24 Hours In Mongolia

A major part of our Climate Action Plan is our ‘Wild Tracks’ series – road trips that allow you to stay for longer and to explore deeper (more details on this soon). They don’t include domestic flights as emissions per kilometer for domestic flights are always much higher because such a large proportion of the flight is spent taking off and landing. Also, domestic flights inevitably involve time spent queuing and boarding, and Mongolia’s weather leads to the risk of delayed flights. These are also the reasons we don’t offer the popular  3 or 4 day ‘highlight loops’ whereby you fly from highlight to highlight. This form of travel gives you no context, no real experience of the country, or opportunities to meet the people who make their lives in the middle in-between landscapes. But what do you do when you’re travelling on the Trans-Mongolian train and the train schedules only give you 24 hours in Mongolia?

Image: EL guest Aucan Czackis who joined us on one of our 24 hours in Mongolia experiences.

The Trans Mongolian train in winter. Image: EL guest Aucan Czackis

Firstly, even though Mongolia is the size of western Europe, it is possible to experience the ‘essence’ of it, with only 24 hours in the country. We recommend ditching the guidebook and the recommended highlights though as, although your time is limited, this does not mean that you cannot experience Mongolia in a real way and return feeling you have ‘touched base’ with the country. Wilderness treks are also possible even in a short amount of time as are self-guided itineraries. 

Aryabal Temple in Gorkhi Terelj National Park is an active Buddhist sanctuary for meditation and religious studies. Built by the Mongolian Believers Association, construction of the temple began in 1998 and finished in 2004. The position of the temple is said to be that of a place of powerful energy. Image: EL guest Aucan Czackis

All our Mongolia one-day experiences and short trips are private, flexible, and fluid and designed to get you just that little bit closer to daily life and give you a more local perspective. Here’s a review of a 24 hours in Mongolia experience we desgined:

‘It was a superb experience. I’m so glad that we got in contact, we were only 24hs there but thanks to your help and the kindness of your team we squeezed every minute and came back with a lot of experiences.  At the beginning we thought that the ‘eternal blue skies’ was a metaphor, because it was very cloudy and snowing, but throughout the day it changed for a beautiful blue roof. The best part for us was when we headed to Turuu’s house and met his family. We felt as guests and not as customers, and that makes a big difference. We cooked together Mongolian dumplings, that happened to have some similarities to an Argentinian dish, so we exchanged some Argentinian-Mongolian ways of cooking. The evening ended playing Shagai and, of course, Turuu won but just give us some time to practise and we’ll play again – they gave us some bones to take home so maybe we can become the Argentinian national team! For us, this evening was probably the highest point of our stay in Mongolia and one of the most memorable of our whole trip. Next morning Turuu took us to the train station, we left UB very happy to have decided to take this path, and convinced that meeting you and your team was the best think that could have happened to do it.’

Image: EL guest Aucan Czackis. Mygaa and Luli preparing dinner – Mongolian buuz (dumplings). And for those of you that are vegetarian, they can be adapted into vegetable buuz.

Find out more here and here. Jess @ Eternal Landscapes