Mongolia Travel Guide

Mongolia is a beautiful country, but it is very isolated as it is landlocked between two vast countries, Russia and China, and a large part of it is very inhospitable, with the Gobi desert in the south and vast cold mountainous areas in the north.

Mongolia is the sparceliest populated country on Earth, due to the harsh conditions

The rest of Mongolia consists mainly of the Steppes, which are flat and arid grassland plains with some extreme weather, from very hot in the summer 40 °C (104 °F), to very cold in the winter, down to as much as -40 °C (-40 °F). However this inhospitable and diverse scenery is also truly magnificent, and much of it still remains completely unspoilt by imposing modern necessities such as roads, traffic and urban developments. Mongolia does have some cities and large towns, but outside of these areas the traditional nomadic way of life still prevails, mainly because it is the only successful way to exist in these extreme terrains and conditions.

The basis of the Mongolian nomadic way of life is the yurt (local tent)

The nomadic tribes are herdsmen (malchin) and have preserved ways to live off the land that have been forgotten in many other countries, and one of the highlights of any trip to Mongolia is meeting with these extraordinary folk, and simply observing a way of life that has thrived virtually unchanged for thousands of years. Typical Mongolia landscape with steppes and mountains

Typical Mongolia landscape with steppes and mountains