What is the best way to see the Mongolian steppe?
Stay with the people who live on it. That is the whole answer, and the rest of this post is how we did it.
I was living in Singapore at the time, so the trip started with a visa appointment at the Mongolian embassy there. François was based in Vietnam. We picked a date, booked separately, and met in Ulaanbaatar.
We split the nine days three ways, and I still think this is the right shape for a first visit:
- Two days in Ulaanbaatar, just walking around the city.
- Four days staying with herding families out west.
- A motorbike trip east to Terelj. Two days for François, three for me.
The middle part we booked through a small outfit a friend had used and recommended, somewhere between an NGO and a tour agency. They arrange homestays with families on the steppe and give a big chunk of the money straight back to the families. That was the reason we picked them, and it is the reason those four days felt like visiting people rather than buying a product.
Four days with herding families
We took a bus west out of Ulaanbaatar towards the old capital, four or five hours across flat, dry nothing. A local herder picked us up at the other end and drove us to his ger.
That first family took us on a camel ride at sunset, up to a small temple on top of a hill where food was laid out for us. Then we sat in the ger, ate, and did very little. Which turned out to be the correct way to spend an evening in Mongolia.
The second family lived beside a stream, with kids running around everywhere. This was the best of the four days. We rode horses out into open steppe with nobody and nothing in any direction, a feeling I have not had anywhere else. Really, really good! They also cooked us what they called river rats, skinned and cooked whole, and I will be honest with you: it was delicious.
The third family were up on a hill, and this time we were not alone. Some Mongols visiting from China were staying too, and they had shot a mountain marmot. What happened next I only learned the name of later: they heated stones in the fire, put the hot stones INSIDE the animal, and cooked it from the inside out. It is called boodog. If you get offered it, say yes.
Why nothing happens until the sun goes down
Here is the thing nobody told us, and the single most useful thing I can pass on.
During the day, on the steppe, there is not a ton to do. The sun is strong, the land is flat in every direction, and there is no list of activities waiting for you. You can walk. You can ride. That is the menu.
And then the sun starts dropping and the whole place switches on. With the second family we got on horses and helped bring the sheep back towards camp, which was one of the best hours of the whole trip. The riding, the work, the light... all of it happens at the end of the day.
Once I understood that, I stopped feeling like I was wasting the afternoons. I liked just being in a ger with nothing planned. François read his books. Nobody needed entertaining.
Travelling with someone who travels differently
Mongolia is where I worked out that François and I travel in completely different ways. He is not as drawn to the adventure side of it. He is much more intellectual than me, so much smarter, with a lot more knowledge, and he really comes alive around museums and around learning how people actually live and what their history is. I want to be on the horse.
It did not cause a single problem. We just got different things out of the same nine days, and both of us got a lot. If you are planning a trip with a friend whose instincts are not yours, worth knowing in advance rather than discovering on day four.
Can you rent a motorbike in Ulaanbaatar?
Yes, and it was the best thing we did. Back in the city we found a Mongolian woman, married to a Frenchman, who rents out old Soviet-design motorbikes built in China. We took two and rode east to Gorkhi-Terelj National Park.
The first night we stayed in a ger with a former colonel in the Mongolian army. He spoke English, which out there is a small miracle, and he brought vodka and stories, in that order. One of the best evenings I have had anywhere!
Then François rode back to the city and I stayed out one more day. It rained the entire time... of course. Late on, I found a ger in the middle of nowhere and asked the young family there if I could stay. They said yes. I slept on the floor, ate what they ate, and helped with the cows in the morning before riding back to Ulaanbaatar.
I flew out that evening, with just enough time to hit the big market in the middle of the city first. Boots, tools, saddles, coats, everything. Rough, loud, awesome. Go, and keep a hand on your bag.
What I would tell you to do
- Book the homestay part through an operator that pays the families directly. It costs about the same and it changes what the days feel like.
- Plan for the evenings, not the days. Riding, herding and eating all happen late. Bring a book for the afternoons and stop fighting it.
- Say yes to the food. All of it.
- Give yourself an extra day at the end with no plan. My best night of the trip was the one I had not arranged, in a stranger's ger, in the rain.
- Sort the visa before you fly. Mine took an embassy appointment in Singapore, so worth checking the rules for wherever you are actually flying from, not for your passport country.
This was my first time in Mongolia and my first time on those steppes, and it is the trip I would do again tomorrow. I went back in 2024 on a work trip and had a great time too, but that was a different kind of trip. The 2018 version, nine days, three families and a rented motorbike, is the one.