A day in Mongolia

(David Leiter is an American who's been traveling the world full time for the last 10 years. He first fell in love with travel on a solo road trip across Iceland in 2016. His budget was small, so he slept in the back of a rental car for one month while he drove 7,000km around the country, filming all scenic places in Iceland. One of his first videos racked up a few million views and was featured on international TV by BBC Travel. Since then he has travelled to multiple countries, including almost every country in Asia, Central America and the Middle East. In this travel itinerary, he describes his experiences during a one day travel in Mongolia in details. The travelogue, first published in The World Travel Guy, is being republished for the readers of Aviation & Tourism Times.)

If you only have one day in Mongolia, how should you spend it? What are the best things to see and do near Ulaanbaatar?

I faced this question recently when I had a very short stay in the country after traveling China. Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to see more of Mongolia, but it’s a big country and you need plenty of time to really do it justice.

I decided to join a tour group for the day, and we visited the Genghis Khan statue, ate lunch in a traditional yurt with a nomad, saw the Terelj National Park, and did some other good activities in the Ulaanbaatar area.

It was a day well spent, and we accomplished quite a bit of sightseeing for such a short amount of time. Read on for a full writeup of my experience!

Recommended day tour for Mongolia

I booked my Mongolia day tour with GetYourGuide, and you can book the exact same tour here.

It included transportation, lunch, and a helpful English-speaking local guide who explained the history and other things as we went. They also have 3 day tours of Mongolia if you plan to stay longer in the country.

I’ve used this company for lots of tours and activities around the world, and they’re great. Highly recommended!

Visiting Genghis Khan statue in Mongolia

We started by visiting the giant statue of Genghis Khan outside Ulaanbaatar.

The Genghis Khan Statue Complex lies outside of Ulaanbaatar and can be seen for miles as it overlooks the steppes and mountains surrounding it. Photo: Wendy Wu Tours

It’s a one hour drive from the city, where our guide picked us up, but the roads aren’t bad and we were in a comfortable van, so we didn’t mind.

This is the country’s most famous landmark, and it’s also the biggest equestrian (horse riding) statue in the world.

The stainless steel statue was finished in 2008, and it’s 40 meters tall (130+ feet). It sits on top of a visitor center that has a small museum, cafe, and gift shop.

First we went to the basement, where our guide talked about the history of the Mongol empire and showed us some artifacts, including a few weapons and a golden ‘paiza’ (diplomatic passport used by the Mongol officials).

Next, we went to the top of the statue to see Genghis up close.

On top of the statue. I had a very hard time getting this pic without people in it! Photo: David Leiter

Normally there’s an elevator you can ride to the top, but it was broken when I was there, so we had to climb a bunch of very narrow flights of stairs instead.

The top has nice views of the rolling plains, plus the face of the great Khan, but there’s only a limited amount of space where you can stand, so it gets very crowded during the day. I could barely move up there.

This was one of my only gripes about the tour. We could’ve avoided the worst crowds by going to the top of the statue first, and then doing the history lesson in the basement afterwards.

The bird handler outside the Genghis Khan Statue Complex allowed me to hold a steppe eagle. Photo: The World Travel Guy

It wasn’t a big deal, but I hope they’ll adjust their itinerary to take this into account. Learn from our mistake if you can!

Before leaving the statue complex, there was a bird handler outside who let us hold a steppe eagle. They’re trained and used by the local hunters. Cool!

Our guide encouraged us to do this since it was included for free as part of our tour. There wasn’t any charge and they didn’t ask for a tip.

Big furry camel with a double hump. Photo: David Leiter

They also gave us an opportunity to ride camels, but I’ve already done that in other countries, so I passed.

Lunch in a yurt

After seeing the statue, we stopped at a nearby yurt (traditional tent house) owned by a nomad, and sampled some yak cheese and cream, which was good.

A traditional Mongolian yurt. Photo: David Leiter

This guy was quiet, but it turns out he actually used to be a national horse riding champion in Mongolia, which was cool. He had all kinds of medals hanging on his walls.

For lunch, we moved to another yurt and ate Mongolian food (mainly mutton), which was great. This was included with the tour and it was very filling.

 Listening to stories inside the yurt after lunch. Photo: David Leiter

Gorkhi Terelj National Park

Our next stop was Terelj National Park. It’s a 1 hour drive from the statue, or slightly farther from Ulaanbaatar. This time there was a bumpy gravel road part of the way there.

Here, we did a short hike to the top of Turtle Rock, which involved climbing some rocks and squeezing through a few crevices. It was fun and not too hard for anyone in the group.

Hiking to the top of Turtle Rock involves climbing some rocks and squeezing through a few crevices. Photo: David Leiter

As you might guess from the name, this giant rock got its name from the shape. Looking at it from the east side, it looks just like a turtle.

Terelj seemed like a nice park, but I was disappointed by the widespread development inside the park.

It seemed like there was new construction happening everywhere, and it kind of detracted from the natural beauty.

Since it’s a national park, I hope the Mongolian government will take better care of it.

Rocky hills in Terelj National Park. Photo: David Leiter

Aryapala Monastery

For our last stop, we went to see Aryapala, a Buddhist temple from the 1800s.

It’s in the hills of the national park, just a 10 minute drive from Turtle Rock, but it was the bumpiest road we had all day.

You need to climb a bunch of stairs to reach the top, and then you can enjoy a nice view of the whole valley.

It was peaceful there, and seemed like a good way to finish our one day tour of Mongolia.

View at the top of Aryapala monastery. David Leiter

Final thoughts

Overall, I think this tour was a pretty good introduction to Mongolia and a few of the best sights near Ulaanbaatar.

In just one day, you won’t have time to see the Gobi desert, or truly get lost in the country, but it was still interesting and gave me a better feel for the culture and landscapes.

I had a good experience in Mongolia, and I hope I can come back again someday to get deeper into the countryside.

If you want to book the same tour I used, you can do that here.