6 of the 7 Continents For The Budget Traveler: Nomadic Mongolia, The Steppes and Beyond

Mongolia had been on my radar for a long time, to be 100% honest it was not from travel, not from culture, not from some awesome inspiring person I met from Mongolia, it was from playing Genghis Khan on my Nintendo when I was a kid. I thought maybe one day, I'll visit Mongolia. So then in September 2025 it was to become a reality. I certainly was interested in the historical aspect of Genghis Khan and sites to see related to the Mongolian Empire, but I also knew from years of traveling that it would offer so much more. Here's my go to tips for visiting Mongolia, and my experiences there...

It's cold year round! I was looking forward to snow, but even if you are coming in the middle of summer be prepared for the cold. Ulaanbaatar is the coldest capital city in the world, you may get lucky and catch a warm week, but you are also going to venture out to see and explore the Mongolian Steppes, so be prepared for the snow!

Went to bed a few nights with coat and hat on!
Speaking of Ulaanbaatar, if time permits don't just land and skip the capital! This place was fun! It was a great spot for the Genghis History Museum, a random festival I stumbled upon, visiting temples, meeting locals, great view points, great bars, and great people.
I was here at the start and end of my trip, I opted for Airbnb for the first part for price, but splurged at the end for the Blue Sky Hotel, the most noticeable building in the city sky line. Both were great and in the same relative area. If you are looking for the city center, Blue Sky was definitely it. It was just south of Sukhbaater Square which was the true heart of the city while I was there.

Blue Sky Hotel, home base for the end of the trip
Now while I walked most of the city, not everything was walking distance, notably, the Zaisan hilltop monument (great views!), and two temples. So I took a taxi, but Uber doesn't work there, here I learned about Mongolia taxi culture...

Everyone is a taxi! Ok, so use extreme caution here, but the culture is to hold out your hand and do the standard wave, someone is going to pull over, it may be a marked taxi, it maybe a mom with a kid in the car, if your direction fits their path, you negotiate a price, and go. I'm not joking, and again, use extreme caution.
Language, I foolishly thought Russian was widely spoken here as I speak some Russian and saw Cyrillic alphabet in all the research I had done. Russian is hardly spoken here, the Russian alphabet is used, but the language was there and gone after the Soviet Times ended. English was spoken at major tourist sites, elsewhere I made it work with hand signals or whatnot.

Mongolian nights

Four days in the Capital was perfect for me. I definitely hit all the sites, and wasn't rushed.

Try the black ice cream before you leave!
Now for the Steppes, I knew this was not going to be one for me to self tour... I was very happy with that decision as my tour guys drove the roads with no signs, in some cases no roads, and definitely lots of snow.
I used Enza tours, recommended by Tripadvisor reviews, and they did not disappoint. We did the 5 day tour around central Mongolia in Yurt acomodation. I was very excited for this, there were two tour options, traditional yurt camps, or tourist camps. I like showers and toilets, so we did tourist camps. The yurts themselves were still pretty traditional, just included a place to charge your phone.
First stop was Terelj National Park, some easy hiking and great views. We also visited an old Buddhist temple.
It also became very clear as we left the park, that this was going to be a wild life paradise for sight seeing, we passed 1000's of horses, goats, yaks, and birds during this epic tour.
The Genghis Khan Statue! How can you come to Mongolia without visiting it!? You visit the small museum inside then can go up the stairs to the top of the horses head, and get a good look at Genghis's face up close!
The camping begins! All the yurts we stayed in had a power source, a main building with a toilet and shower. Some were colder than others, all had a fire place, and each yurt experience was a great night's sleep, although some mornings I definitely woke up freezing!

Tea with the guides
All meals were included, except alcoholics drinks, great options from camping food to traditional Mongolian meals.
We then visited the Khugnu Khaan National Park for some horse back riding, then the Elsen Tasarkhai sand dunes for some camel riding! I've rode camels before, note, Mongolian Camels are bigger! I thought I was on a dinosaur!
This tour has a lot of driving, but the tour guides were social, made good stops for coffee, or random stops to visit a traditional family, see some wild life, or toilet breaks. There were also smaller stores if you needed things along the way, but definitely wiser to stock up beforehand.
The Tsenkher Hot Springs visit was a nice slow day, I hung out at the camp, met some yaks, met some horses that invaded the camp, and tried Genghis Khan Vodka.... wasn't my favorite drink of the trip, but hey, at least I tried.
And of course, relaxed in the springs.
The next morning I climbed out of my yurt to see what I was hoping for, beautiful snow! We spent some more time at the springs before driving off to the next stop.

Good morning snow fall
The snow drive was epic, again glad I had the guides as now, we cannot see any roads, any signs, they didn't have a GPS, I asked how they knew where to go, and they just replied, "We've done this so many times..."
We then visited the Erdenezu and Kharakhorum temples, covered in snow of course.
The last stop after a week of Yurt camping was to search for the elusive white Asian wild horse in Khustai National Park. With help of some locals binoculars I did see it. No photos, but as I say, sometimes the best things don't get photographed.

Thanks for letting my use the binoculars friends

Back to UB!

I ended the tour back in UB exploring some more of the sites and just taking in the rest of central Asia as this was part of a bigger trip with Kazakhstan as well. This was certainly an off the main tourist stream place to visit, and I am so thankful for my younger Nintendo version of myself that sprung the interest. Through the snow, the hiking, the yurts, the animals, the vodka, and the chaotic capital of Ulaanbaatar, I found the cross roads of the kid growing up in Brooklyn playing video games to the grown man living out that kid's dream in real time in Central Asia. This was a place to never be forgotten, and even though I only saw a small part of this giant country, I'll forever be grateful to Mongolia for everything it gave me.