Altyn Emel National Park: Everything you need to know for the perfect visit

You can get a general overview of the country on our fact sheet about Kazakhstan.

Preparations: Renting a car, deciding on a route, buying tickets

Car vs Tour

Even though Kazakhstan has seen a surge of tourism in the past years, good tours are still hard to come by and relatively expensive. After researching this for a while, we would recommend you to take your own means of transportation to visit the park. Especially if you are like us and love to just sometimes stop on the way to marvel at the sights, the pros outweigh the cons by a lot. This will also give you the freedom to explore the park at your own pace and maybe continue onwards to other destinations in Kazakhstan.

If you absolutely need to rely on a tour, we suggest you take the ones featured on Caravanistan. They recommend both a private tour with Asya and Alexey, and a scheduled tour with Dina’s company. Head over to their blog to find out more!

Renting a car

If you decide to rent a car, we can recommend Vladex car rental. We had heard before that renting a car in Kazakhstan can be quite complicated, but the guys from Vladex car rental made it easy. They took a lot of time explaining both the car and what to watch out for on the road. When you inquire with them in English, you will likely speak to Nick - he was our main point of contact and super responsive throughout our drive when we texted him with questions.

If you are only driving to Altyn Emel, you can go for a higher-clearance SUV - you do not need a 4x4 for this route. Have a look at our self drive from Almaty article for all the details of renting and driving a car in Kazakhstan.

Route to Altyn Emel

There are two entrances that get you to Altyn Emel National park: One in the north of the park (Basshi), one in the west (Besshatyr). Basshi is the main entrance to the park and also hosts the park office, where you can get information on the park and buy tickets. If you are entering from Besshatyr, you need to buy tickets in advance from the office in Almaty.

We decided to enter from Basshi - it's not only more convenient if you are coming from (or going to) Charyn Canyon, but also, we had heard that the route from Besshatyr is in very bad condition. You risk a punctured tyre due to sharp rocks scattered all across the road.

It takes 4-5 hours to drive from Almaty to Basshi (north entrance). You first drive on a highway, then on a local road that is tarred but has a lot of potholes. The road from the local road to Basshi is also tarred and in relatively good condition.

Buying tickets

You can either buy tickets in Almaty prior to entering the park, or in Basshi, where the main office of the park is. If you'd like to buy them in advance in Almaty, you can either call the park office at 8 705 610 25 11 or go to Bogenbai Batyr 132, corner with Panfilov street, office N305.

We bought our tickets in Basshi. The office is open from 9AM - 6PM. It's run by a really lovely gentlemen that spoke good English and even some German. He will hand you a map to the park and you can ask him any open questions you might still have. There is a small exhibit on the park if you're interested in that.

We've read on other blogs that foreign visitors are sometimes assigned a guide to help them navigate the park - this was not the case for us, but don't be surprised if it happens. The cost of this would be 600 tenge per person, but as they earn very little, it's expected to tip them.

What to bring

Research the weather before you go - in the summer, it gets really hot during the day and relatively cold during the night, so we brought layers. We also travelled with some food and plenty of water, but in case you do not, there is a store in Basshi where you can get essentials.

Destination: Singing dune

The singing sand dune was one of our favourite sights in the whole of Kazakhstan. It suddenly rises up from the landscape and is 1.5km long and 120m high. When the wind blows in a certain direction and/or many people walk on the dune, it emits a sonic vibration that is supposed to sound like singing.

"Supposed to" because we unfortunately did not get to hear it - when we were there we were the only people on the dune and could not make out a sound. Nevertheless, we loved it and even without hearing it sing it's a great place to explore.

Getting there

Before going to the singing dune, we unsuccessfully tried to find out how much time we would need to get there - we are not sure why, but there is a lot of misinformation out there when it comes to Altyn Emel National park, especially with regards to the distances between the sights. It took us 50-60 minutes from the office in Basshi to arrive at the dune. That being said, we had rented a 4x4 SUV that was good for the terrain - we could imagine it takes longer in a smaller vehicle.

After around 25min you get to a checkpoint where you have to show your permit to enter the park. Make sure you are back at the checkpoint before 8PM, as the park closes at that time in the summer.

The road is in relatively good condition, but it was paved by a bulldozer, which means that you have small groves in the surface of the road every 2-3cm. This results that you feel like you're driving over a washing board with your car which gets quite annoying after a while. We tried everything: higher speed of around 60km/h, driving really slow (around 30km/h), but in the end decided it did not make a lot of difference.

What to do (and not to do!)

We had read online that we should make sure to take off our shoes when climbing the dune - and still, we didn't. I am not sure why, but somehow it seemed to not make a lot of sense when we stood at the bottom of the dune. I am telling you now: Listen to what everyone is saying and take off your shoes (and leave them in the car, ideally)! We ended up with so much sand in our shoes that we could not really walk anymore, and when we took them off we had to carry them in addition to all our camera gear... you can have it much simpler than that and just take them off from the start.

It takes 30-45min to climb the dune and we found it quite exhausting, as you sink deeply into the sand. Make sure you walk on the ridge, this is where the sand is the most stable. The wind can be very strong and gets even more so the higher you climb. When we were there in August, it was so strong at the top that it blew sand into our eyes, so we made sure to go to a lower point relatively quickly. It is however worth it to climb up all the way - the view of the valley and river behind the dune is simply beautiful!

Apparently, it's possible to slide down the side of the dune - when we arrived, a family was just leaving and we saw their kids slide down the dune. It looked fun but also like you'd get sand literally everywhere, so we decided not to try it. Running down the dune is a lot of fun though, too!

We advice you to time your arrival on top of the dune with the sunset. Like this, you avoid the soaring heat and there is a magical light on the dune and the surrounding landscape that is just perfect for pictures.

Destination: Katutau and Aktau mountains

The Aktau mountains were the main reason why I wanted to visit Altyn Emel. In the pictures I saw online, they looked surreal - a desert landscape, but in all the colors of the rainbow. Fossils of animals and plants from more than 25 million years ago have been discovered here and the area is known as a unique paleontological deposit.

The mountains are equally beautiful when you see them in "real life" and I am glad we came to see them. Nevertheless, I was also a bit disappointed: I had thought we could hike through the mountains for a while, but when we arrived, we could not discern a path and Cordt thought it was to risky to walk just anywhere on the crumbling rocks. So we decided to stay put, and a little after arriving we were joined by a Kazakh tour group that invited us to drink with them. We had a lot of fun talking to them and drinking the wine they had brought and quickly forgot about wanting to hike :-)

Getting there

As said in the previous section on the singing dune, there is quite some misinformation out there about how long it takes to drive to the different destinations inside Altyn Emel. We thought we could not manage to get to Aktau mountains and drive back to Almaty in one day, but it's actually not that far. It took us around 90 min to drive to the Aktau mountains - on the way there you pass the turn-off to the Katutau mountains, so you can do both if you have enough time.

The road condition is the same as the road to the singing dune - good, but with the small groves in the surface making it quite a bumpy ride. We felt that our car was shaken up even more badly on this road - maybe because it lasts much longer than when you're going to the singing dune.

On the way to the mountains, you pass a different checkpoint than when you're going to the dune. We had a peculiar interaction at this checkpoint - the guard checked our permit and then did not let us through, but kept talking in Kazakh (or Russian?) to us. We tried our translation app, but he could not write in Russian, just kept pointing at our car and at his house, then again at our car. We simply could not understand what he wanted, but he also did not let us pass. After 10 minutes of this, we thought he wanted to sell us some gasoline - we declined. He kept talking, and after another 10 minutes we finally understood that he wanted to buy gasoline from us, not sell it to us. Unfortunately we did not have enough in our tank and had to decline his request.

Again, make sure you are back at the checkpoint before 8PM, as the park closes at that time in the summer.

What to do (and not to do!)

You can wander around the mountains - even though we did not find a designated hiking path, we have heard that people simply walk through the valley for a bit. Definitely don't forget to take sunscreen and a hat if you're going in summer, the heat can get very intense!

Other Destinations in Altyn Emel

Turanga forest and 700 year old willow

On the way to the Aktau and Katutau mountains, you can visit a 700 year old willow. We were a bit short on time and also thought the willow did not look like something we had to see from the pictures we saw in the main office.

The turanga trees are a poplar tree species that is endemic to the Kazakh steppe, but highly endagered. The trees can be found all across the park and provide a home to many species of reptiles, amphibians, mammals, birds and insects.

Terekty petroglyphs

If you are coming from the Besshatyr route, you can visit the Terekty petroglyphs. They depict animals and humans on horseback and camelback, carved by people in the Bronze Age. It is also the site of about 30 "kurgans", ritual burial mounds for important warriors and leaders.

Accomodation and food in the park

There are a few guesthouses in Basshi with basic rooms. You can also bring your own tent and stay in one of the four camping spots inside the park.

Guesthouses

We stayed in Guest House Ardak and were happy with it. It's very basic accomodation, but it was clean and the hosts were very friendly. We had one room to ourselves, but if you're in a larger group you might end up in one of the hostel-style rooms. We heard Гостиница is also supposed to be a good option. To book, call them ahead of time (if you speak Russian), otherwise send them a message on WhatsApp or Telegram (using Google Translate to translate into Russian).

Camping

As we did not go with this option, we do not know much about the facilities provided nor what you need to bring. There are four designated camping spots inside the park:

• Shygan, close to Basshi
• Mynbulak, close to the Singing sand dune
• Kosbastau
• At the reststop at the Aktau mountains

If you want to go for this option, head to the Caravanistan forum to find out more from people who have experience with this option.

Food

If you're staying in a guesthouse, you will get breakfast and dinner there. If you're like us, you might want to take some snacks for throughout the day though :-)

There is a small store in Basshi where you can buy essentials.

Suggested Itinerary

We combined the Altyn Emel National Park with our 6 day self drive from Almaty. It's a good idea to combine Altyn Emel with a visit to Charyn Canyon. You can rent a car for two days, e.g. for a weekend.

In this case, you start in Almaty in the early morning, drive to see Charyn canyon, and then continue up to Basshi. You would be in time to pick up your permit at the parks office and visit the singing dune for sunset. Have dinner at your guesthouse. The next day you can explore Aktau and Katutau mountains and head back to Almaty in the afternoon.

P.S: We know this route - and Central Asia in general - is still a lesser travelled destination. So don't hesitate to reach out if you have any questions, we're happy to help! Similarly, if you find the information here is outdated or we're missing something don't hesitate to get in touch) and we'll update it so fellow travelers can profit from this.