Almaty sits under the Tian Shan. The best days drive away from it.
How long the Charyn Canyon run really takes. What the Kolsai and Kaindy lakes cost once you split them over two days. Which mountain is twenty minutes from the city and which is six hours. Reviews of every tour you can book in Kazakhstan.
Four days that decide an Almaty trip.
The canyon, the two lakes, the mountain above town, and the dune that hums. What each one costs, and how long it really takes.
01The long canyon dayCharyn Canyon, Kolsay, and Kaindy Lakes Day TripCharyn, Kolsay and Kaindy on one run out of the city. The most-booked day in the country, and one of the longest.- 02The lakes, unhurriedKolsai, Kaindy Lakes and Charyn Canyon Small-Group TourThe same two lakes at a slower pace, in a small group, with the driving split over two days.
03Almaty in a dayCity tour and Medeu, Shymbulak and Kok-TobeMedeu, the Shymbulak cable car and Kok Tobe hill, all of it within reach of the city.
04The dune that singsSinging dunes & Aktau mountains group tour to Altyn EmelAltyn-Emel National Park, the singing sand ridge and the striped Aktau hills behind it.
Canyon, lakes, or the mountain above town. Pick the drive.
Almost everything here leaves from one city. What separates the days is how far they go: twenty minutes up the gorge, three hours east to the red rock, or the best part of a day to the lakes.
Six places the tours actually take you.
A canyon of red sandstone, two mountain lakes, a reservoir above the treeline, a ski gondola, a singing dune, and the capital up on the northern steppe. Each one has its own list.
Everyone ends up at the canyon and the two lakes.
Every Kazakhstan tour review →The same handful of names come up again and again. What they cost, and how they differ once you look at them side by side.
1
Charyn Canyon, Kolsay, and Kaindy Lakes Day Trip
Review of Almaty’s 17-hour trip to Charyn Canyon, Kolsai and Kaindy Lakes, with practical advice on transport, costs, weather, and value.
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
Kolsay, Kaindy Lakes and Charyn Canyon Day Trip
from $43
5
Kolsai Kaindy Lakes & Charyn Canyons 2-Day Tour
from $130
6
Kolsai Kaindy Lakes with Charyn Canyons 2-day tour
from $130
7
Kolsai Kaindy Lakes with Charyn Canyons Day Tour (lunch included)
from $57
8
Esik Lake and Turgen Waterfall Day Trip
from $28
Almaty is close to its mountains and a long way from its canyons.
Every tour here is priced by the drive. Three honest brackets, with what each costs and what the hours buy you.
Kok Tobe, the Green Bazaar, Panfilov Park, an afternoon at Medeu. Back in the city for dinner.
Charyn Canyon, Big Almaty Lake, Issyk. Out before seven, lunch from a cool box, home after dark.
Kolsai, Kaindy and Altyn-Emel. The overnight version costs more and hurts a great deal less.
Astana was a steppe town in 1997. Now it has a skyline.
A thousand kilometres north of Almaty, the capital is glass towers, a mosque that holds ten thousand people, and pine-and-granite lake country at Burabay a morning’s drive away. The winter is genuinely severe. The tours run anyway.
- 1Astana City Tour: Private Full Day with Lunch and Comfort Pickupfrom $149
- 2Astana City Tour: Explore Night City with a Certified Guidefrom $49
- 3Burabay Oasis Private Tour+ Lunch+ Pickup+ Bonus Activityfrom $249
A bazaar full of horse sausage, and a cathedral built without nails.
Between the mountain days there is a city worth a day of its own: the Green Bazaar under its curved roof, Zenkov Cathedral standing in Panfilov Park without a single nail in it, and felt-making villages an hour out where the eagles are working birds.
What a day out of Almaty actually costs.
Everything on the site sorted by price. The canyon comes in cheaper than most people guess. The private multi-day trips do not.
City walks, the bazaar, Kok Tobe by cable car, and a surprising number of the shorter mountain runs.
The standard day trips: Charyn, Big Almaty Lake, Issyk, and the group runs out to Kolsai.
Private drivers, the two- and three-day lake trips, and the long hauls to Altyn-Emel.
Three things that happen in Kazakhstan and almost nowhere else.
Canyons and ski lifts exist everywhere. A spruce forest standing upright under a lake, a dune that hums, and a hunting eagle on a gloved arm do not.
The Sunken Spruces of Kaindy
An earthquake in 1911 shook a limestone slide down into a gorge in the Tian Shan and dammed it, and the valley behind filled with meltwater. The spruce trees never fell. Their bare trunks still stand out of the surface like masts, and because the water sits close to freezing all year the branches below it have barely rotted in a century.
- 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 of Altyn-Emel
One sand ridge, roughly three kilometres long and a hundred and fifty metres high, sits between two rocky spurs and has not wandered off them in centuries. When the sand is properly dry and you come down the crest, the whole face starts to hum. You feel it through your boots a moment before you work out what you are listening to.
- 1Singing dunes, Aktau Mountains & Altyn Emel Day Trip★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 84 reviews
- 2Singing dunes & Aktau mountains group tour to Altyn Emel★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 74 reviews
- 3Altyn Emel. Singing dune. 1 day tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 12 reviews
Hunting with Golden Eagles
A berkutshi trains a golden eagle to take fox and hare across open ground, keeps the bird a few seasons, and then releases it back to the mountains to breed. The demonstrations in the foothills outside Almaty fly working birds rather than props, and the weight of one settling onto a gloved forearm is the part nobody is ready for.
- 1Nomadic Lifestyle Experience at Huns Ethno Village★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 60 reviews
- 2Kazakh aul Huns and Ak-Bulak Resort Day Trip★★★★★★★★★★ 4.2 · 32 reviews
- 3Experience the Nomadic Lifestyle at ‘The Huns’ Ethno-village★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 25 reviews
The lake roads ice over. The cable car does not.
From November the passes above Saty freeze and the Kolsai trips either stop or turn into 4x4 expeditions. Almaty answers with what it was built around: a skating rink at seventeen hundred metres, a gondola climbing out of the city to the snow, and a bazaar that is at its best in the coldest month of the year.
By place
By kind of day
Latest out of Almaty and Astana.
Keep going through the list →
Kolsai Kaindy Lakes with Charyn Canyon Lunch Included
Read our review →
Astana Private Custom Walking Tour with A Local Guide
Read our review →
Almaty 1-Day Tour: Kolsay, Kaindy & Charyn Black Canyon
Read our review →
Electric Bike Tour to Big Almaty Lake or Kok-Zhailau
Read our review →
Altyn Emel, Singing Dune, Charyn canyon, Kolsay, Kaindy lake 4 days tour
Read our review →
