How To Spend 1 Day In Mongolia (Travel Itinerary)

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If you only have one day in Mongolia, how should you spend it? What are the best things to see and do near Ulaanbaatar?

I faced this question recently when I had a very short stay in the country after traveling in China. Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to see more of Mongolia, but it’s a big country and you need plenty of time to really do it justice.

I decided to join a tour group for the day, and we visited the Genghis Khan statue, ate lunch in a traditional yurt with a nomad, saw the Terelj National Park, and did some other good activities in the Ulaanbaatar area.

It was a day well spent, and we accomplished quite a bit of sightseeing for such a short amount of time. Read on for a full writeup of my experience!

Recommended Day Tour For Mongolia

I booked my Mongolia day tour with GetYourGuide, and you can book the exact same tour here.

It included transportation, lunch, and a helpful English-speaking local guide who explained the history and other things as we went. They also have 3 day tours of Mongolia if you plan to stay longer in the country.

I’ve used this company for lots of tours and activities around the world, and they’re great. Highly recommended!

Book Now: Mongolia 1 Day / 2 Day / 3 Day Tour

 

How I Spent One Day In Mongolia

• Genghis Khan Statue

We started by visiting the giant statue of Genghis Khan outside Ulaanbaatar.

It’s a 1 hour drive from the city, where our guide picked us up, but the roads aren’t bad and we were in a comfortable van, so we didn’t mind.

This is the country’s most famous landmark, and it’s also the biggest equestrian (horse riding) statue in the world.

The stainless steel statue was finished in 2008, and it’s 40 meters tall (130+ feet). It sits on top of a visitor center that has a small museum, cafe, and gift shop.

First we went to the basement, where our guide talked about the history of the Mongol empire and showed us some artifacts, including a few weapons and a golden ‘paiza’ (diplomatic passport used by the Mongol officials).

       
 
Next, we went to the top of the statue to see Genghis up close.

Normally there’s an elevator you can ride to the top, but it was broken when I was there, so we had to climb a bunch of very narrow flights of stairs instead.

The top has nice views of the rolling plains, plus the face of the great Khan, but there’s only a limited amount of space where you can stand, so it gets very crowded during the day. I could barely move up there.

This was one of my only gripes about the tour. We could’ve avoided the worst crowds by going to the top of the statue first, and then doing the history lesson in the basement afterwards.

It wasn’t a big deal, but I hope they’ll adjust their itinerary to take this into account. Learn from our mistake if you can!

Before leaving the statue complex, there was a bird handler outside who let us hold a steppe eagle. They’re trained and used by the local hunters. Cool!

Our guide encouraged us to do this since it was included for free as part of our tour. There wasn’t any charge and they didn’t ask for a tip.

They also gave us an opportunity to ride camels, but I’ve already done that in other countries, so I passed.

       

 

• Lunch In A Yurt

After seeing the statue, we stopped at a nearby yurt (traditional tent house) owned by a nomad, and sampled some yak cheese and cream, which was good.

This guy was quiet, but it turns out he actually used to be a national horse riding champion in Mongolia, which was cool. He had all kinds of medals hanging on his walls.

For lunch, we moved to another yurt and ate Mongolian food (mainly mutton), which was great. This was included with the tour and it was very filling.

 

• Gorkhi Terelj National Park

Our next stop was Terelj National Park. It’s a 1 hour drive from the statue, or slightly farther from Ulaanbaatar. This time there was a bumpy gravel road part of the way there.

Here, we did a short hike to the top of Turtle Rock, which involved climbing some rocks and squeezing through a few crevices. It was fun and not too hard for anyone in the group.

As you might guess from the name, this giant rock got its name from the shape. Looking at it from the east side, it looks just like a turtle.

       

Terelj seemed like a nice park, but I was disappointed by the widespread development inside the park.

It seemed like there was new construction happening everywhere, and it kind of detracted from the natural beauty.

Since it’s a national park, I hope the Mongolian government will take better care of it.

 

• Aryapala Monastery

For our last stop, we went to see Aryapala, a Buddhist temple from the 1800s.

It’s in the hills of the national park, just a 10 minute drive from Turtle Rock, but it was the bumpiest road we had all day.

You need to climb a bunch of stairs to reach the top, and then you can enjoy a nice view of the whole valley.

It was peaceful there, and seemed like a good way to finish our one day tour of Mongolia.

 

Final Thoughts

Overall, I think this tour was a pretty good introduction to Mongolia and a few of the best sights near Ulaanbaatar.

In just one day, you won’t have time to see the Gobi desert, or truly get lost in the country, but it was still interesting and gave me a better feel for the culture and landscapes.

I had a good experience in Mongolia, and I hope I can come back again someday to get deeper into the countryside.

If you want to book the same tour I used, you can do that here.

 

More Asia Travel Guides

Thanks for looking! I hope you enjoyed this one day itinerary for Mongolia.

Don’t forget to check out my other Asia travel guides before you go! This continent is my second home and it has so many great things to see and do.