We are asked this most weeks, usually by someone who has just booked flights and is looking at a long list of hotels with similar photographs. The honest answer depends on who is asking. Below is the list we give our own guests, sorted by need rather than by stars. We have slept, eaten or put guests in every one of them. Two are ours, and we say so when we get to them.
First, how the city is laid out
Almost everything a visitor wants sits along Peace Avenue, with Sukhbaatar Square (officially Chinggis Khaan Square) at its centre. Sukhbaatar District covers the square and the streets north and east of it. Chingeltei is the older quarter to the north and west, around the National Museum and Tourist Street. Bayanzurkh starts east of the centre and runs out past the Wrestling Palace. Traffic is the tax we pay for living here: two kilometres can take twenty minutes at six in the evening, which is why most of our picks are a short walk from the square.
Grand
Shangri-La Ulaanbaatar
Two hundred and ninety rooms on Olympic Street in Sukhbaatar District, ten minutes on foot from Government House. The biggest hotel in the country, with the Shangri-La Centre attached: shops, a cinema, restaurants people cross town for. Inside there is an indoor pool with sauna and steam room, Hutong for Chinese food and Naadam Bar for a drink after a long drive. The lobby is where the city meets, so it is busy. If you want everything under one roof, this is the one.
Kempinski Hotel Khan Palace
Ninety-nine rooms on East Cross Road, off Peace Avenue in Bayanzurkh, about a kilometre and a half east of the square. Built in 2005, renovated in 2015, and European in the way Kempinski hotels are: heavy curtains, pillow menus, quiet corridors. Khara Khorum, its Mongolian restaurant, serves refined buuz and tsuivan; Sakura Sushi Bar is good for a light dinner; Aster Spa is in the building. We use it for guests who want a grand hotel without a shopping mall around it. The walk into the centre is not pretty, so we send a car.
Business
The Blue Sky Hotel and Tower
The glass sail on Peace Avenue directly opposite Sukhbaatar Square. The hotel occupies floors twelve to eighteen of a twenty-five storey tower, with the Sky Lounge on the top two floors and a pool and gym on the third. For meetings it has the best address in the city: ministries and Central Tower are minutes away on foot. People book it for the view north over the square from the higher rooms.
Best Western Premier Tuushin Hotel
On Prime Minister Amar's Street, a hundred metres from the square and next door to Government House. Around two hundred rooms, many looking south to Bogd Khan mountain. The Premier Lounge on the twenty-fifth floor is where we take a visiting colleague; Prime Grille does steaks; Le Cabernet is where half the city's lawyers drink coffee. Reliable, well run, full of repeat guests.
Novotel Ulaanbaatar
One hundred and ninety-two rooms in the centre, an easy walk to Government House. Food Exchange does the buffet, Jade Garden does Chinese, and there is a fitness centre. One honest note: at the time of writing the hotel lists its indoor pool as under construction, so check before you book if a swim matters. A sensible choice for a group with mixed needs, and genuinely family friendly.
Boutique
Edelweiss Art Hotel
Twenty-three rooms, each with its own balcony, a few minutes on foot from the square and the Shangri-La Centre. Art on every wall, so it feels like a gallery you are allowed to sleep in. A private guest lounge off the lobby for morning coffee, Sushi Tokugawa and MACU Cafe downstairs, and a small staff who remember your name by the second day. Our first suggestion for couples who want personality over facilities.
Urgoo Boutique Hotel
Ten rooms on Tourist Street in Chingeltei, a few steps from the National Museum. A garden, a small cafe, and breakfast brought to the room if you ask. Small enough that you will meet everyone staying in it. No gym, no lounge; quiet, and staff who will walk you to the corner if you look lost.
Hotel Nine
Fifty-seven rooms on Prime Minister Amar Street beside Government House. Three-star by its own description and good at the basics: clean rooms, fast wifi, a Modern Nomads restaurant in the building, a cocktail lounge upstairs. Our pick for travellers who want to be central and would rather spend the money on more nights in the countryside.
The one with a story
Ulaanbaatar Hotel
Built in 1961 as the first hotel in Mongolia, and the first public building in the country with hot running water. Heads of state stayed here for decades. It closed for a full renovation and reopened in June 2024 with one hundred and thirteen rooms, on Altangerel Street in Sukhbaatar District, a short walk east of the square. Soviet bones, new finishes, and the only hotel in the city with real history in its walls.
Family
Holiday Inn Ulaanbaatar
In Chingeltei, fifteen minutes on foot to the square. A rooftop lounge, a second floor restaurant with a breakfast children will eat, a fitness centre and free parking. We use it for families who want two rooms side by side and a predictable morning. Novotel, above, is the other family answer in the centre.
Budget-conscious
Zaya Hostel
Inside a courtyard off Peace Avenue, opposite the State Department Store. Private rooms and dorms with their own bathrooms, a shared kitchen and lounge, run by people who can sort out a train ticket. Clean, quiet and central. More than once a guest's adult children have stayed here while their parents stayed at the Shangri-La.
Our own two
V28 Hotel is the boutique hotel at our headquarters in the city centre, with a restaurant and our tour concierge in the lobby; the people who designed your journey are a floor away. Otugi Hotel has nine rooms in the UB Business Tower, a short walk from Sukhbaatar Square, with our concierge desk in the building. We use them when they make sense: the night before an early flight south, the hot shower after ten days in the Gobi. We do not rank them above the hotels on this list; we place them alongside. If you would rather stay at the Kempinski, we book the Kempinski.
How we choose for a guest
- First and last night: within a walk of the square, so jet lag still produces a good evening.
- Families: Holiday Inn or Novotel for the rooms, Shangri-La if the pool is the point.
- Couples: Edelweiss or Urgoo, or the Ulaanbaatar Hotel if history matters more than balconies.
- Long stays and work: Blue Sky or Tuushin.
Talk to us
Tell us who is travelling and what the trip is for, and we will say which of these fits and book it, with a room on the side of the building we would choose ourselves. We reply within four hours in office time, and we design the rest of the journey around you.
