Entering Kazakhstan with kids completed a dream circuit of three Stans for us.
We had spent time travelling overland in Uzbekistan making it all the way to the Aral Sea, and stayed with nomadic herders at Song Kol Lake, Kyrgyzstan. Next, we wanted to visit Kazakhstan.
We had read it was possible to enter Kazakhstan overland via a small border crossing in the corner of Kyrgyzstan. In theory, that plan would work well for us, as we intended to find a driver and make a loop around the north of Kyrgyzstan; now, the challenge would be to find a driver that could take us over the border into Kazakhstan…
And we did! Making the border crossing into the far corner of Kazakhstan with the kids makes for a story on its own… Oscar walked across the border amongst it all with bare feet; in true kiwi-kid-style!
Out and about in Almaty
Exploring Almaty was lots of fun.
It somehow mixes a modern vibe in with a Soviet era feel. On some streets you have old markets and bazaars, and along other streets you could be in a modern city anywhere in the world. (Well, perhaps in the post-Soviet world!).
But first, we had spent a few days making our way to Almaty, with some stops on our way…
Kolsai Lake and Charyn Canyon
We crossed the border with the goal of seeing Kolsai Lake as a first stop on entering Kazakhstan with the kids. The Saty region was beautiful! A different kind of Central Asian mountain vibes and small villages.
Nothing quite prepared us for the stunning sight of Kolsai Lake itself. It kind of appears out in the middle of nowhere!
One downside to such a beautiful lake however, was that it was of course a huge tourist attraction.
We were blown away by the beautiful scenery, but honestly underwhelmed by the sight itself, simply due to the numbers of tourists making their way down to the lakeside in hoards. We hadn’t expected or even considered that the location (within a days drive of Almaty) would make it such an attraction for domestic tourism.
It was beautiful. But after being spoilt with lone yurts and herders at remote lakes in Kyrgyzstan on our way, we didn’t stay long. Instead, we checked it out and then headed back into the hills to find a good picnic spot elsewhere.
We were intrigued to see Charyn Canyon, and weren’t disappointed by its grandeur.
The scale of the canyon is hard to describe, but it can be seen quite clearly on Google Maps!
One challenge from Kazakhstan?
Figuring out shops and restaurants! The architecture right across the villages and cities that we saw, is still notably Soviet in style. A lot of the shops and restaurants still maintain the boundary military style fencing and boards and bars on windows.
There isn’t a lot of signage, and what signage there is is written in Kazakh and Russian without many pictures for clues!
Where we stayed
- Saty: Guesthouse found in village on outskirts of Saty
- Shelek: Guesthouse en route between Charyn and Almaty
- Almaty: World Travelers Hostel
We only had a week in total in Kazakhstan, but enjoyed the varied towns and villages we passed through and stayed in. We didn’t have accommodation planned for the first two nights, but found guesthouses in Saty and Shelek (actually stopping on our way back towards Almaty).
The villages near the border crossing in Kegen were fairly remote and options for accommodation definitely limited.
In Saty, the guesthouse we were planning on staying at was full when we turned up. We had to drive for another half hour to find the next village (after a couple of stops at random looking guesthouses… including one yurt-style that only had one very open/old long drop for a bathroom!).
However, we ended up finding a small family run homestay right next to a beautiful mosque, surrounded by Kazakh mountains.
AND they served us up a delicious dinner including homemade dumplings, AND kumiss…
In Almaty we enjoyed our stay at World Travellers Hostel. It was hard to find, but the post-Soviet style of shop fronts makes it hard to recognise a lot of services in Almaty!
The hostel itself had a big size family room, with bunk beds and a double bed, and a clean shared bathroom. It was only a 15 minute walk into the centre of Almaty which made it an ideal to see a city side of Kazakhstan with the kids.
Getting around
Almaty was reasonably easy to explore on foot, and we mostly walked around for the time we were there. We didn’t have a SIM card so couldn’t use online taxi services like Uber.
Our hostel hosts ordered a taxi online for us to get to the airport on leaving (and also one day we headed out to try and find a post office!).
In honesty, we couldn’t find a taxi/figure out which cars were taxi’s to get one back, so ended up walking a few km’s back to our hostel each time. (The latest update sounds like Uber no longer works in Almaty, but their partner Yandex Taxi is an option).
If you are entering Kazakhstan overland your best plan is to find a driver! We had a fantastic driver called Vitali, who we found via a Kyrgyzstan Travel Company “Kyrgyz Tourism” in Bishkek.
If we went again we would…
We would love to explore more of Kazakhstan! There is such a focus on the mountainous regions of Kazakhstan (which is HUGE by the way!). We would definitely want to explore Astana and other areas next time…
More about travel planning for Kazakhstan and beyond…
These are the companies we use while traveling fulltime as a family and that we would recommend to anyone planning and booking travel.
- Booking.com – The best all-around accommodation booking site that constantly provides the cheapest and lowest rates. They have the widest selection of budget accommodation and it’s easy to filter and sort into price and availability with all the extras you are looking for personally.
- Hostelworld– The largest inventory of hostel accommodation in the world.
- Skyscanner – This is by far our favourite flight search engine. They are able to search small websites and budget airlines that larger search sites often miss. We book all our flights through Skyscanner.
- GetYourGuide– Get Your Guide is a huge online marketplace for tours and excursions offered all around the world including everything from walking tours, to street-food tours, cooking classes, desert safari’s and more!
- SafetyWing – A global travel insurance that covers people from all over the world while outside their home country. You can buy it short or longterm; and even if you are out of the country.
- World Nomads – Travel insurance tailored for longterm travel and nomads (including those who have already left home).
More from Central Asia
- Uzbekistan: Visiting human disaster at the Aral Sea with kids.
- Uzbekistan: Three days in Nukus, Karakalpakstan.
- Kyrgyzstan: The why and where we visited.