Ger stays in Mongolia: tourist camps, family stays, costs

Tourist camp or a herding family's ger

A tourist camp is a hotel built of gers: usually 30 to 40 of them around a restaurant, often at a good viewpoint, and by far the most common way to sleep in the countryside. Each ger is a guest room; whether it has its own toilet and shower, and how it is heated, varies from camp to camp, as the next section shows. On a driver-guide tour, the operator books the camps for every night of the route.

A herding family's ger is a home: you live alongside the family, learn their customs and may help milk yaks, herd sheep or make airag. Herders move their animals between summer and winter pastures, so a stay depends on where the family is camped, and your tour operator books it. Many families who take guests run a small ger guesthouse: a few extra gers beside their own, usually with four beds and fresh linen, private to your group, with the guide and driver in a separate ger. Meals are Mongolian dishes or Russian-influenced Western ones. In the Gobi most of these guesthouses now have flush toilets and many a separate shower, but some still have a traditional wooden toilet; where there is no shower, you pay to use one in the nearest village (soum) centre or tourist camp. Families far from the power lines charge phones and cameras from solar panels or a generator. Travel Gobi Mongolia, which books them, puts the average night at MNT 50,000 per person for the bed and MNT 100,000 with three meals, half its average for a tourist camp. Your camp or host family registers you with the immigration authority within 48 hours of arriving at each address; our entry guide covers the rest of the entry rules.

Families do not expect gifts for their hospitality, says Eternal Landscapes, a Mongolia operator that publishes responsible-travel advice. Besides a hadag, the greeting scarf described below, a practical present is the most welcome: a large bag of rice or flour bought in Mongolia, or a pack of cards or photographs from home to share. It asks guests not to give vodka, to avoid cheap plastic toys, and to give sweets as one packet to the woman who runs the household rather than to the children. For a one-night stay with a family arranged on your own, it suggests paying USD 20 to 50 per person.

Most first trips mix the two: camps on the long driving days, and one night or a long afternoon with a family where your route passes their summer pasture. Near the city, Terelj Lodge arranges a visit to a local nomad family.

What a night in a camp includes

A ger is a round frame of wooden walls and roof poles, painted and decorated, under covers of white felt and canvas tightened with ropes of animal hair, on a floor of hand-sewn felt: light enough for a family to fold and carry when they move, and sturdy enough for Mongolia's spring winds. Inside it is one round room. A standard ger has two to four single beds, a small table and a stove to keep warm, and no bathroom of its own: flush toilets and hot showers are in a separate block nearby, and at some camps an ensuite ger, with its own bathroom, costs extra. Breakfast and dinner are served in the camp's restaurant; on touring days, lunch is often at a local restaurant on the way. Mornings and nights are cool even in summer, so pack a hat, gloves and a scarf; in the Gobi the nights are very quiet under a sky full of stars. Beyond that, camps differ in three things that matter more than the décor.

Bathrooms. At Terelj Lodge in Gorkhi-Terelj National Park, the deluxe gers have a private bathroom with toilet, shower and sink, while the standard gers, with four beds, list no bathroom of their own. At Jalman Meadows, every ger has its own EcoLoo composting toilet, and hot showers are in separate shower gers, with water heated on wood-burning stoves.

Heating. Terelj Lodge heats both its standard and deluxe gers with underfloor heating. In Jalman's spring and autumn camp, and at RAHM's camp in the Orkhon Valley, each ger has its own wood-burning stove.

Meals. Some camps include them and some sell them separately. Jalman Meadows includes all meals: a buffet breakfast, two- or three-course lunches and dinners, and tea and coffee all day, with packed lunches for hikes. Terelj Lodge charges per person for each meal; our Mongolian food guide covers what camp kitchens cook, from khorkhog to milk tea.

What to pack. Large parts of rural Mongolia have no mobile signal, so do not count on a camp for phone calls or Wi-Fi. At Jalman Meadows the solar panels power the kitchen and refrigerator, so bring a power bank for your phone and camera. Travel Gobi Mongolia supplies sleeping bags on its tours; elsewhere, a warm layer for the night, a torch for the walk to the toilet block and earplugs make camp nights easier.

Two camps near Ulaanbaatar compared

If you want ger nights without a long countryside tour, two areas lie within a few hours of the capital. Gorkhi-Terelj National Park, where Terelj Lodge allows about 1.5 hours for its own transfer from the city, is where conventional tourism has grown up, with many camps; Jalman Meadows lies on its edge beside the Tuul River, bordering the Khan Khentii Strictly Protected Area, in the upper Tuul valley that herders use as winter pasture. Without the lodge's car, city bus X:22 runs from the Officers' Palace to Terelj for MNT 2,300 per adult. Our Terelj guide covers the park's sights and the bus times.

The two camps, and the ways to book them, compare like this (prices from each operator's own page, read on 29 October 2026):

Camp nights on a countryside tour

On a driver-guide tour of the Gobi or central Mongolia, the camp nights are part of the package, and the choice between tourist camps and local ger guesthouses shows in the price. Travel Gobi Mongolia sells its six-day Gobi tour by car for USD 1,340 per person for two with four nights in tourist ger camps and one in a local hotel, or USD 1,060 per person for two with five nights in local ger guesthouses; both include meals, the car, an English-speaking guide, entrance fees and a sleeping bag. Our Gobi guide describes the route.

Booked direct, a camp on the main routes can cost far less than the camps near the capital, though few publish a rate. On the Orkhon route, Orkhon Camp, on the Orkhon river 7 km from the waterfall, charges USD 40 a night for a double or twin ger, USD 30 for a single and USD 65 for four beds, with a restaurant, solar electricity, solar-heated showers and dry toilets; meals are bought at the restaurant. At Khustai National Park, the park's own tourist resort has 35 gers of two to four beds, a shower and sanitary block and a restaurant. In the Gobi, Gobi Nomad Lodge in Gurvan Saikhan National Park has 14 deluxe gers with their own bathrooms, heaters, 24-hour electricity and hot water, with breakfast included; at Lake Khövsgöl, Toilogt camp, open since 1991 on the western shore, has 15 gers, lodge rooms and hot showers. These three publish no nightly rate; as a yardstick, Travel Gobi Mongolia puts the average tourist-camp night at MNT 100,000 per person for the bed and MNT 200,000 with breakfast, lunch and dinner.

At the top of the range, RAHM Hospitality's Orkhon Valley Ger Camp, a short drive from Kharkhorin, has seven felt gers with wood stoves, open from June to August by request, from USD 500 per ger a night for two with breakfast, lunch and dinner in a shared dining ger, and hot water and shared bathrooms in a service block; our Kharkhorin guide covers the valley. In the Gobi, Three Camel Lodge, 40 gers and a main lodge built in the style of a Buddhist temple on the edge of Gobi Gurvan Saikhan National Park, prices its four-day journey for 2027 at USD 4,715 per person for two sharing in May and from 12 October to 30 November, USD 5,130 from June to 11 October and USD 5,415 from 5 to 16 July, around Naadam (11-13 July); the return flight to Dalanzadgad is USD 445 more. That covers three nights, the meals in the programme, an English-speaking guide and the transfers. A night with a herding family is booked through your operator as part of the tour.

When camps open, and ger nights in the cold

Ger camps are mostly a summer business. Jalman Meadows is put up for the summer, with departures from mid-May to the end of September; Nomadic Journeys' winter trips use the same camp in spring, autumn and early winter (below). Terelj Lodge closed on 17 October 2026 and reopens on 20 April 2027, with bookings for 2027 already open. Tourist ger camps in the Gobi are fully open from 15 May to 20 September and partly open or closed outside those dates. July is the busiest month, and single gers may not be available at camps from 5 to 15 July, around Naadam (11-13 July), says Tour Mongolia, so book early; Tour Mongolia takes 10% off tours booked nine months ahead. Other camps keep their own calendars; the best time guide explains what each month is like.

A ger night in the cold is possible with the right operator. Nomadic Journeys runs Jalman Meadows Winter, four days and three nights from March to May and from October to December, at the same Jalman Meadows camp in the upper Tuul valley, about three hours (120 km) from the city, with showers, compost toilets and a wood-burning stove in each ger; it costs USD 950 per person for two, with an English-speaking guide, all meals outside the city, local transport and entrance fees included.

How to behave in a ger

Mongolians are warm hosts, and a few customs make a visit go smoothly. Do not knock: as you approach a family's ger, call out "Nokhoigo khorioroi" ("hold the dog"), and when you go in, step over the threshold, never on it. Inside, guests go to the left and sit where they are shown; the family sits on the right, and the back of the ger, opposite the door, holds the family altar and photographs. Do not wear a hat indoors, and take off your gloves when you eat or drink.

When you are offered something, take it with your right hand, supporting the right elbow with your left, or with both hands. A visit often opens with a hadag, a strip of blue, white or pale-yellow silk or cotton given as a greeting gift; if you are offered one, take it gently in both hands with a slight bow. Guests are then served milk tea, salted in some regions, with a plate of cheeses and bread or biscuits, and you are expected to take at least a sip or a small piece; refusing outright is rude. The host may pass you a snuffbox: sniff it lightly, or hold it under your nose, and return it with a nod. Ask after the family's health, their animals and the grass; that is the customary small talk. Do not lean on the central pillars, whistle inside, throw rubbish into the stove, or step over food or a person; if you sleep there, lie with your feet towards the door. Ask before you photograph people, and never during prayers.

What three ger nights near Ulaanbaatar cost

The model is two adults sharing one ger for three nights in July, from your Ulaanbaatar hotel and back, at each operator's 2026 summer prices, read on 29 October 2026 (Terelj Lodge's on 2 November 2026) and converted at the Bank of Mongolia rate of 29 October 2026, USD 1 = MNT 3,599.08. Each total adds 10% for drinks, snacks and tips.

At Terelj Lodge, three nights in a standard ger cost USD 405; the nine meals for two cost USD 474; and the lodge sedan to and from the city costs USD 180. That is USD 1,059, about MNT 3,810,000. Our budgets include the national park fee at MNT 15,000 per foreign visitor. With the fee for two, the lodge stay comes to about MNT 3,840,000 before the 10%. Horse riding and activities are extra here as at Jalman's self-guided camp.

Jalman Meadows self-guided costs USD 1,240 for two for four days and three nights, about MNT 4,460,000, with all meals and the shared transfers; horse riding and other activities are extra and priced at the camp. Jalman Meadows private costs USD 2,180 for two, about MNT 7,850,000, with a private vehicle, an English-speaking guide, all meals and the camp's activities.

Ger nights on a longer tour are priced inside the operator's package; the Mongolia trip cost guide shows a full ten-day trip with its camp nights.