Summer

May to August

Green mountains, cool(and sometimes rather hot) air, and a lot of baby sheep and goats. Summer, undoubtedly, is by far the most popular time of year to travel to Mongolia with the most tourists. During this time, you can travel to almost anywhere in Mongolia. If you come during July, definitely make some time for the Naadam Festival. Summer is also great for outdoor adventure tours.

Autumn

September to November

Many Mongolians will claim that Autumn is their favorite season due to the lack of strong winds, color changes of the foliage, and cool reprieve from Summer. Definitely travel this time of year During this time of year, you can also celebrate the famous Golden Eagle Festival in the Bayan-Olgii province.

Winter

November to March

This time of year is for those who truly want to see Mongolia with an entirely different perspective. During winter you can see why Mongolia is called the land of the blue sky. Mongolian winter has the fewest tourists, but can be extremely cold. The three main attractions during winter is Tsagaan Sar (the lunar new year), The Camel festival in the Gobi Desert, and the Ice Festival on Lake Hovsgol.

Spring

March to May

If avoiding other tourists is your goal while still seeing the main sites, late spring is a good choice for you. Due to Spring in Mongolia being quite dry and windy, most tourists avoid this time of year. A few festivals, such as the Kazakh Nauryz (Kazakh new year) and local Horse Festivals are celebrated this time of year.

For those that do not know, parahawking is a sport that combines paragliding and falconry. It is about as amazing as it sounds. While doing a tandem flight in the air, the person in the front harness calls the flacon (or in this case a Golden Eagle) from the ground using some meat. The person in the back steers. The falcon catches up to the two in the glider and lands on the arm of the person in the front harness…. in mid-flight. In the far west of Mongolia, in the Bayan-Olgii province near the Altai mountains, lives the Kazakh Eagle Hunters. These people have been training huge Golden Eagles for thousands of years to hunt rabbits, foxes, and even sometimes wolves. When hunting, these massive eagles can reach speeds of up to 190 Kilometers per hour (about 120 mph). When the eagles become old enough, the hunters will release them back into the wild to live freely and reproduce. The hunter that would be attempting this feat would be no hunter at all, but actually a huntRESS, Aisholpan Nurgaiv.

So now that you have some background, back to the story at hand. Fast forward to Saturday where the Eagle Hunters and Huntresses (more of them now, following Aisholpan’s fame) arrived just outside the big city of Ulaanbaatar to participate in the smaller Spring Golden Eagle Festival. Bold and I get up at the crack of dawn to head out to the camp where the hunters are staying and preparing their eagles for the day of the festival. We meet up with Aisholpan and her father, Nurgaiv, in their yurt (or ger in Mongolian). We sit around the toasty fire and begin to chat about how we are going to go about doing this. This is when I realize that none of us really know how to attempt this feat. Bold, being arguably the best paragliding pilot in Mongolia, can do anything in the air but has never attempted this before. No one in Mongolia has. All we had was YouTube as a teacher. That was good enough.

Practice Attempt

After driving half way, then hiking halfway up a mountain, we get to the top and prepare Aisholpan for her first tandem flight. One try without the eagle. In Mongolian, I ask Aisholpan if she is nervous. This would be her first flight in the air, everyone around me knows I was terrified for mine. She looks at me with a big grin and says “ugu shdee”. This can roughly be translated as “Heck no!”. She seemed, to me, to be excited to fly like her eagle. If you want evidence, look at the video or pics of ehr in the gallery. Nothing but a huge grin for entirety of each flight.

Attempt One

We prepare Aisholpan for her flight. We strap Aisholpan into the harness, gopro in one hand, rabbit leg in the other. Her father is halfway down the mountain holding her eagle. I grab their harness and pull, they take off…. to a very uneventful flight. As they soar down the mountain and call the eagle, nothing happens. She, the eagle, just kind of looks around and waits for them to land. Nurgaiv tells me that Aisholpan was probably holding the rabbit leg in the wrong hand so her eagle couldn’t see the rabbit leg. We prepare for attempt two.

Attempt Two

After trekking up the mountain, we try out second attempt with the rabbit meat in the other hand. It was, again…. very anticlimactic. However, once Bold and Aisholpan land, Nurgaiv looks at me while pointing at the eagle and yells “Ene medjiin! Medjiin!”. “She knows! She knows!”. It turns out that Aisholpan’s eagle was staring and understood what was happening, but just didn’t seem to care. She was too old to learn something new. Can’t teach an old eagle new tricks.

Attempt Three (Success!)

After deciding to grab a new eagle, we headed back to the camp. The Eagle hunter who won last year’s Golden Eagle festival let us use his one year old. As it was getting late, we needed to hurry while we still had light. We rushed to the hills where the other eagle hunters were practicing… and successfully got our vehicle stuck in the thick snow. We then had to have some of the hunters bring their horses so that we could ride through the snow and up the hills with all of our equipment. Once again, we set everything up, but this time we have an audience of all the other eagle hunters and some photographers in the area. I pull the harness and once again Aisholpan and Bold take off. The new eagle sits on his master’s arm and watches. Aisholpan starts her eagle call and waves around the rabbit leg. The eagle hunters and I watch as the young eagle launches and chases after the two in the glider. My heart leaps as the eagle closes in. We all burst into cheering as the eagle catches up and closes her talons on Aisholpan’s gloved arm. The eagle spreads her wings for a few seconds and soars with the two in the glider before returning back to the ground. Once they land I run up to them and Aisholpan just has a huge, triumphant grin on her face. Check out the full video below.

The Beauty

In every Mongolia travel guide you pick up, you will find an abundance of stunning pictures of camels in a beautiful desert, yaks in the mountains, and horses by rivers. Just try a “Mongolia” google search and you can see the images yourself. The Mongolian countryside really is just that beautiful. Although it is incredibly difficult to encompass the beauty and vastness of the country in pictures and words, just try and ask any Mongolian. They won’t hesitate to proudly boast about their country’s blue sky, green steppe, crystal lakes, alpine mountains, and golden Gobi Desert. There are very few countries where you can see ice, desert, and grasslands in the span of just a few days! If you want to get the most out of Mongolia’s beauty, we recommend The Big Mongolia Circuit Tour.

Untouched nature

One comment we have heard repeatedly on our tours while driving through the countryside is:

“Where are all the fences?”

Well, mostly, they don’t exist. Mongolian nomads will move twice a year, for winter and for summer. There are no fences and their cattle are free range. While the capital of Mongolia has seen massive development in the past years, the countryside still remains vastly empty with small towns seemingly sprinkled randomly. These, and some more factors, add up to a sprawling land seemingly untouched by humankind.

The Disconnect

As we have said, Mongolia is incredibly vast. One can drive for 5 hours and not see a single person, yet count about 200 goats, 150 sheep, 30 horses, and a few yaks and camels. When visitors are asked what their favorite thing about Mongolia is, a common answer is the disconnect. Disconnect from their phone, their work, and all of the other worries they have thousands of miles away.

The Hospitality

Mongolian Hospitality is legendary. The Silk Road, under the conquest of the Mongol empire, was said to be so safe that “a maiden bearing a nugget of gold on her head could wander safely throughout the realm.” This culture of hospitality and protection is still offered to this day. Within five minutes of visiting a Mongolian Ger (or yurt), you will have laid out for you milk tea and numerous dishes of foods that you have probably never seen before. If you spend the night, a Mongolian family would almost feel like they have failed if you hadn’t gained weight and walked away with a smile.

However, please don’t misunderstand us. It is not right to think that one can stop anywhere and receive free food and a place to stay whenever they want. Please respect the country and people. If you do visit a family, bring some small, inexpensive gifts! They will be very grateful and you will have made some good friends!

#1
The Khongor Sand Dunes

The Khongor Sand Dunes (or Khongorin Els) are located in the south of the Gobi Desert and are around 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) wide and 100 kilometers (62 miles) long. If you wish to climb these sand dunes, they are only about 80 meters (260 feet high). Once at the top, you will be able to hear why they have been given the nickname of the “Singing Dunes”. The wind blowing causes tiny avalanches which results in a resonating sound coming from the sand.

#2
The Golden Eagle Festival

The Kazakh people in western Mongolia have been raising Golden Eagles used in hunting for thousands of years. Every October, this festival takes place for the hunters to show off their skills as not only eagle hunters, but also their skills on a horse. There is another, slightly smaller yet warmer, Golden Eagle festival that takes place in Sagsai village in September. This festival is a must for those who want to see something extraordinary. In recent years, Eagle Huntresses have been allowed to participate in the festival when the 13 year old Aisholpan became the first woman to participate and then also win the Golden Eagle Festival! Let us take you on a journey to see this festival in action.

#3
Khovsgol Lake

The Black Pearl of Mongolia contains 0.4% of the world’s fresh water. The lake is 136 kilometers (85 miles) long and 262 meters (860 feet) deep. Surrounded by forests, mountains, and sometimes the occasional reindeer, you won’t want to miss this location. If you are adventurous enough to travel to Mongolia in winter, you can participate in the Ice festival which takes place on the frozen Khovsgol lake.

#4
Yol Valley

The Yol Valley (or Yolyn Am) is one of the most unique geographical formations located in the Gobi. Surrounded by dry desert, this green and lush valley seems to not belong here at all. Definitely try to visit the Valley in June or early July. During this time, the unique landscape of the Valley delays the frozen river from melting so you can walk on a frozen river in the middle of the Gobi Desert! The valley is brimming with small voles and other wildlife. Oh and before we forget, the valley is named after the Lammergeier vulture, or yol in Mongolian, that calls this valley its home.

#5
The Mongolian Ger

A Mongolian ger, or yurt, is a must see for anyone travelling to Mongolia. With minimal changes in thousands of years, modern day Mongolian nomads spend their entire lives in these felt tents. While it is almost impossible to miss them while travelling through Mongolia, make sure you take the time to enter one. This will be a first-hand experience that you won’t soon forget.

#6
Khustai National Park

Located not too far from the capital, Khustai National park is home to some of the world’s last remaining wild horses. The Takhi, in Mongolian, or Przewalski’s horse, in English, were reintroduced to this are in 1993. Since then the horses have been able to roam freely and grow in numbers! Any wildlife lover cannot miss these beautiful creatures.

#7
Terelj National Park

Terelj national park is a great stop for those who do not want to travel far from Ulaanbaatar, but still want to see untouched nature. Terelj national park holds a number of tourist camps that allow you to either rough it, or have a luxurious stay while enjoying Mongolia’s natural beauty. Definitely don’t miss turtle rock, a rock formation erupting from the ground that resembles a tortoise or a turtle.

#8
The Reindeer People

Located in northern Mongolia, in the Taiga close to Siberia, resides the Dukha Reindeer People. The Reindeer people, or Tsaatan in Mongolian, are a unique group of Reindeer herders that have their own language and customs. The Reindeer people have been practicing reindeer herding for centuries and instead of living in Mongolian gers, they live in tipis, much like some groups of Native Americans. In order to see the reindeer people, you must take an adventure through the forests in the north on horseback.

#9
Naadam Festival

The Naadam festival, which takes place in July, dates back to the time of Chinggis Khaan (or Genghis Khan). In recent years, it is celebrated as a declaration of independence from China in the early 1920s. The Naadam festival is celebrated throughout Mongolia at different times in July depending on the town. The three sports of Mongolian wrestling, Mongolian Archery, and horse racing are celebrated during this time. While the Naadam festival is biggest in Ulaanbaatar, we actually recommend celebrating it in a smaller town for a more intimate approach. Check out our tour and let us know which one you would prefer.

#10
The Tavan Bogd Altai mountains

The Tavan Bogd Altai mountains, or five saints altai mountains, are a massif of mountains located in western Mongolia. With the highest point reaching 4374 meters (14,350 feet), these beautifully snow capped mountains are a destination for true adventure seekers. Make sure to check out these mountains if you are going on our Golden Eagle Festival tour or spend days exploring the mountains on our Altai Trekking tour.