18-Day Mongolia Cultural Tour with Naadam and the Gobi Desert

Touch down in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia's sprawling, contradictory capital, where Soviet apartment blocks sit alongside Buddhist temples and modern glass towers. Transfer to your hotel and rest after your journey. This evening, gather around the table for a welcome dinner with your expedition companions, a first taste of Mongolian cuisine and the adventure ahead.

Take a domestic flight west to Olgii, the capital of Bayan-Olgii province and the heartland of Mongolia's Kazakh community. Explore the town's markets and mosques, a world apart from Ulaanbaatar. Tonight, sleep in Olgii town as you prepare to meet the legendary eagle hunters tomorrow.

Travel to Sagsai village, home to some of the most skilled eagle hunters in all of Mongolia. Watch a golden eagle hunting demonstration in the open valleys, the great birds streaking down from cliff faces at speeds exceeding 150 kilometers per hour. Learn about Kazakh culture, dress, music, and the rigorous years-long process of bonding a hunter with an eagle. Tonight, sleep in a traditional ger with your eagle hunter hosts, an intimate window into a way of life stretching back over 4,000 years.

A morning farewell to your eagle hunter hosts before the flight back to Ulaanbaatar. Upon arrival, drive directly east to Terelj National Park, pausing at the colossal Genghis Khan Equestrian Statue, a 40-metre stainless steel figure and the world's largest equestrian statue. Ascend to the viewing platform for panoramic views of the Tuul River valley before continuing into Terelj's pristine granite valleys. Overnight in a traditional ger camp beneath a dark, star-filled sky.

A full day to explore Terelj's dramatic granite landscape. Visit Turtle Rock, one of Mongolia's most recognizable natural sculptures, and climb to the Ariyabal Meditation Temple carved into the cliff face above a forested hillside. Spend the afternoon on horseback through open meadows flanked by pine forests. This extraordinary valley, just one hour from the capital, feels utterly removed from the modern world.

Drive back into Ulaanbaatar for a full day in the capital. Begin at the Gandantegchinlen Monastery, the living center of Mongolian Buddhism, where monks chant their morning prayers beneath a 26-metre gilded statue. Walk to Chinggis Khan Square, the vast central plaza framed by government buildings and the looming bronze figure of the Great Khan himself. Spend the afternoon at the National Museum of Mongolia, tracing the full arc of the empire from the steppe tribes of antiquity to the modern nation.

A free day in the capital on the eve of Naadam. Sleep in, browse the Black Market bazaar for cashmere and handicrafts, visit the Mongolian Art Museum, or simply wander the city at your own pace. This evening, the anticipation builds as the city begins its preparations for one of the great cultural festivals of the world.

The opening ceremony of Naadam, Mongolia's national festival, begins today at the Central Stadium. Thousands gather as costumed horsemen parade, wrestling champions are introduced, and archery competitors take their marks. The wrestling competition, governed by rules older than the empire itself, begins immediately after the ceremony. Child jockeys as young as five years old prepare for the long-distance horse races stretching across the open steppe beyond the city.

Return to the festival grounds for a second day of competition. Wrestling finals, archery eliminations, and the thrilling conclusion of the horse races draw tens of thousands of spectators. Wander the festival grounds to sample khuushuur (fried mutton pastry), watch traditional throat singing, and mingle with Mongolian families in their finest deels. This is one of the great cultural spectacles of the world, and you are inside it.

Leave Ulaanbaatar and head southwest along the valley of the Orkhon River toward the ancient capital of the Mongol Empire. Arrive at Karakorum in the afternoon. Visit the Erdene Zuu Monastery, built in 1586 from the stones of Genghis Khan's original capital, its white walls enclosing three ornate temples that survived the Soviet-era purges. Walk the outline of the old palace foundations as the steppe breeze carries the smell of wild sage. Tonight, sleep in a ger camp outside the monastery walls.

Follow the Orkhon River deeper into one of Mongolia's most fertile and historically significant valleys. A morning hike brings you to the Orkhon Waterfall, which erupts from a basalt shelf formed by ancient volcanic activity. In the afternoon, visit a nomadic family at their summer camp, sharing tea, fermented mare's milk (airag), and a glimpse of the seasonal rhythms that have defined Mongolian life for centuries. The valley around you is a UNESCO World Heritage landscape.

Drive south through the transition zone where the steppe thins and the air begins to carry the dry, mineral scent of the approaching desert. Stop at the ruins of Ongi Monastery, once one of the largest religious complexes in Mongolia with over 30 temples and 1,000 monks, destroyed in the Stalinist purges of 1937. The ruins stand today as a haunting memorial. Reconstruction is underway, and the rebuilt main temple offers context and quiet reflection before the road south continues.

Drive to Bayanzag, the Flaming Cliffs, where American paleontologist Roy Chapman Andrews discovered the world's first dinosaur eggs in 1923. The red sandstone formations burn at sunset with an intensity that borders on supernatural. Walk the rim of the cliffs and peer down into the gullies where dinosaur fossils still surface after heavy rains.

The Khongor Sand Dunes, known as the Singing Sands, rise up to 300 metres and stretch nearly 200 kilometres across the Gobi floor. Ride Bactrian camels along their base, the ancient two-humped variety that has crossed these sands for millennia. In the late afternoon, climb the main dune ridge as the sun begins its descent, the valley below casting long violet shadows across the sand. The view from the summit, with the Gobi spreading in every direction, is among the great vistas of the natural world.

Enter the Gobi Gurvansaikhan National Park and descend into Yol Valley, a narrow ice gorge that persists through summer, locked between soaring canyon walls. Walk the frozen floor of the gorge past nesting griffon vultures overhead. This afternoon, arrive at Three Camel Lodge, the Gobi's finest and most celebrated accommodation, a beautifully designed ger camp whose traditional architecture and attentive hospitality have earned it international recognition. Tonight, the desert sky above you will hold more stars than you have ever seen.

Continue to Tsagaan Suvarga, the White Stupa, a formation of ancient seabed cliffs rising 30 metres from the Gobi plain in layered bands of white, red, and ochre. Once the floor of a shallow inland sea, these sedimentary walls are studded with the fossils of marine creatures that lived here 60 million years ago. At sunrise and sunset, the cliffs ignite in color. It is one of Mongolia's most quietly spectacular landscapes, and almost no one outside the country knows it exists.

The final leg of the overland journey brings you back into Ulaanbaatar by afternoon. The rest of the day is yours: browse the Black Market (Narantuul), Mongolia's vast open-air bazaar, for cashmere, silver jewelry, and traditional handicrafts. This evening, gather for the farewell dinner: a proper Mongolian feast with the full group, a last sharing of stories from the road, and a toast to the steppe, the desert, and the eternal blue sky that watched over all of it.

Transfer to Chinggis Khan International Airport for your onward journey. The expedition is complete. Mongolia has a way of following travelers home, a persistent quality of light and space that reframes ordinary life. We hope you carry a little of the eternal blue sky with you.