The Gobi that visitors mean is a triangle inside Gobi Gurvan Saikhan National Park in Umnugovi province: the ice gorge of Yolyn Am, the red cliffs of Bayanzag, and the singing dunes of Khongoryn Els. Everything starts from Dalanzadgad, the provincial town with the airport. Yolyn Am is under an hour to the west. Bayanzag is a couple of hours to the north-west. Khongoryn Els is a long half day west of the town on tracks that change every spring. Where you sleep decides how much of the day you spend driving, so we think about camps first.
What a ger camp is, and is not
A tourist ger camp is a field of felt gers around a brick or timber restaurant building, run for the summer by a family or a company. You sleep in a proper bed under a felt roof, with a stove lit for you on cold nights. The difference between camps is almost entirely bathrooms and electricity: older camps have a shared shower block and hot water at set hours, newer ones have a bathroom attached to each ger and power all night. Neither is wrong. We say which is which below.
When they open
Most camps in the Gobi open in late May or early June and close by the end of September, with a few running to early October. Outside that window the gers are struck and the water is turned off. Three Camel Lodge runs the longest season, from about mid-May to early October. For the shoulder weeks, when the light is clean and the crowds are gone, we check with each camp in person, because a cold spring can move an opening by a fortnight.
Near Bayanzag
Three Camel Lodge
In Bulgan soum, about half an hour's drive from Bayanzag, and the camp most people have heard of. Forty handmade gers, each with its own bathroom and stone shower, wood stoves, camel hair blankets and solar lighting. The main lodge is built in the style of a temple without a single nail, and inside it are the Bulagtai Restaurant, the Thirsty Camel Bar, a screening room and a small hall of dinosaur finds. It is certified by Beyond Green and funds a school partnership, an artist residency and a project protecting the Bankhar guardian dog. What it does best is quiet. We use it for two or three nights as the anchor of a Gobi journey and take dinner out to the cliffs at sunset.
Gobi Tour Camp
Also in Bulgan soum, near the cliffs, with twenty-five furnished gers, a restaurant for sixty, shared showers and, unusually, a sauna. A straightforward, well-kept camp of the older kind that arranges camel rides and archery. For guests who want to be close to Bayanzag without lodge comfort, this is the one we look at first.
Gobi Oasis 2
The Bayanzag branch of the Gobi Oasis group, with up to forty gers in king, twin and family layouts, daily housekeeping and shared shower blocks a short walk away. Plain and reliable; we use it when the lodge is full.
Near Yolyn Am and Dalanzadgad
Gobi Nomad Lodge
Inside the national park and positioned as a base for both Yolyn Am and the cliffs. The gers are some of the largest built for visitors in Mongolia, every one with an attached bathroom, hot water and power all night, and heating and cooling units for July afternoons and September nights alike. A proper restaurant, plus yoga, archery and mountain bikes. Open since 2016. Our choice for guests who want lodge comfort close to the airport.
Gobi Mirage Lodge
At Tsagaan Tolgoi in the eastern part of the park, roughly an hour from Yolyn Am, and run by a local team who know the desert as a home rather than a destination. Thirty-eight gers with private facilities, solar lighting, a restaurant cooking homemade Mongolian food with vegetarian options. Between the gorge and the cliffs, it is useful for a first night straight off the plane.
Khanbogd Tourist Camp
Six kilometres north of the mouth of Yolyn Am, with a garden, a terrace, a restaurant and bar, and gers of the standard kind. Its value is distance: you can be in the gorge before the tour buses and back for lunch. We use it for a single night when Yolyn Am is the priority.
Gobi Oasis
Ten kilometres north of Dalanzadgad and less than five from the airport, established in 2010. Standard gers plus air-conditioned rooms with hot showers for guests who want walls on their last night. Not a place to linger, but for a late arrival or a dawn departure it saves an hour's driving in the dark.
Near Khongoryn Els
Gobi Erdene
In Sevrei soum, at the foot of the dunes. Thirty-two standard gers, four wooden houses and four gers with their own bathrooms, a restaurant, western-style hot showers and electricity for part of the day. It is the closest good camp to the tallest part of the dunes: walk to the sand after dinner, climb it before breakfast. Simple, friendly and exactly where you want to be.
Gobi Discovery 2
Forty gers facing south across the plain to the dunes, with a newer wash block and a restaurant and bar. Hot water depends on the hour. The view from the door in the evening, with the dunes turning from gold to violet against the Sevrei mountains, is the reason we keep booking it.
How we use them on a private journey
A classic five-night Gobi runs like this. Fly into Dalanzadgad in the morning and go straight to Yolyn Am while it is cool, sleeping at Khanbogd or Gobi Nomad Lodge. Drive west the next day to Khongoryn Els for two nights at Gobi Erdene, one afternoon for camels and one dawn for the climb. Cross to Bayanzag for two nights at Three Camel Lodge, with dinner on the cliffs and a morning at the fossil beds. Fly home from Dalanzadgad. If a guest wants more comfort we add nights at the lodges; if they want more desert we add a night with a herding family near the dunes, which no camp can replace.
- Families with young children: attached bathrooms matter more than anything. Three Camel Lodge, Gobi Nomad Lodge or Gobi Mirage.
- Photographers: Gobi Erdene or Gobi Discovery 2 for the dunes at both ends of the day.
- Short on time: Gobi Oasis or Gobi Mirage for the first night, then the cliffs.
- Quiet above all: Three Camel Lodge, and ask us for a ger at the edge of the site.
Our own ger camp is in the Orkhon Valley, not the Gobi, so in the south we stay in other people's camps and we choose them carefully. We book directly, we visit every season, and we tell you plainly when a camp has had a bad year.
Talk to us
Tell us your dates, who is travelling and how you feel about shared showers, and we will build the Gobi around the right camps in the right order. We reply within four hours in office time, and we design the rest of the journey around you.
