Almaty is the trailhead. Everything else is a drive.
Which day trip actually reaches the lakes, what the two-day version costs, and whether the singing dune is worth 250 kilometres.
The canyon, the lakes, the pass above Almaty, the singing dune.
Four bookings a first week in Kazakhstan is usually built from. What each costs, and what the people who went say.
01The long day eastCharyn Canyon, Kolsay, and Kaindy Lakes Day TripCanyon and both lakes in one run. Seven hundred kilometres there and back, so it starts early and ends late.
02The half day upCity tour and Medeu, Shymbulak and Kok-TobeMedeu, the cable car to Shymbulak and Kok-Tobe above the city. The afternoon that fills a jetlagged first day.
03The lake at 2,500 mBig Almaty Lake Tour with Optional HikeBig Almaty Lake sits an hour up a single mountain road. Add the hike or stay at the water and look at it.
04The dune that humsSinging dunes & Aktau mountains group tour to Altyn EmelAltyn Emel, a day and a half of driving for one hill of sand that makes a noise. People still go.
Canyon, lakes, or both with a night in between.
Nearly every headline day out of Almaty runs down the same road towards the Chinese border. What changes is how far along it you get and whether you sleep out there.
Six places Almaty drivers point the minibus at.
A canyon carved into red rock, two lakes at altitude, a spruce forest standing in water, a ski pass twenty minutes from a city street and a dune that sings. Almost all of it is a day trip, and almost all of it leaves from one city.
The day people actually book in each place.
Every Kazakh tour we have reviewed →One tour per place, the one that carries more travellers than anything else there. Six of them leave from Almaty and two from Astana.
1
Charyn Canyon, Kolsay, and Kaindy Lakes Day Trip
See Charyn Canyon, Black Canyon, Kolsai, and Kaindy Lakes on a long but memorable Almaty day trip for $58.
From · $58
Read our review →
2
Esik Lake and Turgen Waterfall Day Trip
from $28
3
City tour and Medeu, Shymbulak and Kok-Tobe
from $49
4
Almaty City: Big Almaty Lake Roundtrip Transfer and Tour
from $69
5
Astana City Tour: Private Full Day with Lunch and Comfort Pickup
from $149
6
Almaty city tour and Medeu-Shymbulak-Koktobe-Green Bazar
from $49
7
Burabay National Park Tour with Lunch and Pickup
from $165
Almaty stops at 900 metres. The chairlifts keep going.
A skating rink built into a gorge, a cable car to a ski station at 2,200 m, a glacier road to a lake the city drinks from. All of it inside an hour of the last tram stop, which is the strange part.
Three things Kazakhstan has and nowhere else does.
Mountains and lakes are everywhere in Central Asia. A forest standing dead in clear water, a dune that plays a note, and a canyon of red towers on the way to China are harder to repeat.
The Sunken Forest at Kaindy
An earthquake in 1911 shook a limestone landslide across this valley and the meltwater backed up behind it. The spruce forest drowned where it stood, and the trunks are still there, bare and vertical, coming up through water cold enough to have preserved them for a century. Divers go down among the branches. Everyone else looks at them from the shore.
- 1Treasures of Almaty lakes Kaindy and Kolsai,Charyn Canyon VIP car★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 165 reviews
- 2Kaindy and Kolsai lakes with Black Canyon 1 Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 51 reviews
- 3Charyn, Kolsay and Kaindy 2-Day Tour with Mount View Stay★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 42 reviews
The Singing Dune
Three kilometres of sand sitting on gravel plain between two mountain ridges, 150 metres high, and it has been in the same place for thousands of years while the wind blows straight past. Walk down the crest and the slipping sand sets up a low drone you feel through your feet. It works best when the sand is dry, which in practice means not the morning after rain.
- 1Altyn Emel. Singing dune. 1 day tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 12 reviews
- 23 Days Tour: Altyn Emel NP, Charyn Canyon, Kaindy & Kolsay Lakes★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 8 reviews
- 34-Day Altyn Emel Park + Kolsai & Kaindy Lakes + Charyn Canyon jeep-tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 7 reviews
What a day out of Almaty actually costs.
The whole range, cheapest to dearest. The cheap end buys a seat in a shared minibus; the top end buys the whole car and a driver who waits.
City walks, the Green Bazaar, and a seat on the shared run to the canyon or Issyk lake.
The full canyon-and-lakes day, Big Almaty Lake with a hike, Astana in a day, most two-day trips.
Private cars, Altyn Emel and Burabay, and the multi-day runs into the mountains.
Astana: built in thirty years, on a steppe with nothing to hide behind.
Everything in Astana →
A capital moved 1,200 km north in 1997 and drawn from scratch, so the whole thing reads as one long architectural argument. Add the pine lakes at Burabay three hours out, and the Soviet camp museums an hour the other way, and the city fills three days.
The city, end to end
Bayterek, the Khan Shatyr tent, the mosque and the presidential axis in one run. It is a driving city and the sights sit far apart, so the guided version saves more time here than it does in Almaty.
Burabay, the northern lakes
Pine forest, granite outcrops and cold lakes about three hours north. Kazakhs call it their Switzerland, which oversells the mountains and undersells how good the air smells after a week on the steppe.
Karaganda and the camps
The Karlag administration building at Dolinka and the ALZHIR memorial west of the city document the Soviet camp system that held hundreds of thousands of people on this steppe. Both are museums now, and both take a guide to make sense of.
Four Kazakh days that run on a season or a road.
Almaty itself is bookable the night before. These four are not, because a mountain road, a snow line or 250 kilometres of steppe decides when they happen.
- 01Kolsai, Kaindy Lakes and Charyn Canyon Small-Group TourThe track above the first lake is snowbound for much of the year, so the full lakes run is a late-spring-to-autumn trip.
- 02Singing dunes, Aktau Mountains & Altyn Emel Day TripThe park gate is 250 km from Almaty and the dune another hour inside it. Nobody does this one as a spare afternoon.
- 03City tour and Medeu, Shymbulak and Kok-TobeSnow on the pass runs roughly December to April. Outside it the cable car still climbs, for the view rather than the skiing.
- 04Burabay Oasis Private Tour+ Lunch+ Pickup+ Bonus ActivityThree hours north of Astana each way, which makes it a full day booked in advance or a night away.
By place, from either city
Almaty, the mountains above it, the canyon east, then the flight north.
Almaty
Medeu & Shymbulak
Big Almaty Lake
Charyn Canyon
Kolsai & Kaindy
AstanaThe most recent reviews, from Almaty day trips to the Astana lakes.
More new Kazakh reviews →
Almaty: Full Day City Tour with Lunch and Museum Tickets
Read our review →
Electric Bike Tour to Big Almaty Lake or Kok-Zhailau
Read our review →
Astana Private Custom Walking Tour with A Local Guide
Read our review →
Altyn Emel, Singing Dune, Charyn canyon, Kolsay, Kaindy lake 4 days tour
Read our review →
Almaty 1-Day Tour: Kolsay, Kaindy & Charyn Black Canyon
Read our review →
Astana: 2-Day 1-Night Ranch Stay & Tour Historic Mausoleum
Read our review →