Mongolia in 10 days: Terelj, the Gobi and Kharkhorin in 9 nights

Nine nights, one tour and a day trip

The route is a loop with one long arc through the south. Book Ulaanbaatar for night 1, then one ger camp each for nights 2 to 7, at Tsagaan Suvarga, Yolyn Am, Khongoryn Els, Bayanzag, Ongi and Kharkhorin, and Ulaanbaatar again for nights 8 and 9; fly home on day 10. The Terelj day trip sits on day 9, between the last long drive and the flight, so if the road home runs late or fuel runs short, you lose an excursion rather than your plane.

Outside Ulaanbaatar, travel with a licensed operator's driver and guide: distances are long, many roads are unpaved tracks, and there is no mobile signal in large areas. Days 1 to 8 are View Mongolia's private eight-day Gobi Desert and Orkhon Valley tour, exactly as published: you land on day 1, leave for the Gobi on day 2 and are back in Ulaanbaatar on the evening of day 8. For two people it costs USD 2,150 per person at its standard level and USD 2,762 at its VIP grade (see the budget below). The price covers an English-speaking guide, a van and driver, six nights in ger camps, breakfast, lunch and dinner from day 2 to day 7 and breakfast and lunch on day 8, bottled water, horse and camel rides, entry fees to national parks and museums, and an arrival transfer and first night in a central three-star hotel. It leaves out the departure transfer and tips. View also runs the same eight days as a group departure, which is the budget level below.

The Terelj day is a separate private trip from Amicus Mongolia (tour operator licence ITO/655/2011): USD 176 per person for two, with hotel pickup at 09:00, an English-speaking guide, a car and driver, lunch at a tourist camp, the entrance fees in the programme and drinking water, back at the hotel around 18:00. Amicus takes bookings made more than 72 hours ahead, with full payment.

View allocates the camps on its tour; the ones listed below are examples close to each sight, with their own published facilities. In Ulaanbaatar, book Royal Mountain Hotel in Khan-Uul for nights 8 and 9 yourself: its Superior Twin, with two twin beds, costs USD 170 a night with buffet breakfast, 10% VAT and 1% city tax included, converted to tögrög at the hotel's own daily rate when you pay. It stands south of the centre, less than 1 km from the Bogd Khan Palace Museum, so city buses or a taxi take you to the main square. Our Ulaanbaatar where-to-stay guide compares more central areas. Every hotel and camp registers you with the immigration authority within 48 hours of arrival; our Mongolia entry guide covers visas by passport.

Days 1–4: Ulaanbaatar, Tsagaan Suvarga, Yolyn Am and Khongoryn Els

Day 1 — land at Chinggis Khaan International Airport: Flights arrive at Chinggis Khaan International Airport (UBN), south of the city, where View's driver meets you for the transfer to a central hotel. My Mongolia Travel, which runs airport transfers, gives about 50 to 60 minutes early in the morning, late in the evening or at night, and 1.5 hours or more on weekdays between 07:00 and 21:00. Pick up a Unitel tourist SIM at the airport or in town: the ten-day plan with 15 GB costs MNT 25,000, plus MNT 5,000 for the card. If you land by early afternoon, walk to Sükhbaatar Square and the Chinggis Khaan National Museum, whose permanent exhibition costs MNT 30,000 for an adult; from 15 May to 14 September it opens from 09:00 to 20:00 with last entry at 19:00. Sleep at View's hotel: night 1.

Day 2 — south to Tsagaan Suvarga: The longest drive of the trip: 470 km, about 6 hours on paved road (Travel Gobi Mongolia; View allows 7 hours plus an hour for lunch). You arrive at Tsagaan Suvarga, the 'White Stupa', an escarpment of old seabed that erosion has cut into pale, banded cliffs over 50 m high and about 400 m long; from a distance they look like the walls of a ruined city. Walk along the foot of the cliffs in the evening light. Sleep at a ger camp near the cliffs: night 2.

Day 3 — Yolyn Am: About 200 km and 3 hours further south on paved road, the Gobi Gurvan Saikhan National Park stretches more than 450 km from west to east; its administration traces the park back to 1965, when the gorge of Yolyn Am became a protected reserve. From the car park you walk up a green valley into a narrowing canyon where, in the deepest part, the cliffs shut out the sun and ice from the winter stream usually lasts into late June or July. View's walk takes 2.5 to 3 hours there and back. Bearded vultures, ibex and wild sheep live in the range. Sleep at a ger camp near the park: night 3.

Day 4 — to Khongoryn Els: 190 km of dirt road, 5 to 6 hours (Travel Gobi), to Khongoryn Els, the largest field of dunes in the Mongolian Gobi: a long wall of pale sand under the mountains of the national park, with an oasis along the Khongor river at its northern edge. On windy days the sliding sand booms, which is why locals call them the singing sands. View's day includes a two-humped camel ride and a visit to a herding family. Climbing one of the high dunes is hard work in soft sand and entirely optional; the lower ridges give a fine view too. Our Gobi guide covers the park's sights in more depth. Sleep at a ger camp near the dunes: night 4.

Days 5–7: Bayanzag, Ongi and Kharkhorin

Day 5 — Bayanzag (the Flaming Cliffs): On the way, View stops at the Khavtsgait rock drawings in the western Gurvan Saikhan range, which date from the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age and need a 1 km walk there and back. Then 150 km, about 4 hours on dirt (Travel Gobi), from the dunes to Bayanzag, where the American explorer Roy Chapman Andrews named the red sandstone cliffs the Flaming Cliffs. Protoceratops skeletons and the first dinosaur eggs known to science were found here; the cliffs glow deepest red at sunset. Leave any fossil you see where it lies. Sleep at a ger camp near Bayanzag: night 5.

Day 6 — Ongi: Before leaving, walk among the saxaul trees of the Bayanzag grove. Then 155 km, about 4 hours on dirt (Travel Gobi), north to Ongi Monastery, founded in 1760 on both banks of the Ongi river and destroyed in 1937 in the communist purges. View describes two monasteries with more than 30 temples before the destruction; today a small active temple and a ger museum of rescued objects stand among the ruins, and a hill above them looks over the river and the desert. Sleep at a ger camp by the ruins: night 6.

Day 7 — Kharkhorin and Erdene Zuu: The land turns from desert to grassland on the way to Kharkhorin. It is about 200 km and 5 hours on dirt, then 40 km and an hour, mostly paved, into town (Travel Gobi). Kharkhorin stands on the site of Karakorum, capital of the Mongol Empire in the 13th century, destroyed by Ming soldiers in 1388. Its stones went into Erdene Zuu Monastery, the first Buddhist monastery built in Mongolia, in the 16th century: a walled enclosure of temples that have been a state museum since 1965, with exhibits in eight temples and a hall. It opens daily from 09:00 to 18:00 from 1 May to 30 September. The Kharkhorum Museum, opened in 2011, shows finds from the old capital and keeps the same summer hours from 1 April. Both lie within the Orkhon Valley Cultural Landscape, a World Heritage site since 2004. View's package pays the entry to both. Our Kharkhorin and Orkhon Valley guide describes the valley beyond. Sleep at a ger camp in Kharkhorin: night 7.

Days 8–10: back to Ulaanbaatar, Terelj and home

Day 8 — back to Ulaanbaatar: 360 km, about 6 hours on paved road (Travel Gobi). View breaks the drive at a horse-herding family for a ride on the steppe and lunch with them, then drops you in the city, where the tour ends. Move to Royal Mountain Hotel: night 8.

Day 9 — the statue, Terelj and Aryabal: Amicus collects you at 09:00 for the drive east to the Chinggis Khaan Equestrian Statue at Tsonjin Boldog, 54 km from the city: a 40-metre stainless-steel rider holding a golden whip, with a viewing platform at the top. The road continues into Gorkhi-Terelj National Park, a landscape of forested mountains and weathered rock formations, with a stop at an ovoo, a roadside cairn that Mongolians walk around three times. After lunch at a tourist camp come Turtle Rock, a rock formation shaped like a turtle and the symbol of the park, and the hike to Aryabal Meditation Temple, which sits high on a mountain among massive rock formations. The day ends with a visit to a herding family before the drive back around 18:00. Our Terelj and statue guide describes the park and its camps. Sleep at Royal Mountain Hotel: night 9.

Day 10 — fly home: Allow MNT 120,000 for the car to the airport, the official taxi fare between the airport and the centre, and 1.5 hours or more for the drive in weekday daytime traffic.

Roads, camps, health and good manners

Expect 3.5 to 6 hours in the van on most days, by View's count, with long stretches of dirt track after Yolyn Am. Camps in this plan are tourist ger camps: felt tents with beds, a restaurant ger and a block with hot showers and toilets, which are usually shared; a few, such as Gobi-Erdene at Khongoryn Els, also have cabins with their own bathrooms. View's camp meals are mostly Mongolian, with meat at lunch and dinner; tell it before you travel if you are vegetarian. Card withdrawals are rarely possible in the countryside, so take the tögrög you will need for drinks and tips from Ulaanbaatar. Our ger stays guide explains what a night in a camp includes.

British, German and French travel advice agree on the main points. France keeps the whole of Mongolia under heightened vigilance because of the distances, the roads and weak medical facilities. Do not drive after dark. Medical care outside Ulaanbaatar is limited and hospitals may ask for most of the cost up front, so take insurance that covers evacuation and repatriation. On horseback, wear a helmet and a back protector. Rabies is present across the country, so keep away from stray dogs and wild animals, and never handle marmots, which can carry plague. Other governments may draw the line differently, so read your own country's advice as well.

In a family's ger, do not step on the threshold, go to the left as you enter, and accept a bowl of tea or a piece of dried curd with your right hand, even if you only taste it. Walk clockwise around temples, stupas and ovoos, and ask before photographing people or the inside of a temple.

When to go, and how to change the route

June to early September falls well inside View's camp season, with the warmest nights. Naadam, the national festival of wrestling, horse racing and archery, is held every year from 11 to 13 July, and the city fills up that week. Our Mongolia festivals guide covers the dates.

Fewer road days. MIAT flies from Ulaanbaatar to Dalanzadgad (its winter timetable to March 2027 lists Fridays and Sundays at 17:40), the airport for the Gobi park, and some operators start their Gobi tours there, which saves the long drive south but leaves out Tsagaan Suvarga and Ongi. Our transport guide has the flights.

More of the Orkhon Valley. This route reaches Kharkhorin but not the Orkhon Waterfall or Tövkhön Monastery, higher up the valley: they need at least one more rural night. Our fourteen-day itinerary adds the waterfall, Khustai National Park and Lake Khövsgöl.

Outside the camp season. After 20 September the Gobi camps are only partly open, and in winter they close; View then runs this tour with local hotels and guest gers, at its own price. France advises travelling outside towns in winter in two vehicles carrying cold-weather survival equipment.

What ten days cost, all in

About MNT 10,280,000 (USD 2,860) per person, MNT 20,560,000 (USD 5,710) for two, for ten days and nine nights on the ground at the mid level: the private tour and day trip, two extra hotel nights, every meal, the departure car, city buses, the Chinggis Khaan National Museum, two SIMs and a 10% buffer. Joining View's group departure of the same tour and sleeping at the cheaper Mika Hotel brings it down to about MNT 6,760,000 (USD 1,880) per person. A return economy flight from London adds about GBP 800–850 per person.

The model is two adults sharing a twin room or ger, nine nights from June to early September outside Naadam week, with prices read on 29 October 2026. US dollar prices are converted at the Bank of Mongolia's rate of USD 1 = MNT 3,599.08 for 29 October 2026. All three levels use the same sights, and budget and mid-range the same standard camps; mid-range and comfort book the Royal Mountain room, budget the cheaper Mika Hotel. Mid-range is the plan above: View's private tour at its standard price. Comfort takes View's VIP grade of the same private tour, USD 612 more each, whose camps and vehicle View sets out in its quote, and a dearer restaurant meal. Budget joins View's group departure of the same tour, USD 1,373 per person sharing a twin, in a group of 1 to 15 travellers; its 2027 dates are 22–29 May, 8–15 June, 17–24 June, 15–22 August and 7–14 September, with none in July; two more, 23–30 September and 2–9 October, fall after the camps' full season. The group runs the same eight days, so the plan above does not change.

Tour: View's eight-day price for two, USD 2,746 on the group departure, USD 4,300 private or USD 5,524 private at VIP grade, plus Amicus's USD 352; together they pay for the six camp nights, the arrival hotel night and transfer, every countryside meal, the car, driver, guide, entry fees and rides, so they appear as one line. Hotel: two nights at Royal Mountain at USD 170 at mid-range and comfort, or at the Mika Hotel's Standard Twin in central Ulaanbaatar at USD 77 at budget level, both with breakfast; Mika's page does not say whether VAT and city tax are included, so we count the rate as shown. Meals: five paid meals each in Ulaanbaatar (lunch and dinner on day 1, dinner on days 8 and 9, lunch on day 10), priced from the Modern Nomads menu at its Metro Mall branch: MNT 32,900 for a bowl of dumplings in milk tea (MNT 23,900) with milk tea and water at budget level, MNT 46,900 for roast mutton (MNT 37,900) with tea and water at mid level, and MNT 88,200 for a Mongolian steak, salad, coffee and water at comfort level. Getting around: the departure car at MNT 120,000 and two bus rides each on four city days at MNT 1,000 a ride. SIMs: two Unitel ten-day tourist SIMs at MNT 30,000. Tips, snacks and drinks come out of the buffer. The 2027 visa is an extra outside the totals; the FAQ below explains it. Park fees: both tours include national park entry. Our budgets include the national park fee at MNT 15,000 per foreign visitor. Travel insurance is not included, because its price depends on your age, home country and policy.

Flights: as an off-season example, London–Ulaanbaatar via Istanbul on Turkish Airlines costs about GBP 800–850 return in economy for November and December 2026: GBP 811 from Gatwick and GBP 848 from Heathrow. Our Mongolia trip-cost guide sets out the same budget level by level.