Two hundred kilometres to the good part.
Almost every day out in Kazakhstan starts with a long drive and ends somewhere you did not expect. Which canyon day is worth twelve hours, which lake road is passable, what each seat costs.
Where the vans out of Almaty actually go.
Red canyon, drowned forest, a lake that supplies the city its drinking water, a skating rink at 1,691 metres, and a dune that hums. Six destinations carry almost every itinerary in the country.
Canyon, sunken forest, or singing dune?
Three long drives east out of Almaty, three completely different landscapes, and almost nobody has time for all of them. This is the choice the whole trip turns on.
Charyn and the Valley of Castles
Red sandstone towers standing in a dry gorge with the Charyn river at the bottom. It is the one everybody goes to, it is the cheapest of the three, and most vans bolt the lakes onto the same day.
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Kaindy, where the spruce drowned
A landslide dammed this valley in 1911 and the forest never fell down. Bare trunks come straight out of green water. The last few kilometres need a proper vehicle, which is why some tours only look at it from the top.
See all 48 →
Altyn-Emel and the striped mountains
The most expensive and the least visited: 250 km, a permit, and a long track inside the park to a dune that drones in dry wind. The Aktau mountains beside it are banded red, white and green.
See all 13 →Charyn is one canyon and three very different days.
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The Valley of Castles is a two-hour walk down between sandstone towers to the river and back up again. Getting there is the real commitment: 200 km each way on the Kegen road. Some tours give you ninety minutes at the bottom, some give you the afternoon, and some turn it into an overnight in Saty. These are the three most people take.
Almaty is the trailhead, not the stopover.
The city sits against a 4,000-metre wall and the bus line genuinely ends at a ski lift. Nine trips in ten leave from here, so give it the two days it earns before you start driving east.
What travellers in Kazakhstan actually book.
Every review →Ranked by how many people have been and written it up afterwards — and what each one gives you for the day it takes.
1
Charyn Canyon, Kolsay, and Kaindy Lakes Day Trip
Almaty day trip to Charyn Canyon, Black Canyon, Kolsai and Kaindy lakes, with UAZ ride and optional horseback on a 17-hour loop.
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
Kaindy drowned in 1911. The trees are still standing.
An earthquake shook a limestone landslide across the valley, the water backed up behind it, and the spruce forest never fell over. The trunks come out of green water bare as masts. Kolsai, over the ridge, is the opposite: three living lakes stacked up a wooded valley to 2,650 m.
Kazakhstan runs cheap until you hire the car.
Every reviewed tour sorted by price. The gap between a seat in a shared minibus and a private driver for the same route is the single biggest decision on this site.
A seat in a shared van. Waterfall and lake days close to Almaty, city walks, the short mountain runs.
The full-length day trips: canyon and lakes together, Big Almaty Lake with a hike, Medeu and Shymbulak with the gondola.
Private drivers, Altyn-Emel with its park permits, multi-day loops with a guesthouse night in the mountains.
Three things Kazakhstan has and nowhere else does.
Steppe, mountains and Soviet-era engineering are all shared with the neighbours. A hundred-and-fifty-metre dune that hums, a forest standing up underwater and an Olympic rink at 1,691 metres are not.
The Singing Dune
A single dune roughly 150 metres high and three kilometres long, sitting on gravel in the middle of Altyn-Emel with no other sand anywhere near it. In dry wind the sliding grains produce a low drone you feel through your feet. The same park holds the Aktau Mountains, striped in red, white and green clay — and yes, those are the Aktau in the tour titles, not the Caspian port city.
- 1Singing dunes & Aktau mountains group tour to Altyn Emel★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 74 reviews
- 2Two Day Tour to Altyn Emel: Singing Dune and Aktau Mountain★★★★★★★★★★ 4.1 · 8 reviews
- 33 Days Tour: Altyn Emel NP, Charyn Canyon, Kaindy & Kolsay Lakes★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 8 reviews
The Sunken Forest
The Chon-Kemin earthquake dropped a landslide across the Kaindy valley and the river filled in behind it. The Tien Shan spruce that were growing there drowned where they stood and never toppled — the cold water preserved the trunks and stripped the bark. What surfaces is a grid of bare grey masts; the branches are still down there, intact, which is why divers come.
- 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
Medeu and the Gondola
Medeu is the highest Olympic-size skating rink in the world at 1,691 metres, sat inside a mudflow dam built to stop the mountain burying Almaty. A gondola lifts straight off the back of it to Shymbulak at 2,260 m and keeps going to 3,200. You can be on a city bus at ten and above the treeline by noon.
- 1City tour and Medeu, Shymbulak and Kok-Tobe★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 163 reviews
- 2Almaty city tour and Medeu-Shymbulak-Koktobe-Green Bazar★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 65 reviews
- 3Medeu and Shymbulak ski resort private excursion★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 30 reviews
Astana was farmland in 1997. Now look at it.
A capital built from nothing on an open steppe in under thirty years: a glass tent bigger than the stadium beside it, a golden egg on a tower you can go up, a presidential palace with a blue dome. It is 1,200 km north of Almaty and it is a genuinely different country up there — including the winters.
- 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
Almaty drinks from a turquoise lake at 2,510 metres.
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Big Almaty Lake: Choose Adventure on Foot or by Car
Read our review →In Kazakhstan, everything is further than it looks.
The country is the ninth largest on earth and the sights are scattered across it. Nothing here is a morning out. Read the drive before you read the price.
- 01Big Almaty Lake Roundtrip Transfer and TourThe close one: about 25 km and 45 minutes up the gorge from the city, so a half day is genuinely enough.
- 02Esik Lake and Turgen Waterfall Day TripRoughly 90 km east. The shortest real day trip out of Almaty and the one to take if you only have an afternoon.
- 03Charyn Canyon, Kolsay, and Kaindy Lakes Day TripAbout 200 km each way on the Kegen road. Twelve hours door to door is normal, and the return leg is in the dark.
- 04Kolsai, Kaindy Lakes and Charyn Canyon Small-Group TourAround 300 km, and the last stretch to the second lake is unpaved. This is the trip that justifies staying overnight in Saty.
- 05Singing dunes & Aktau mountains group tour to Altyn EmelAbout 250 km, then a long track inside the park itself — which is why the singing-dune days start so early and cost what they do.
The mountain roads decide your itinerary, not you.
The lake road above Saty is snow and mud outside summer, and the high Kolsai valley can be shut well into spring. That is not a lost trip: the same months put the gondola, the rink and the ski slopes above Almaty at their best, and the canyon runs year-round on a paved road.
By where you are staying
Almaty176 tours
Astana32 tours- The Charyn road69 tours
- The Kolsai valley59 tours
Above the city16 tours
Altyn-Emel13 tours
Burabay6 tours- Every reviewed tour →
Seven days out of Almaty, in the order that works.
Almaty
Medeu & Shymbulak
Charyn Canyon
Kolsai & Kaindy
Altyn-EmelThe newest Kazakhstan tour reviews.
All recent →
Altyn Emel, Singing Dune, Charyn canyon, Kolsay, Kaindy lake 4 days tour
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Kolsai Kaindy Lakes with Charyn Canyon Lunch Included
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Astana Private Custom Walking Tour with A Local Guide
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2 day tour to Altyn Emel Singing Dune and Aktau mountain
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