Thinking about horse trekking in Mongolia? This summer we rode through the Orkhon Valley and stayed with nomadic families. Here’s exactly how we planned our horse trek in Mongolia, costs, logistics, packing, and the things we wish we’d known.
How we booked our horse trek in Mongolia
We reached out to a couple of local Mongolian tour companies a month before our travel date that we found on Google and Reddit. We communicated over WhatsApp (it’s very popular in Mongolia). We wanted a guided trek, sleeping with nomadic families, from Monday to Friday.
Our message looked like this:
”Hello!
My girlfriend and I are going to Mongolia in a month. We are interested in doing a 3/4 days horse trek (with a guide) and ideally staying with nomadic families along the way. Neither of us has much (or any) horse riding experience. Is this something you offer?
Best,
Tobias”
We agreed on a date and price. Payment was made in cash on the first day of the tour. To read more about our experience please see Horse Trekking Mongolia: Our 5-Day Orkhon Valley Adventure.
Quick note on tours
We never book tours when we travel, we usually plan everything ourselves – but Mongolia was different. The country is largely set up for tour packages, and traveling independently can be tricky. We considered renting a car, but it was expensive, and getting in touch with horse families is hard without a local operator’s help. In the end, booking a local tour made the horse trek possible (and much smoother).
Costs of horse trekking in Mongolia
A horse trek with a local Mongolian company seemed to normally be around 100-150 USD/day/person, but booking with an international company can easily double that. Nothing wrong with paying more, but we valued seeing the money we paid go to Mongolians on the ground in Mongolia rather than a company abroad or expats.
The horse trek we finally opted for cost about 1280 USD in total for two persons, Monday to Friday (5 days / 4 nights). This included:
- A private horse guide
- Private driver Ulaanbaatar to Orkhon Valley and back (~8 hours each way)
- All meals
- Ger accommodation
The only extras we paid for were a Coke and an ice cream at Naadam. With 1280 USD for two persons, that means we paid 640 USD per person (128 USD/person/day).
We asked to eat the local food with the host families where we stayed, but the company we booked with also offered an extra chef that would cook for us as an add-on (we didn’t go with this option).
Transportation
Mongolia is huge and the distances are long. Public transport is limited beyond a few domestic flights and long-distance buses, so you’ll usually rely on your own vehicle or a private driver. Most horse-trek packages include transportation, either with a private driver or as part of a small group. Roads can be rough and travel days can be long.
What a day looks like
For our 5-day horse trekking tour we had 3 full days of riding. These looked like this:
- 07:00 – Wake up, breakfast in our host’s ger, and then our guide made the horses ready.
- 09:00 – Start riding. We rode 6-8 hours per day. We had shorter breaks just to stretch our legs (we were beginner riders) or have a snack.
- 12:00–13:00 – Lunch. First day our guide brought lunch. The second day we had lunch in a ger, and the third day we had lunch on the Naadam festival.
- 18:00–19:00 – Arrive at the next ger, had dinner and then went to bed (happy but tired!).
For context, my only previous ride was a 3-day trek in Kyrgyzstan at ~3 hours/day. We set our expectations based on that, but horse trekking in Mongolia was much more intense at 6–8 hours/day. If you’re a beginner, I’d recommend doing a practice day ride at home to get used to the saddle time. You can also ask your tour operator how many hours of riding per day you’re getting (we did not do that – so we were in for a surprise!).
What to pack for horse trekking in Mongolia
Depending on the type of horse trek you’re doing you might want to bring the following:
- Sleeping bag – don’t expect bed linen in the gers. Bring a warm one, it dropped to ~6 °C at night for us (end of July)
- Toilet paper (in a plastic bag) – There is no toilet paper on the steppe. Bring your own!
- Hand sanitiser – No sinks in most places
- Wet wipes – We used ours for a quick wash in the morning and before bed.
- Plastic bag for trash – you will end up with some trash, like used wet wipes etc
- Earplugs – If you’re not used to heavy rain and thunder, or the grunting of yaks in the morning, we’d recommend ear plugs
- Inflatable pillow – Might have been nice. We didn’t bring any. We used our lightweight down jackets as pillows.
- Drybags – great to keep clothes dry in the backpack!
- Sunglasses – the sun is strong in Mongolia, and unless you’re in the forest there is little to no shade
- SPF – for the same reason as above
- Power bank – to charge your phone. Don’t count on electricity when trekking.
- Headlamp – can be nice when you want to go to the toilet in the evening
- Snacks – Meals were big, but no in-between snacks. Bring extra to share with your guide (ours really appreciated it).
What to pack in
This depends on the tour. Some (usually larger) tours use a packhorse for luggage, ours didn’t. We were instructed to pack light in smaller backpacks that we could carry while riding. We used 25-liter backpacks (our flight carry-ons) and they worked well. They were running backpacks, meaning they had a snug fit and could be strapped tightly to the body which we really appreciated due to the bumpiness of horse riding.
Food when horse trekking
Mongolian food is simple, hearty, and built around meat, carbs, and dairy. On our horse trek we mainly ate yak meat with carbs, for example yak meat noodles, yak meat soup, yak meat stew with rice. We also had bread with yak butter or yak cheese, as well as a lot of milk tea (from yak milk). You won’t find much vegetables (they don’t grow much in Mongolia).
Mongolian food is not a spice-forward cuisine, but everything we had was tasty and very filling, especially after a full day of riding. Coming from a Swedish perspective I can see many similarities, as traditional Swedish food is also based on meat and carbs.
Etiquette staying with nomadic families
This might be good to know before going to Mongolia:
- Always step over the ger threshold (not on it!) and in general try to move clockwise inside.
- Accept tea/snacks with your right hand (or both)
- When offered milk tea, be prepared that it’s salty! Our first time we tried it we were very surprised, but we learned to really enjoy it.
- Bring some small gifts for kids, it was really appreciated when we did.
- Learn how to say ”Hello” (Sain bainoo) and ”Thank you” (Bayrl-laa) in Mongolian. We’d recommend going to Youtube to learn the proper pronunciation.
Who we booked our horse trek with
We booked our horse trek to Orkhon valley with Camel Track. We were very happy with everything, the smooth communication with Zaya over WhatsApp, and the tour to Orkhon valley. We’d happily book them again. You can read more about our experience in the blog post Horse Trekking Mongolia: Our 5-Day Orkhon Valley Adventure.
