BEFORE YOU BOOK
FREQUENT QUESTIONS
The things people ask us most, answered properly rather than reassuringly.
Citizens of most EU countries, the UK, the US, Canada, Japan and around sixty others can enter visa-free for up to 60 days. Everyone else can usually apply for an e-visa online in a few days. Check your own passport before booking flights, and tell us if you need an invitation letter — we issue them free of charge.
For our easy tours, if you can walk for two hours on uneven ground you will be fine. Moderate tours add half-day hikes and several hours in the saddle. Expeditions mean long days in a vehicle at altitude and camping above 3,000 metres. Each tour page states the level, and we would rather move you to a different route than have you struggle.
You sleep on thick felt mattresses on the floor, usually four to six people per yurt, under heavy quilts. There is a wood stove, no electricity beyond a solar lamp, and a long-drop toilet a short walk away. It gets genuinely cold after dark even in July. Most people describe it as the best night of the trip.
Yes, and it helps enormously to know in advance. Kyrgyz cooking is meat-heavy, so in remote camps a vegetarian menu has to be planned and shopped for in Bishkek. Vegan, gluten-free and allergy requirements are all workable with notice. Tell us when you book, not on the first morning.
A 20% deposit confirms your place, payable by bank transfer or card. The balance is due 30 days before departure. Cancel more than 30 days out and you lose only the deposit; between 30 and 14 days it is 50%; inside 14 days the trip is non-refundable. We strongly recommend travel insurance that covers cancellation.
About a third of our guests travel alone. You will be placed in shared accommodation with someone of the same gender at no extra cost, or you can pay a single supplement for your own room in guesthouses. Yurts are always shared — that is the nature of a yurt.
The high pastures are open from mid-June to mid-September; before that the passes hold snow and the yurt camps are not yet up. Issyk-Kul and the lower valleys work from May to October. Winter tours run January to February for skiing and eagle hunting. July and August are warmest and busiest; early September is our own favourite.
Yes — roughly half of what we run is private. Send us your dates, group size and interests and we will come back with a day-by-day plan and a price. Private trips can start any day of the week and go at whatever pace suits you.
STILL WONDERING ABOUT SOMETHING?
Ask us directly. A real person in Bishkek reads every message and answers within a working day.