Trip Details – Khustain & Conservation – Mongolia nature journey

A harem of wild Takhi / Przewalski horse (Equus przewalskii) grazing at Khustain Nuruu National Park in central Mongolia

Khustain Nuruu National Park is a mountainous forest-steppe area in the lower spurs of the south-western range of the Khentii mountains, situated some 100 km to the south-west of Ulaanbaatar. It is also one of Mongolia’s conservation success stories and the slower pace of our Khustain Explorer – exploring together with Anne Camille Souris  – an ethologist & member of the SSC/IUCN Equid Specialist Group – and being hosted by herders living within the national park – helps to provide you with a better understanding of the biodiversity of Khustain – its people, landscapes and wildlife and the challenges they are facing.

Anne Camille Souris is only available on certain weekends throughout the year. If your dates don’t coincide with Anne Camille’s availability see our Khustain Explorer experience or our one-day experience for more details. Both include time spent with a ranger or biologist employed by the NGO. Not only will this give you a more personal insight into the work and conservation of the national park but will give you access to the diversity of wildlife that calls the region home.

Positive Impact Overview

  • A donation per traveller to the Hustai National Park Trust NGO helping to support their essential conservation work.
  • Supporting the work of the Bayansonginot Cooperative and its community of herding families.
  • Helping to create employment and development opportunities for our team of Mongolian female trip assistants. (We also employ a team of older, more traditional male drivers – helping to prevent them from becoming unemployed.)
  • We measure the carbon footprint of the experience and balance the footprint of each traveller through the Mongolian Nomad Carbon Project. We wanted a high standard offsetting project local to Mongolia where the local community had a positive say in the scheme and its impact. It’s the first project of its kind in Mongolia – restoring traditional nomadic practices to enable ecosystem recovery and carbon uptake.

  • Duration: 2 Days – Adaptable – length or season
  • Accommodation – Herding family ger camp – Hosted by families we work in long-term local partnerhsip with
  • Travel with & experience the friendship of our great Mongolian teams of male driver & female trip assistant as well as the friendship of the families we work in partnership with.
  • All images used throughout this document were taken either by EL guests or members of the EL team. This is the Mongolia that you will also experience.
  • COVID-19 – Book With Flexibility & Confidence. We have a comprehensive FAQ section.

Detailed Day-To-Day Breakdown

Please email or send a message through WhatsApp for further details or to book. Price details are below.

The Small Details

  • For all of our trips we offer a sliding price scale. We appreciate your holiday funds are precious and so the more people that book so the price comes down and everyone benefits.
  • If you are travelling with children, let us know their ages as we do offer free experiences for children under 15 excluding certain costs.

Extension to already booked EL experience

  • 1 Guest                US$ 685 pp
  • 2 Guests              US$ 440 pp
  • 3 – 5 Guests        US$ 325 pp
  • 6 Guests              US$ 275 pp

As a short tour experience

  • 1 Guest              US$ 985 pp
  • 2 Guests            US$ 715 pp
  • 3 – 5 Guests      US$ 590 pp
  • 6 Guests            US$ 530 pp

Where Does Your Payment Go?

  • In our experience, how people choose who to book with usually comes down to the cost. Budget is a very personal thing and everyone is different in what they want to pay.
  • We’re a registered Mongolian business and registered social entrepreneurship. We are not a luxury tour operator. We’re a small business that receives around 150-200 bookings per year. We can’t compete on price with our budget competition that don’t pay sustainable wages, or with the international companies that use agencies to run their trips and receive 1000s of bookings per year. We also can’t compete with individual guides or drivers that offer cut-price trips.
  • To help you see where your payment goes, we’re very much driven by our philosophy of making a positive difference in Mongolia through tourism.
  • We focus on community-based tourism – working directly with local people, communities and projects – slowly building up relationships and what we call long-term local community partnerships with them. We work side by side with each and our experiences are put together in a way that benefits and support each family or project, rather than disrupting their lives or work. We also run our free long-term training school for Mongolian women that want to work in tourism – providing training and then creating long-term flexible employment opportunities for them. 
  • Your payment remains in Mongolia and goes back into the communities through which you travel. We are committed to providing honest and ethical business opportunities for the local people we work with, at fair rates, as well as providing long term support.  We also focus on making sure our impact is as positive as it can be. I am the only westerner (the rest of my small team are Mongolian) and we don’t work with any outside agencies or ‘buy’ services from other in-country operators.
  • We are a signatory of the Glasgow Declaration (a commitment to take action to halve tourism’s emissions by 2030 including our own, and to report on progress made each year) as well as a member of Tourism Declares A Climate Emergency – a collective of travel organisations that have declared a climate emergency and are coming together to find solutions and to help build a new, regenerative tourism.
COVID-19 - Book With Flexibility & Confidence - Learn More
  • All meals outside of the city of Ulaanbaatar. Mainly prepared and cooked by your local team so they are fresh and it means we offer more flexibility for any dietary requirements. We also provide filtered drinking water (not bottled), tea and coffee. 
  • In Ulaanbaatar: local lunch and welcome drink on city walking tour
  • Local team of English speaking female Mongolian trip assistant and Mongolian male driver
  • All overland transportation throughout the trip (4×4 Russian Furgon van + fuel)
  • Each vehicle has a charger for cameras and phones
  • Free (informal and relaxed) city walking tour of Ulaanbaatar
  • Transportation to and from the airport on arrival and departure days
  • All activities mentioned PLUS any activities offered including
  1. Camel or horseback rides
  2. Entrance fees to monasteries, temples and museums (when with local team) – excludes camera tickets
  3. Festival tickets if festival is highlighted in itinerary
  • For winter trips, we also provide each traveller with one of our traditional hand made goatskin blankets. These are used by most rural Mongolians and go on top of the sleeping bag. They are fantastic insulation. Also, you get a pair of Mongolian felt boots to wear during your time in Mongolia. These are commonly used by herders and insulate the feet much better than western-style hiking boots and socks can do. They are waterproof. About the cold, predicted winter temperatures could scare at first sight, but it is a very dry cold and with good preparation (as in the right clothing including thermals)  minus 25 ° C could be compared with – 5 ° C in Europe. We look after you!
  • International airfare to and from Mongolia
  • Accommodation in Ulaanbaatar

* Our trip pricing excludes the price of accommodation in UB though. Why?  Everyone is different is the standard of accommodation they prefer at the start and end of a trip. As there is now such a variety of hotels in UB it is easier to exclude this cost. I provide a list of ideas covering varying standards and budgets and I can also help with booking. There’s everything from a homestay through to Airbnb, US$10 guesthouses and the Shangri-La!

  • Domestic flight where/if applicable

*If you are travelling by domestic flight, the schedule and cost of the domestic flights have not yet been determined by the Mongolian airlines. Once you have booked this trip, you will be notified directly by us as soon as that info becomes available. Reservations and payment arrangements for any domestic flight will be coordinated by us.

  • Passport and visa fees

Let us know your nationality at the time of booking and we’ll confirm whether you need to apply for a Mongolian visa. It is a relatively easy process depending on your nationality and we can help with some of the formalities.

  • Travel insurance (mandatory) 
  • Gratuities

*Each member of the local team receives a responsible but fair salary and none have to rely on receiving gratuities to supplement their income.  In addition, we make sure that everyone who works with us or helps us is fairly rewarded for their work and the service they provide. At the end of the tour, if you wish to make a gratuity to the local team then thank you – it is not compulsory but it is appreciated when given. If you would like to provide a tip,  a tip for the drivers would be roughly equal to what you would give to the tour guides – anything from $20 (USD) per member of staff (driver & tour guide) is a good minimum guide.

Take a look at our comprehensive FAQ section (including our flexible Covid cancellation policy) – https://www.eternal-landscapes.co.uk/mongolia-faqs/

We are members of Tourism Declares A Climate Emergency and a signatory of The Glasgow Declaration which requires us to publish an annual Climate Action Plan. It also means we have essentially signed up to work towards halving our emissions by 2030 and reaching Net Zero as soon as possible before 2050. We must report publicly on an annual basis on progress against our interim and long-term targets, as well as on actions being taken.

One of the five pathways defined in the Glasgow Declaration is ‘measure’ and we have started the process of measuring the carbon footprint of our tours. We use the carbon calculator tool Carmacal – specifically designed for tour operators and 2017 winner of the UNWTO Award for Innovation in Research and Technology. We then measure the carbon output of the meals we provide on tour using https://www.muchbetteradventures.com/magazine/hey-travel-industry-heres-how-to-measure-your-carbon-footprint/ and add this to the carbon total.  We then balance the footprint for each tour by purchasing Plan Vivo Foundation carbon certificates which are used to support the Plan Vivo Mongolian Nomad Project – working in partnership with the Mongolian Society of Range Management.

It’s not perfect, but it is a start. After all, you can’t manage what you don’t measure, and the way we measure the carbon footprint of our tours is manageable and achievable for us – a very small business with limited finance and resources.

We will be publishing the carbon footprint for each tour on each specific tour page but this will take a little time.