Experience Mongolia like never before with expertly curated tours from a family-owned company dedicated to culture, nature, and local communities.
Our 7-day nomadic family tour Mongolia itinerary takes you from Ulaanbaatar into the Orkhon Valley to live three nights with a herding family. Learn to ride, help milk the animals and make dairy, and share a khorkhog barbecue around the fire. On the way back, visit Kharkhorin, the old capital of the Mongol Empire, and ride a Bactrian camel on the Elsen Tasarkhai dunes. Private tour with your own English-speaking guide and driver. Want to know more first? Read about nomadic life in Mongolia.
Welcome to Mongolia. Your guide meets you at Chinggis Khaan International Airport and takes you to your hotel. Depending on your arrival time, rest after your flight or take an easy walk to Sukhbaatar Square and the city center. In the evening, your guide tells you about the days ahead with your nomad family and what to pack for life on the steppe.
Activities: Airport pickup, trip briefing
Overnight: Hotel in Ulaanbaatar (not included)
Your nomadic family tour Mongolia trip starts as your guide and driver pick you up at your hotel and head west across the open steppe to the green Orkhon Valley, a UNESCO landscape of river meadows and grazing herds. Your host family welcomes you with milk tea in their ger. Settle in, meet the animals, and help with the evening milking as the sun goes down over the valley.
Drive: about 5–6 h
Activities: Meet your nomad family, evening milking
Overnight: Nomad family ger
Meals: Lunch, Dinner
After a fresh dairy breakfast, start with a riding lesson for beginners, then set off on horseback with a herder to round up the animals across the valley. Back at the ger, help milk the cows and mares and learn how the family makes yogurt and airag, the fermented mare’s milk every Mongolian summer is known for. This is what it means to live with nomads in Mongolia.
Ride: lesson and ride, up to 5 h in total
Activities: Horse lesson, herding, milking, dairy making
Overnight: Nomad family ger
Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner
Spend the day in the saddle. Ride with your hosts along the river and up the side valleys, stopping for a picnic and wide views over the Orkhon Valley. Mongolian horses are small, calm and sure-footed, and your herder sets the pace. In the evening, cook khorkhog together, a Mongolian barbecue made with hot stones, and share songs and stories around the fire.
Ride: up to 5 h
Activities: Horse riding, khorkhog barbecue, campfire evening
Overnight: Nomad family ger
Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner
Enjoy a slow last morning with your hosts: help with the morning milking, sit down for one more cup of milk tea and share lunch together in the ger. After lunch, say goodbye and drive to Kharkhorin, the old capital of the Mongol Empire. Walk through Erdene Zuu, Mongolia’s oldest monastery, with its white wall of 108 stupas, and spend the night at a ger camp.
Drive: about 1–2 h
Activities: Morning with the family, Kharkhorin, Erdene Zuu Monastery
Overnight: Ger camp in Kharkhorin
Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner
Drive east to Elsen Tasarkhai, a strip of golden sand dunes in the middle of the green steppe, often called the “Little Gobi”. Ride a Bactrian camel for about 30 minutes, climb the dunes for photos and have lunch nearby. Then continue to Ulaanbaatar, where your driver drops you at your hotel.
Drive: about 1 h to Elsen Tasarkhai, then about 4 h to Ulaanbaatar
Activities: Camel ride (30 min), sand dunes
Overnight: Hotel in Ulaanbaatar (not included)
Meals: Breakfast, Lunch
Enjoy a relaxed morning before your private transfer to Chinggis Khaan International Airport. Your guide and chauffeur will assist with check-in and luggage as you prepare for your journey home.
Thank you for choosing Nomad Trail Mongolia—we hope your adventure has been unforgettable, and we warmly look forward to welcoming you back.
