Mongolia Loop Tour

Day 1|Welcome to Ulaanbaatar — Arrival

Airport transfer, 1 hr

Meet your crew, settle into a central hotel, and take in the National Museum if time allows before the reception dinner.

Day 2|Ulaanbaatar — The Capital in a Day

Gandan Monastery and its 26.5-metre bodhisattva, the Bogd Khan Winter Palace, and the city panorama from Zaisan Hill.

Day 3|Yolyn Am — Into the Gobi

Fly 2 hrs, then drive 1 hr

Fly to Dalanzadgad and drive into Gurvan Saikhan National Park for a walk up the ice-floored gorge of Yolyn Am, lammergeiers wheeling over the cliffs.

Day 4|Khongoryn Els — The Singing Sands

Drive 3–4 hrs

A long, spectacular drive to the hundred-metre dunes. Climb for sunset — the sands truly sing when the wind leans on them.

Day 5|Khongoryn Els — Dune Day

A full day at the sands: an hour's camel caravan along the dune front, birding in the saxaul scrub, or simply the slow spectacle of light moving across the ridge line.

Day 6|Bayanzag — The Flaming Cliffs

Drive 2–3 hrs

Where dinosaur eggs first came to light: wander the red sandstone badlands hunting wind-uncovered bone fragments, and take the sunset from the cliff tops.

Day 7|Ongi Monastery — Ruins on the River

Drive 4 hrs

North to Ongi, once among Mongolia's largest monasteries before the purges. The ger museum tells its story; the head lama shares its present and its hopes.

Day 8|Orkhon Waterfall — The Volcanic Valley

Drive 4–5 hrs

Into the UNESCO-listed Orkhon Valley to the waterfall the eruptions left behind — deer stones, petroglyphs and burial mounds marking the road.

Day 9|Orkhon Waterfall — Valley at Leisure

A second Orkhon day: walk below the falls, ride with a local family, or follow the river's basalt gorge with a camera as the herds come down to drink.

Day 10|Kharkhorin — Capital of the Empire

Drive 2 hrs

Karakorum, seat of the Mongol Empire in the thirteenth century: the museum's scale model of the vanished city, then a guided walk through the sixteenth-century Erdene Zuu monastery.

Day 11|Khugnu-Tarna National Park — Rock, Dune and Steppe

Drive 2 hrs

Khugnu-Tarna's three-in-one landscape: the Uvgun temple in the boulder mountains, a nomadic family's gers, and birding at the Burd marshland.

Day 12|Hustai National Park — The Takhi Safari

Drive 2–3 hrs

A safari drive through Hustai for Przewalski's horses — over 220 strong — plus red deer, marmots and sousliks, and a meeting with the park's researchers on the reintroduction that brought the wild horse home.

Day 13|Ulaanbaatar — City Finale

Drive 2 hrs

Back to the capital for the Dinosaur Museum, cashmere shopping and the Tumen Ekh folklore ensemble.

Day 14|Fly Home — Departure

Airport transfer, 1 hr

Transfer to the airport for your onward flight.