przewalski’s horse is the only horse on earth never domesticated, and by the 1960s it survived nowhere but in zoos. Reintroduction to Khustain Nuruu began in 1992 with animals bred back from European stock, and several hundred now range the hills. They come down the slopes to graze at either end of the day, which is why the early and late departures see more of them than the ones in between.
- 1Day tour to Hustai national park★★★★★★★★★★ 4.2 · 22 reviews
- 2Day Trip to Hustai National Park★★★★★★★★★★ 3.8 · 21 reviews
- 31 Day Semi-Gobi Tour Including Lunch And Free Camel +Bonus Khustai National Park★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · 6 reviews
Erdene Zuu and the hundred and eight stupas
Kharkhorin stands on the site of Karakorum, the imperial capital raised in the 1230s and abandoned within forty years. What you walk around now is Erdene Zuu, begun in 1586 and built partly from the ruins, enclosed by a wall carrying a hundred and eight white stupas. Three temples of the original complex are left. It is a full day’s drive from the city, which is why nobody sensible tries it in one.
- 1Central Mongolia Guided 3-Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 186 reviews
- 2Small Group 3-Day Best of Central Mongolia Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.1 · 171 reviews
- 3Semi Gobi and Ancient Kharkhorin Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 114 reviews
A night under felt
A ger is a lattice wall under felt with a stove in the middle and the door facing south, and a family can take one down and put it back up between breakfast and lunch. A camp stay puts you on a bed inside one, usually with a bowl of airag poured whether you asked for it or not. The camps near Terelj are effectively hotels; the ones further west are somebody’s actual home.
- 1MONGOLIAN NOMADS: 2-Day Horse Trekking & Cow Milking Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 23 reviews
- 2Overnight Semi-Gobi Tour with Nomadic HomeStay★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 6 reviews
- 32D,1N Gobi desert and Old city Kharkhorum stay with Nomadic family★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 5 reviews
What a day out of Ulaanbaatar actually costs.
Every tour here grouped by price. The gap between a seat on a shared minibus and a jeep with a driver of your own is the biggest single decision on this page.
City mornings, the statue-and-Terelj coach runs and the shorter park days.
A private car east for the day, the two-day dune-and-monastery runs and the wild-horse trips.
Central Mongolia over three days, the Gobi, and long rides between ger camps.
- 1Central Mongolia Guided 3-Day Tourfrom $400
- 2Small Group 3-Day Best of Central Mongolia Tourfrom $425
- 3Semi Gobi and Ancient Kharkhorin Tourfrom $270
The dates Mongolia decides for you.
Most of this can be arranged from a guesthouse desk the evening before. These cannot: the season is short, the festival dates are fixed, and the long drives fill their vehicles early.
- 01Day tour to Hustai national parkThe takhi come down to graze at either end of the day, so the trips that actually see horses are the early and late departures rather than the ones in the middle.
- 02Semi Gobi and Ancient Kharkhorin TourA Gobi run is three to eight days with two of them spent driving, and the season is roughly May to early October. There is no joining one at short notice in winter.
- 037-Days Central Mongolia Tour and Ancient city in KharkhorinKharkhorin is a full day’s drive west, so every trip there is at least two days and the ger-camp night is booked before you leave.
- 04Genghis Khan Statue Day Tour+National Park+Camel Ride+EagleThe eagle hunters are in Bayan-Ölgii, a flight west across the whole country, and the October festival weekend goes months in advance.
The grass is green for about ten weeks.
Ulaanbaatar sits around twenty-five below through January and the steppe camps shut. Nearly everything on this page runs from June to September, peaks around Naadam in the second week of July, and thins out as soon as the nights start freezing in late August. Come outside that window and the city is still open.
Ulaanbaatar, the statue, Terelj, Kharkhorin: the order most first trips end up in.
Tsonjin Boldog
Gorkhi-Terelj
Kharkhorin
The GobiPlaces — the capital, and everything past it
Kinds of day — saddle, dune, monastery or market
Just added to the Mongolia list.
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Terelj National Park & Chinggis Khan Statue Day Tour
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2 Days Tour: Terelj National Park And Chinggis Statue
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Terelj and World energy center Gobi overnight train tour
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Ulaanbaatar Signature Tour – Mongolia’s Capital in One Day
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Terelj ,Khar khorum ,Horse ride , Camel ride , Monastery
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Guided Day Tour Terelj National Park Chinggis Khaan Statue
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Private Tandem Paragliding Experience at Bayanzurkh Mountain
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