You are planning a trip to Kyrgyzstan. You already know you want to go for a trek or a horse ride, pick-nick on the shore of a crystal-clear mountain lake and sleep in a yurt. All great choices so far, but have you considered all the options?
Below we try to spur your imagination with more ideas.
Table of Contents
Outdoor adventures
- Do a trek or a horse ride in Kyrgyzstan’s stunning mountains
- Ski Kyrgyzstan: stay in a yurt and ski tour or cross-country ski in remote valleys, or try out a Soviet-era ski resort
- Don’t ski, but come in winter anyway, and go snowshoe walking, horse riding, ice skating, sledding or curling in the snowiest, silentest places.
- Climb Pik Lenin, or make first ascents in the Alay Valley
- Go whitewater rafting
- Go spelunking in the 200 caves of Chil-Ustun, or in the 240m deep Fersman cave
- Cycle tour, bikepack or mountainbike through Kyrgyzstan
Village life & folk culture
- Watch a game of kok boru at one of Kyrgyzstan’s many summer festivals
- See the eagle hunters at work in Bokonbaevo
- Learn how yurts are made in Barskoon, and build up a yurt yourself from scratch
- Chuck some chuko (sheep bones) with the kids
- Take the wheel on Kyrgyzstan’s terrible roads
- Across the country, stay in yurts in the mountains and homestays in the valley
- Stir a big pot of Sumolok during a village Nauryz celebration
- Accompany shepherds with their migration to or from the mountain jailoos
- Cast your expert eye in the animal bazaars of Karakol and At Bashy
Food experiences
- Have a bowl of kymis (fermented mare’s milk), and keep a straight face
- Stuff yourself with walnuts in the world’s largest walnut forest
- Eat a bowl of shorpa and a plate of lagman
- Lick some freshly made balls of kurd to quench your thirst
- Have a bowl of ashlan-fu in Karakol. Then have another one.
Relax
- Soak in the radon-infused hot springs of Issyk-Ata, then go look for Buddhas in the sanatorium and the valley behind
- Relax in open-air hot springs in Altyn Arasan, Juuku valley or Lake Teshik Kul
- Float in super-salty Tuz Kol lake
- Relax on the Issyk-Kul beach in a quiet beach town like Tamga
- Search kurgans and petroglyphs in the area around Cholpon-Ata, or be a beach bum and find your summer romance at the disco
- Go for a swim in the warm waters of the dammed Naryn river beyond Tash Komur, or in the Kirov reservoir
- Cure your asthma at the salt caves of Chon-Tuz
Art and history
- Shiver in a yurt at the camp of Tash Rabat, then make the trek to Chatyr Kol
- See Soviet art at the unlikely Herzen museum, and start to discover Herzen’s work all around Kyrgyzstan
- Make the arduous trek to Saimaloo Tash to find a sacred site of wind-swept petroglyphs
- Buy colorful felt scarves, pointy-toed slippers or an ornate shyrdak from a local women’s collective
- Visit Manas’ final resting place: Manas Ordo
- Find Tibetan inscriptions in the Buddhist stone above Tamga
- Visit the last remnant of the capital of the 10th-century Karakhanid empire: the Burana tower
- Admire the brickwork in 1000-year old mausoleums in Uzgen and Ala Buka
- Read Jamila on the way to the house museum of Chingiz Aitmatov in the cul-de-sac of Sheker
Fauna & flora
- Visit recovering snow leopards at the sanctuary of Sarychat-Ertash
- Spot lynx, brown bears and maral in Surmatsh and Sarkent national parks in Batken region
- Be a birdnerd in Kulunatin reserve, at the mountain lakes of Ortokul and Kulun, or see the bar-headed goose at Chatyr Kol
- Find the endemic Semenov silver fir in Padysh-Ata reserve
- Botanize in wildflower meadows in the Chong-Kemin valley
City life
- Check out the History museum in Bishkek, then say hello to Lenin in the back
- Go for a cheap classical concert at the Philharmonia, then dive into Bishkek’s nightlife with your new crew of young expats and eager local students
- Haggle at Bishkek’s giant Osh bazaar or Osh’s giant Jayma bazaar
- Pay your respects at the holy mountain of Sulaiman-Too in Osh