Cultural Nomad of Kazakhstan

On arrival in Almaty, you will be met at the airport and transferred to your hotel for an early check-in, breakfast, and some free time to settle in after the journey. Later in the afternoon, head into the city and get a first feel for local life at the Green Bazaar, where stalls are piled high with dried fruits, spices, honey, and other regional specialities. From there, continue to the Park of 28 Panfilov Guardsmen, one of Almaty’s best-known green spaces, before seeing the remarkable Ascension Cathedral, a wooden landmark that has stood since the early 1900s. You will also pass the Museum of National Musical Instruments, home to a fascinating collection dedicated to Kazakhstan’s musical heritage. By the evening, you will return to your hotel to relax and prepare for the adventures ahead for the following day.

After breakfast, leave the city behind and head into the foothills of the Ushkonyr Gorge for an introduction to Kazakhstan’s nomadic heritage. At the Nomad Ethno Centre, watch skilled horsemen demonstrate ancient battle tactics, see warriors in historically accurate armour from different eras, and experience the centuries-old tradition of eagle hunting. You can try traditional archery or swordcraft before enjoying a Kazakh lunch inside a yurt. Back in Almaty later in the day, visit the renowned Abilkhan Kasteev State Museum of Arts before returning to your hotel for the evening.

A short flight brings you to Shymkent, the gateway to Southern Kazakhstan. The afternoon is spent exploring places that many visitors to the country never see, starting with the unusual Hilvet underground mosque hidden beneath the Ethnographic Museum. Alongside displays of traditional musical instruments, pottery, and everyday household items, the museum offers a glimpse into customs that have shaped life across the Steppe for generations. Later, visit the Altyn Orda Art Gallery, a project created by the Beisbekov family to preserve traditional craftsmanship. Workshops, exhibitions, and handmade pieces fill the space, and there is often a chance to see artisans at work. By the end of the day, you will have a very different perspective on Kazakhstan from the one offered by its larger cities before heading to your hotel in Shymkent for the overnight stay.

Leaving Shymkent, the journey moves through southern Kazakhstan’s layered history, starting at Otrar, once a busy Silk Road city where merchants and scholars gathered before its destruction during Genghis Khan’s invasion in 1219. Little remains today, but its past still feels present in the open landscape. From there, the road leads to the Mausoleum of Arystanbab, closely tied to Khoja Ahmed Yassawi and still visited by pilgrims who come to reflect and pay respects. The final stop is Akmeshit Cave, where a shaft of daylight breaks through the roof and lights up the vast chamber, giving the space its quiet, almost unreal atmosphere, before returning to Shymkent for the night.

Breakfast at the hotel, then check-out, and the day begins with Shymkent Citadel. It is a site that quietly holds layers of the city’s earliest history. The scale of its past is hard to miss, with excavations pointing to more than 2,200 years of habitation. Once, this was the fortified heart of Shymkent, tied into the Silk Road movement between Sayram, Tashkent, and the wider Central Asian trade routes. The road to Sairam doesn’t feel long, but the context shifts quickly. This was once Ispidjab, an important Silk Road settlement between the 10th and 12th centuries, where merchants and travellers constantly moved between China, Persia, and the cities of Transoxiana. It still carries that sense of passage, even in its quieter present form. Later, you get back to Shymkent for an optional lunch before heading to the airport. The flight to Almaty brings a change of pace again, where a local English/German-speaking guide meets you on arrival and transfers you to the hotel for check-in and overnight stay.

After breakfast and check-out, the drive to Charyn National Park takes roughly three to four hours, and the road is straightforward enough to stop somewhere along the way for lunch if the timing works out. The canyon visit runs for approximately 2.5 hours, starting from the car park where stairs lead down into the Valley of the Castles. From there, it is about a 50-minute walk one way to the Charyn River, with time to explore the canyon floor before the return walk back up. The upper viewpoint also offers a short photo stop with sweeping views over the rock formations, which shift in colour from deep red to orange depending on the light. By evening, you reach Saty Village for the night. Dinner is served at the guesthouse, which after a full day on the road feels exactly right.

After breakfast, the transfer to Kaindy Lake in a Soviet style vehicle handles mountain tracks better than anything modern would. The drive takes roughly an hour and pulls you steadily deeper into the forested terrain before the lake appears. Kaindy was formed after the 1911 Kemin earthquake, when a landslide blocked the gorge and the water simply rose around the trees rather than clearing them. The spruce trunks are still standing upright in turquoise water today. From the drop-off, the walk to the lakeshore takes about 25 minutes each way on an unpaved trail through spruce forest. The river-mouth area is worth a stop, where cold mountain water feeds into the lake. The upper panorama is where the full view opens up and the submerged forest makes most sense as a sight. Lunch back at the guesthouse is homemade and unhurried, which suits the afternoon well. The evening follows the same pattern: a shared dinner, national sweets, tea, and an early enough finish to actually rest.

After check-out, the drive to Kolsay Lake takes you through scenery that gets noticeably better the further you go from the city. The lake sits at around 1,800 metres, hemmed in by pine forest, and the glacier-fed water is the kind of cold and clear that makes you want to drink it straight. The walking trail along the shore is easy going, with good views over the water and valley and enough places to stop for photos without any real effort required. Lunch is back at the guesthouse before the drive to Almaty, which gets you into the city by evening.

Breakfast, checkout, and then drive to Almaty International Airport for your flight back to London. It is a long journey home, but you will find yourself thinking about the steppe, the canyons, and the food somewhere over Europe.