Almaty sits at 800 metres. Every good day starts higher.
Which lake road is open in May. What the Charyn day costs once the driver is paid. Whether Shymbulak is worth the cable car without skis. Reviews of every tour you can book in Kazakhstan.
Charyn, the two lakes, the reservoir above the city, the dune.
The five bookings a first trip to Kazakhstan hangs off. What each one costs, how long you spend in the van, and what the people who took it say.
01The long day eastCharyn Canyon, Kolsay, and Kaindy Lakes Day TripCharyn’s red canyon in the morning, the two lakes after lunch. Four hundred kilometres of driving, and nobody regrets it.
02The lake above townBig Almaty Lake Tour with Optional HikeAn hour of switchbacks to a turquoise reservoir under the glaciers. It sits in a border zone, so names go in ahead of the day.
03The first afternoonCity tour and Medeu, Shymbulak and Kok-TobeThe ice rink at Medeu, the cable car on to Shymbulak, then Kok-Tobe over the rooftops at dusk.
04Out into the steppeSinging dunes & Aktau mountains group tour to Altyn EmelThe singing dune and the striped Aktau hills, four hours east of the city inside Altyn-Emel.
05The capital, properlyAstana City Tour: Private Full Day with Lunch and Comfort PickupAstana’s left bank in a day: the tent, the palace, the mosque and the whole axis on foot.
Charyn and the lakes: one very long day, or two with a night by the water.
Everything east of Almaty is a drive, and the difference between these days is mostly how much of it you do. Three shapes of the same country, and what it costs to get in the van.
Two cities, and four places worth the drive between them.
Almaty under the mountains, a capital dropped on open steppe, a canyon the colour of rust, a drowned forest, a reservoir at 2,500 metres and a dune that makes a noise. Six starting points, and the best day out in each.
The Tien Shan starts where the Almaty tram line ends.
A cable car out of the gorge puts you at 2,200 metres in half an hour, and a separate road climbs to a reservoir above that. It is the cheapest altitude in Central Asia, and the reason people stay in Almaty longer than they planned.
The days out of Almaty that fill up before anything else.
The whole Kazakh catalogue →What the most travellers book here, what each one gives you for the day, and where the driving goes.
1
Charyn Canyon, Kolsay, and Kaindy Lakes Day Trip
Spend 17 hours exploring Charyn Canyon, Black Canyon, Kolsai Lake, and Kaindy Lake from Almaty. Panda Travel provides a Mercedes minibus, park tickets, and a Soviet-era UAZ transfer to Kaindy. Guides such as Karina, Rustam, Amina, and Nurtas are known for clear English, local stories, music, and keeping the long day on schedule.
From · $58
Read our review →
2
Kolsai, Kaindy Lakes and Charyn Canyon Small-Group Tour
from $58
3
Kolsai-Kaindy Lakes and Charyn Canyons Day Trip
from $43
4
Kolsai Kaindy Lakes with Charyn Canyons Day Tour (lunch included)
from $57
5
Esik Lake and Turgen Waterfall Day Trip
from $28
6
Kolsai & Kaindy Lakes with Charyn Canyon Day Tour
from $57
7
Treasures of Almaty lakes Kaindy and Kolsai,Charyn Canyon VIP car
from $49
8
City tour and Medeu, Shymbulak and Kok-Tobe
from $49
What a day out here costs, from the bazaar to the desert.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. The cheapest good day here is a walk round a bazaar; the dearest is a week in the desert with a driver and a cook.
Bazaar mornings in Almaty, the Medeu and Shymbulak run, and the short lake days up the Turgen valley.
The standards: Charyn and the two lakes in one go, the reservoir above the city, a full day in Astana.
Private drivers, the multi-day runs out to Altyn-Emel and Burabay, and the road south to Turkestan.
Four hours east of Almaty the Tien Shan stops and the steppe takes over.
Altyn-Emel is the size of a small country. A single dune three kilometres long hums when the sand slides, the Aktau hills come out of the ground striped rust and cream, and Saka burial mounds have stood on the plain since the Iron Age. Nothing out here is a half day.
From November the lake roads shut and Almaty shows its other half.
Kolsai, Kaindy and the reservoir all sit at the end of climbs that snow closes for months, and no operator will pretend otherwise. What stays open is the city: the Green Bazaar, the Soviet-era halls and galleries, a bathhouse afternoon, and a ski resort twenty minutes from the last tram stop.
Four Kazakh bookings that will not wait for you.
Most of this country can be arranged over breakfast the day before. These four run on border paperwork, park permits and a road that snow shuts, none of which take any interest in when your flight lands.
- 01Big Almaty Lake Roundtrip Transfer and TourThe lake sits inside a controlled border zone with a checkpoint on the road up. Operators register passengers in advance, so turning up on the day is not a plan.
- 02Kolsai, Kaindy Lakes and Charyn Canyon Small-Group TourThe lakes are five hours out on a road that snow closes. Outside high summer the day runs on whether the pass is open, and the good drivers are booked well before that.
- 03Singing dunes & Aktau mountains group tour to Altyn EmelAltyn-Emel is a national park with a permit gate and no public transport. Every visit goes through an operator who already has the vehicle and the paperwork.
- 04Burabay Oasis Private Tour+ Lunch+ Pickup+ Bonus ActivityBurabay is where the whole capital goes at weekends. Between June and August the lakeside fills and the day tours out of Astana sell through days ahead.
Three things that only happen in Kazakhstan.
Canyons and ski lifts exist everywhere. A spruce forest standing upright under a lake, a dune that drones when you walk down it, and an Olympic rink built at 1,691 metres do not.
Lake Kaindy
An earthquake in 1911 brought a hillside down across a gorge in the Tien Shan and dammed it, drowning a spruce forest where it stood. The trunks are still there, bare and pale, standing straight up out of green water more than a century later. The lake is small and very cold, and the last hour of the road to it is dirt.
- 1Charyn Canyon, Kolsay, and Kaindy Lakes Day Trip★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 1,522 reviews
- 2Kolsai, Kaindy Lakes and Charyn Canyon Small-Group Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 642 reviews
- 3Kolsai-Kaindy Lakes and Charyn Canyons Day Trip★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 505 reviews
The Singing Dune
One dune, three kilometres long and about 150 metres high, sits between two river valleys in Altyn-Emel and does not move, which nobody has fully explained. When the sand is dry and somebody slides down the crest it makes a low droning note you feel through your feet. A day of rain switches it off.
- 1Singing dunes & Aktau mountains group tour to Altyn Emel★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 74 reviews
- 23 Days Tour: Altyn Emel NP, Charyn Canyon, Kaindy & Kolsay Lakes★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 8 reviews
- 3Two Day Tour to Altyn Emel: Singing Dune and Aktau Mountain★★★★★★★★★★ 4.1 · 8 reviews
Medeu
The Soviet Union built the world’s highest large skating rink in a gorge above Almaty at 1,691 metres, where thin air and mountain meltwater made the ice fast enough for well over a hundred world records. It still opens to the public in winter, and the cable car above it keeps climbing to the Shymbulak pistes.
- 1City tour and Medeu, Shymbulak and Kok-Tobe★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 163 reviews
- 2Almaty city tour and Medeu-Shymbulak-Koktobe-Green Bazar★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 65 reviews
- 3Medeu and Shymbulak ski resort private excursion★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 30 reviews
Astana is a capital assembled on open steppe inside thirty years.
All the Astana days →
The left bank reads as one drawn line: a glass pyramid at one end, a shopping tent shaped like a marquee at the other, and a golden tower in the middle you can ride to the top of. Almost none of it existed in 1997. These three carry more travellers than anything else up here.
Bayterek, Ak Orda and the axis
One straight line carries the whole government quarter, and walking it is the fastest way to understand why the city looks the way it does. Evenings are better: the fountains run and the towers light up along the axis.
Burabay, four hours north
Granite outcrops, pine forest and a chain of lakes in the middle of flat country. It is where Astana goes at weekends, and the rock standing alone in the water at Zhumbaktas is the picture everyone comes back with.
What stood here before
The steppe around the capital held part of the Karlag camp system, and the memorial at ALZHIR is an hour west. Guides treat these visits as history rather than sightseeing, and the museums in the city carry the same period.
The two lakes are why people come, and the road is why they book a driver.
Two hundred and eighty kilometres from Almaty, the last stretch unsealed and climbing to 1,800 metres. Kaindy first for the spruce trunks standing in the water, then the lower Kolsai lake where the rowing boats are. Almost everybody does both in one day and gets home after dark.
Every Kolsai and Kaindy day →
By place — cities, canyons and lakes
Almaty, the canyon, the lakes, then the capital: the fortnight most people do.
Medeu and ShymbulakThe newest Kazakh tour reviews.
The rest of the new ones →
Astana Private Custom Walking Tour with A Local Guide
Read our review →
2 day tour to Altyn Emel Singing Dune and Aktau mountain
Read our review →
Personalized guided Car Tours to Charyn Canyon & Kolsay Lake
Read our review →
Private Big Almaty Lake Hiking Tour with alternatgive Pipeline
Read our review →
Private Day Tour to the Land of Canyons-UNESCO-of Kazakhstan
Read our review →
2 Days Private Kolsai Kaindy Lakes with Charyn Canyon Tour
Read our review →
Altyn Emel, Singing Dune, Charyn canyon, Kolsay, Kaindy lake 4 days tour
Read our review →
