Ondřej Žváček · CC BY 2.5 A guest in the high pasture
What to expect from a yurt stay and how to arrive with respect for the people hosting you.
Hospitality is personal
A yurt camp is not simply a hotel moved outdoors. Families often host travellers close to their own seasonal home and routines.
Follow your host’s cues, ask before photographing people and expect facilities to be simpler than in the city.
Leave the pasture as you found it
Carry small waste back to the road, use water carefully and keep noise low after dark. The quiet is part of the place.
A yurt, the traditional home of the Kyrgyz
The round felt dwelling of the nomads is still part of life in Kyrgyzstan: it shelters shepherds on the summer pastures, appears in city courtyards for holidays and welcomes travellers at yurt camps. Here is how a Kyrgyz yurt is built, what its parts are called, and the numbers behind it.
Five reasons to visit Kyrgyzstan
Mountains and lakes in four seasons, nomadic traditions you can join, horse games and falconry, the places travellers ask about first, and the question of when to come: what actually draws people to Kyrgyzstan.
Five activities to do around Bishkek
Ala Archa on foot, horse riding in Chunkurchak or Chon Kemin, a cultural walk through the capital, paragliding above the city and rafting on the Chu river: five ways to fill a day, or a day trip, from Bishkek.
Issyk Kul in pictures
A photo album of Kyrgyzstan's best-known lake, following a route around it: Cholpon Ata and the northern shore, Grigoriev gorge, Karakol, Jeti Oguz and Kok Jayik, Skazka canyon and the southern shore, and the Chon Kemin valley on the way back.