Brings back a lot of memories for me. Did you take the bus into the National Park? I rode it till the end, to the last village and hiked above the mountains there. Was really nice. This was a few years ago, but I do remember seeing the beginnings of more construction for tourists. It'd be a shame for some of these places to become overrun with people....you make me want to go back before that happens! Thanks for the read.
We hired a driver from UB. We just paid our guesthouse there (who ran a travel company) to book transportation and accommodations for a couple of days. This, of course, is the easiest way to do things in Mongolia, though you can save money by just heading out on your own on the limited public transport that does exist.
I don't think Gorkhi Terelj is in any danger of being overrun. While there were big tour buses from UB every day (I was suprised to see them navigated some of the sketchy dirt roads there) taking people to a couple of the main sites, the place never felt even close to mobbed, and we were there in the summer high season. My concern was more with unchecked construction. A couple of projects had clearly been abandoned, which told me these things were being done without a lot of long-vision. As I mention in the piece, I see it ALL THE TIME in South Korea. It's a major issue, both in the city and out in nature.
Now is certainly the time to go to Mongolia and it is catching on with visitors, but during my three weeks there I never got the sense that it was under threat from overtourism. In fact, I asked that question at a recent event in Korea with the former Mongolian PM and he kind of brushed my concerns away, quoting numbers of recent annual visitors, which were very few when compared to so many other places. That said, Mongolia has a corruption problem and there is a lot of new cash flowing around (mining money), so poorly-planned, hastily constructed projects get greenlit if the right palms are greased, for sure.
Thanks for reading! Plenty of more in the pipeline.
Brings back a lot of memories for me. Did you take the bus into the National Park? I rode it till the end, to the last village and hiked above the mountains there. Was really nice. This was a few years ago, but I do remember seeing the beginnings of more construction for tourists. It'd be a shame for some of these places to become overrun with people....you make me want to go back before that happens! Thanks for the read.
We hired a driver from UB. We just paid our guesthouse there (who ran a travel company) to book transportation and accommodations for a couple of days. This, of course, is the easiest way to do things in Mongolia, though you can save money by just heading out on your own on the limited public transport that does exist.
I don't think Gorkhi Terelj is in any danger of being overrun. While there were big tour buses from UB every day (I was suprised to see them navigated some of the sketchy dirt roads there) taking people to a couple of the main sites, the place never felt even close to mobbed, and we were there in the summer high season. My concern was more with unchecked construction. A couple of projects had clearly been abandoned, which told me these things were being done without a lot of long-vision. As I mention in the piece, I see it ALL THE TIME in South Korea. It's a major issue, both in the city and out in nature.
Now is certainly the time to go to Mongolia and it is catching on with visitors, but during my three weeks there I never got the sense that it was under threat from overtourism. In fact, I asked that question at a recent event in Korea with the former Mongolian PM and he kind of brushed my concerns away, quoting numbers of recent annual visitors, which were very few when compared to so many other places. That said, Mongolia has a corruption problem and there is a lot of new cash flowing around (mining money), so poorly-planned, hastily constructed projects get greenlit if the right palms are greased, for sure.
Thanks for reading! Plenty of more in the pipeline.