Wild Altai Trails is a slow-travel trekking or horseback journey through a remote corner of Mongolia’s vast Altai Tavan Bogd National Park. This isn’t about ticking off routes or chasing summits. It’s about immersion—moving at the pace of the land, absorbing the scale of the landscape, and experiencing the raw beauty of Mongolia’s wild western frontier.

Altai Tavan Bogd stands sentinel over Mongolia’s far west, a place where mountain weather, shifting terrain, and rhythms shape every step. Our Wild Altai Trails journey steps away from the standard trekking circuits, offering a quieter, more intimate route through a lesser-known part of this extraordinary protected area.

This isn’t a luxury trip—it’s a real, grounded experience for those willing to trade comfort for connection. Rather than racing through an itinerary, this journey invites you to slow down. To pause. To feel the vastness, and to reflect on your place within it.

For experienced riders, the route can be adapted into a five-day horseback expedition through the remote Yolt Valley. The terrain is varied, rugged, and at times challenging—not wide open, free-flowing country, but a landscape that demands patience and presence. If you're curious about this option, just get in touch—we’d love to tell you more.

Duration: 9 Days

Maximum Group Size: Our tour pricing is based on groups of up to six, but we’re happy to accommodate larger numbers for private journeys—just get in touch for details.

Your Local Team: Throughout your journey, you’ll be supported by our trusted Mongolian team—typically a male driver and a female trip assistant—who not only handle the logistics but also offer genuine warmth and insight along the way. You’ll also experience the hospitality and friendship of the local families we’ve built long-standing partnerships with. Jess and Tuya are available throughout your trip via WhatsApp for any questions or additional support.

FAQs: We’re a small company, but when you book with us, you can do so with flexibility & confidence

All images used throughout our website were taken either by EL guests or members of the EL team. This is the Mongolia that you will also experience.

Western Mongolia

Day One & Two – Eagle Hunter Homestay
Travel from Ölgii to the Altai community for an immersive homestay with a Kazakh eagle hunting family.

Homestay with eagle hunter Basic accommodation in a local home | Outside squat toilet, no showers | Approx. 4–5 hours driving | L/D

Days Three to Seven – Altai Wilderness Trek
Join eagle hunter Asker on a five-day off-grid trek through the spectacular Yolt Valley—either on foot or horseback.

Wilderness tent camping | B/L/D

Day Eight – Ölgii Town & Kazakh Culture
Travel back to Ölgii, the cultural heart of Mongolia’s Kazakh community, and spend the day exploring its mix of tradition and modern life, getting a feel for daily life in this remote yet dynamic town.

Choose from homestay or en-suite room at Bayan Tsambagarav Hotel | Approx. 4–5 hours driving time | B/L/D

Day Nine – Departure
Your trip ends in Ölgii or continues with a domestic flight to Ulaanbaatar—your choice.

Ulaanbaatar

Day to Suit You – Introduction to Ulaanbaatar
Ease into your time in Mongolia’s capital with a relaxed, locally guided introduction to Ulaanbaatar.

Your choice of accommodation | Local lunch & welcome drink

During this journey, you’ll experience a variety of accommodation styles, each offering insight into daily life in Mongolia and shaped by the season and setting:

Kazakh Family Homes

During this experience, you’ll be welcomed into the homes of Kazakh families with whom we’ve developed long-standing, community-based partnerships.

The accommodation will depend on the month you travel in.

If the high summer, you will stay in Mongolian or Kazakh gers, shared as a group.

If you're travelling in June or September, you will stay in traditional, hand-built adobe brick homes at the families' winter encampments.

As a guest, you’ll likely share a private ger or room with fellow group members. Sleeping arrangements are simple and culturally authentic—most families sleep on the floor, and you’ll likely be provided with a comfortable floor mat, in keeping with local traditions.

Facilities are basic: showers are taken at the local public shower house every 2-3 days, and toilets are traditional outdoor short-drop latrines.

Tent Camp

During the trek, you’ll sleep in camping tents. Due to the logistics involved, these camps are intentionally simple—offering a minimalist and close-to-nature experience in the heart of the wild.

Ölgii

You will stay in a private en-suite hotel room for your final night in Ölgii.. You would still spend the day with the group and transfer to the hotel in the evening.

If you prefer something more local, we can also arrange for you to be hosted by our trusted Kazakh partners, Jako and Bovka, at their family home. This is a shared space, and sleeping arrangements will be on floor mats. Shower access is at the town shower house, and toilets are outdoor sit-down long drops.

Map Of Route

Click on the link below to access a map of the route

Group Size – Minimum of two or pay a surcharge if you're a solo traveller | For group sizes larger than six, please get in touch for details.

Group size of 2 guests USD 3435 pp (2025)
Group size of 3-4 guests USD 2990 pp (2025)
Group size of 5 guests USD 2625 pp (2025)
Group size of 6 guests USD 2385 pp (2025)

Where Does Your Payment Go?

We understand that budget is a personal consideration, and everyone has different preferences. Our rates may be higher compared to some other agencies, not because we position ourselves as a luxury tour operator, but due to our commitment to a form of tourism that is fair and equitable. By limiting our operations to around 150-200 travelers annually, we focus on delivering personalized and meaningful journeys rather than generic tick-list experiences.

Commitment to Mongolia: We are a registered Mongolian business, contributing to the local economy through taxes, employment, and social security payments. Your tour payment stays within Mongolia, supporting local initiatives and fostering economic growth.

Empowering Employment Opportunities: We offer long-term employment to individuals often overlooked by other tour companies. Our team includes female Mongolian trip assistants who break barriers in the tourism industry, paving the way for other women to flourish in tourism-related roles. Similarly, we employ older, traditional male drivers, addressing high unemployment rates and supporting extended families within Mongolia. Learn more about our initiatives: Empowering Mongolian Women and Supporting Male Drivers.

Community and Herding Family Support: Our trips are designed to benefit Mongolian herding families and local communities that we have formed long-term local community partnerships with without disrupting their lives or work. Our sustained support helps these families face the challenges posed by climate change. Discover more about us.

Climate Emergency Advocacy: As members of Tourism Declares A Climate Emergency and signatories of the Glasgow Declaration, we are committed to finding solutions to the climate crisis. We pioneer regenerative tourism practices that minimize our carbon footprint and contribute positively to our planet’s well-being. Learn about our climate initiatives: Climate Emergency.

Included in the experience:

All meals outside of the city of Ulaanbaatar: These are 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 instant coffee.

You'll be supported by one of our great teams of a Mongolian driver and a female English-speaking trip assistant, ensuring an immersive experience. Jess and Tuya are available throughout via WhatsApp and we can provide assistance with any onward travel in Mongolia.

Our complimentary 'Intro To Ulaanbaatar' experience including a local lunch and welcome drink

Entrance fees to monasteries, temples, and museums are included when you are with the local team. Please note this excludes camera tickets.

Not included in the experience

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 including any fees for excess luggage

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. We give detailed information on booking.

Personal Expenses: We provide detailed guidance on booking

Alcohol: Alcohol is available to buy in shops and supermarkets throughout your trip, and your team will make regular stops.

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.

We only offer a very limited number of departures for this experience. Although we all love spending time in nature, we need to strike a balance. By having a limited number of departures each year we’re not creating a tourism circuit.

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

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.

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.

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.

A donation is made to the Mongolian projects we support 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.

Meet The Asker Family – Your Hosts On Our Wild Altai Trails

We form long-term local community partnerships with Mongolian people, rural families, and communities – slowly building up relationships with them and providing long-term support. Eagle hunter Asker and his wife Akhul are part of the network of herding families we work with countrywide.

Migrating twice a year, Asker and Akhul’s home is located in the remote community of Altai in the western frontier of Mongolia.