Winter in Mongolia isn’t staged or softened — it’s real. Ice-cold mornings, wide open steppe, frozen rivers, and days shaped by weather — sometimes extreme — and work. This season is often advertised as an adventure challenge, yet for rural families it’s simply life. Our winter journey offers the chance to see Mongolia as it is at this time of year: stripped back, still, and quietly beautiful.

This trip travels through three landscapes — open steppe, sand dunes, and a historic river valley. Each shows a different face of winter, from sharp cold and endless horizon to sheltered valleys and slow rivers edged in ice, along with small towns where shops, schools and community life continue through the snow.

We stay with families we’ve partnered with for years, in winter terrain that shapes every day. There is no set schedule, so you must be comfortable with empty time and open space — ideal for travellers who value landscapes, stillness and movement without staged demonstrations or performance.

This experience is for those who want to see Mongolia in its truest season — when colour is muted, horizons are long, and life continues through the cold. Just winter, as it really is.

Duration: 9 Days – Adaptable

Accommodation – Homestays & family operated ger camp – hosted by families we work in long-term local partnership 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.

This is a customisable trip. It is adaptable, giving you the freedom to build a unique and personal trip for your chosen date. Upgrade your accommodation for all – or just part – of your trip, slow down the pace with few extra nights here and there or add a few more active adventures along the way. 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.

Winter is a quintessential Mongolian season. It is cold, very cold, but the cold is an important part of what makes Mongolia and its landscapes extraordinary at this time of year. For all of our winter trips, we provide traditional felt boots, hand-made goat skin blankets and can provide winter deels as well.

A carbon-offsetting contribution to the Mongolian Nomad Carbon Project for all bookings

We measure the carbon footprint of each tour we offer and balance the footprint through the Mongolian Nomad Carbon Project.

Book With Confidence (see our FAQs)

Group Size & Pricing

Our journeys are designed for small groups of 2–6 travellers with this trip guaranteed with two bookings.

Deposit: US$ 600 pp . Flexible payment instalments are available for the remaining balance.

Sliding Price Scale

Includes our low season discount of 15% off per person as a thank you for travelling outside of peak season.

Final group size of 2 guests ~~US$ 3035 pp~~ US$ 2575 pp
Final group size of 3-4 guests ~~US$ 2865 pp~~ US$ 2435 pp
Final group size of 5 guests ~~US$ 2545 pp~~ US$ 2165 pp
Final group size of 6 guests ~~US$ 2335 pp~~ US$ 1985 pp

Why Travel with Us?

We know budget is personal, and every traveller has different priorities. Our prices may be higher than those of larger or budget-focused operators, but here’s what your payment supports:

Small-scale, ethical tourism – we welcome just 100–150 travellers a year, keeping experiences personal and meaningful.
Fair group sizes – groups of 2–6, giving you the flexibility of a private trip with the social feel of a small group.
Thoughtfully designed itineraries – crafted by our founder, Jess, with an emphasis on flow, balance, and season rather than profit.
Long-term partnerships – we invest in our local team and host families, rather than hiring freelancers seasonally or arriving unannounced.
Positive impact – your payment supports local employment, community initiatives, and responsible travel practices.
Not luxury, but genuine – we prioritise authenticity, fairness, and connection over fancy extras.

Curious where your money goes? See the breakdown on our Positive Impact tab.

Included in the price

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 (+ 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:

Camel or horseback rides
Entrance fees to monasteries, temples, and museums (when with local team) – excludes camera tickets
Festival tickets if a festival is highlighted in the 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!

Not included in the price

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.

Our winter trips all have a 15% discount as a way of encouraging travellers to travel outside of the main travel season – helping to make tourism less concentrated around peak season in Mongolia (summer) and to help the income of the people we work with be more evenly distributed.

No domestic flights. Emissions per km for domestic flights are high because a large proportion of the flight is spent taking off and landing. As we are serious about tackling the carbon footprint of the trips we offer, we try that a majority of our experiences don’t include domestic flights.

The maximum group size is six which is refreshingly small for the travel industry and allows us to manage our impact.

We are in the process of measuring the carbon footprint of each experience we offer and balancing the footprint through the Mongolian Nomad Carbon Project. We wanted a high-standard 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.

Our team of female Mongolian trip assistants is breaking down barriers in tourism and leading the way for other Mongolian women from a diverse range of backgrounds to work in and be supported by tourism. Mongolia’s growing economy has not directly translated into better employment opportunities for women and by choosing to travel with us you’re helping us to create long-term development and employment opportunities for our brilliant trip assistants.

High unemployment rates and toxic masculinity are two very real issues faced by older more traditional men in Mongolia. By choosing to travel with us you’re helping us to provide long-term employment for our team of older, more traditional male drivers who have experience and accumulated knowledge but who would otherwise struggle to find employment and provide for their extended families.

The experience has been built with a focus on Mongolian culture and on creating local benefits for local people & communities including families we work in long-term local community partnership with – helping to supplement their income to help prevent urban migration, face the challenges of climate change and allowing them to maintain their fragile herding lifestyle. More about who we work with here.

A donation is made to the Mongolian projects that we provide long-term support to (and that you will visit) such as the Uuliin Nuur Community Project in Ulaanbaatar.

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. We must report publicly on an annual basis on progress against our interim and long-term targets, as well as on actions being taken. We do this in our Climate Action Plan linked above.

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 wanted an accurate footprint analysis whilst also keeping the process manageable, achievable, and affordable. Of the limited carbon calculators available to small tourism companies with a restricted budget we have signed up with the carbon calculator tool Carmacal – specifically designed for tour operators and the 2017 winner of the UNWTO Award for Innovation in Research and Technology.
However, there are limitations with this online tool in the fact that – like most online carbon calculators – you can only measure transport and accommodation and a few very specific activities. But, the main contributors to carbon footprints are food, consumption, transportation, and energy, and all are heavily utilised during a tourism experience.
As a result, founder Jess has worked with two postgraduate students from the Responsible Tourism Management Postgraduate Course of Leeds Beckett University in the UK – the only responsible tourism management MSc certified by the UNWTO – looking at how we can measure the carbon emissions of meals on tour as well as the carbon footprint of our office as well as certain tour activities.

Balancing Our Carbon Footprint

We are in the process of measuring the carbon footprint of each of our tours. Once this is complete, we will balance those emissions by purchasing Plan Vivo–certified carbon certificates (environmental service certificates that each represent the reduction or avoidance of one metric tonne of CO₂) through C-Level and the Mongolian Nomad Project, delivered in partnership with the Mongolian Society of Range Management. The Plan Vivo Standard is built on ethical principles that deliver long-term climate, livelihood, and biodiversity benefits.

In the meantime, we have partnered with C-Level to fund a secure carbon calculator (linked below) for our guests. Through this, you can:

Balance the footprint of your flights
Offset a chosen amount of CO₂ (including your annual footprint)
Or make a direct donation to support the project’s work

Each contribution is invested in Plan Vivo Certificates that support the Mongolian Nomad Project

We know this isn’t perfect, but it is a start. As the saying goes: “you can’t manage what you don’t measure.” For us — a small business with limited resources — this approach is both realistic and achievable.