The Best Day Trips from Almaty, Kazakhstan

Almaty is definitely worth a day or two in its own right, and it’s an easy city to take some downtime in. However, it also makes a great base for what’s just outside the city. Within a few hours’ drive there are red-rock canyons, alpine lakes, a national park on the doorstep, and a real live desert a bit further afield. That is quite a lot for one city to be a base for. You can get to almost all of these as a guided day tour, a self-drive rental, or a marshrutka and shared taxi if you’re comfortable navigating Kazakhstan’s public transport. I’ll detail which options apply to each trip below. Here’s our guide to the best day trips from Almaty.

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Almaty’s Best Day Trips

Every trip on this list is doable from Almaty using a mix of guided day tours, rental cars, and marshrutkas. Which option makes sense depends on your budget, how much you want to plan yourself, and how comfortable you are with Kazakhstan’s shared-taxi and marshrutka system. If you haven’t already read them, then, our Almaty Travel Guide covers where to base yourself in the city, and our guide on how to get around Kazakhstan covers the transport basics that apply to all of these.

1. Visit Charyn Canyon on a day trip from Almaty

Charyn Canyon is Kazakhstan’s answer to the Grand Canyon. It’s a glorious stretch of red sandstone formations carved by the Charyn River, and one of the single best day trips out of Almaty. The main draw is the Valley of Castles, a roughly 2-kilometer (1.2 mile) canyon walk between towering rock formations that genuinely looks like it belongs somewhere in the American Southwest rather than Central Asia. If you don’t want to do the hike, then the viewpoints are pretty amazing too.

It’s about 3 to 3.5 hours from Almaty by self-drive along the A351 highway, or a similar journey by marshrutka from Sayakhat bus station if you’re happy asking the driver for the Charyn turnoff and arranging the final stretch yourself, which essentially means hitchhiking about 10 kilometers (6 miles) to get to the entrance to the park. Logically, this isn’t a good idea for a day trip, as it will take you a lot longer to get there and back than it will to visit. So,if you’d rather not deal with logistics, this small-group day tour handles the whole thing, or book the combined Charyn Canyon, Kolsai and Kaindy Lakes day trip if you want to see all three in one (very long) day. If you want to know what that’s like I wrote about it here.

Read my full Visiting Charyn Canyon guide for the complete breakdown. It includes transport options, overnight stay options (and where to eat) as well as what to bring, and how to make the most of your time in the Valley of Castles.

2. Kolsai and Kaindy Lakes Day Trip from Almaty

Kolsai and Kaindy are two of the most photographed lakes in Kazakhstan, and for good reason. Kolsai’s alpine lake is surrounded by pine forest, while Kaindy’s submerged forest of drowned spruce trunks rising out of turquoise water is unlike anything else we saw in the country. They’re usually visited together via the village of Saty, if you’re using public transport (and my guide here includes how to do it all independently). Realistically this is a long day, so an early start is essential.

Options to get here include renting a car ( 30,000 KZT and up per day for a rental, with 4WD recommended for the rough final stretch to Kaindy), a shared taxi from the old Sayakhat bus station (around 8,000 KZT per seat, departing early), Yandex, or the combined Charyn Canyon, Kolsai and Kaindy Lakes day tour – the same tour we’d point you to for Charyn Canyon above, if you want to combine all three sites in one trip.

Read my full Kolsai & Kaindy Lakes guide for the complete how-to, including whether combining this with Charyn Canyon in a single day is realistic (short answer = yes, but it’s a very long day).

3. Ile-Alatau National Park

To the south of Almaty, Ile-Alatau National Park is the most accessible national park in Kazakhstan, and being this close to a major city, it’s home to a surprising amount of wildlife. Snow leopards, bears and mountain goats all live within its boundaries, even if you’re unlikely to spot them on a day trip. The park has several access points beyond Big Almaty Lake (which I’ve detailed below): Medeu and Shymbulak, from where you can hike to Butakovka Waterfall or Furmanov Peak, and the Turgen Gorge, a roughly 45-kilometer (28 mile) canyon dotted with waterfalls that’s a hiker’s paradise if you have more than just the day.

Shymbulak is the easiest of these to reach without your own transport. Take bus number 12 from opposite the Kazakhstan Hotel in Almaty to the Medeu ice-skating rink, then pick up a trail from there. Turgen Gorge is further out and really needs your own transport to explore properly.

4. Big Almaty Lake

Big Almaty Lake is the easiest of these day trips to do independently, but not necessarily the cheapest. This deep blue alpine lake is less than an hour from central Almaty by taxi, and is within the Ile-Alatau National Park (see above). It’s a really pretty spot and an easy half-day out of the city, though keep your expectations realistic. This is a lake with a view, not a full day’s worth of hiking and activities, unless you want to hike up from the entrance to the park. And while that’s pretty, its also a big up and then a big back down.

That means its best done along with something else. When we visited we explored the original apple orchard that Almaty is famous for, but trips don’t go there anymore, you’ll get to relax in a hot spring instead. (that’s a good thing, the apple orchard was just an apple orchard)

Getting there is straightforward – join a tour, like this Big Almaty Lake tour by car or hike, or just take a taxi from Almaty using the Yandex app. Yandex will take you as far as the park entrance, and no further. You’ll need to engage the taxi mafia inside the park once you get there and for this reason alone its way easier to take the guided tour.

You’re very close to the border here, so there might be a checkpoint on the way up, so bring your passport. Read our full How to Visit Big Almaty Lake guide for the complete details on getting there, and what to expect once you’re up at the lake.

5. Altyn Emel National Park

Altyn Emel is further out than the other trips on this list, but if you have the time, it’s worth it. The park is best known for the Singing Dune, a 150-metre-high sand dune that hums when the wind (or a few hundred footsteps) sets the sand moving. It’s also famous for the striped rock formations of the Aktau Mountains, which look almost painted. Like painted mountains? Check out these mountains we visited in Peru, and also China.

Anyways, Altyn Emel. It’s a realdesert landscape, a world away from the mountains and canyons that I’ve covered in the rest of this post.

Altyn Emel is far enough from Almaty (around 300 kilometers – 186 miles ) that it’s going to be a very long single day or, better, an overnight – time to actually enjoy both sites rather than rushing between them. If you don’t have a 4WD rental, then taking a tour to get here is the best option.

Final Words on the Best Day Trips from Almaty

Almaty is worth a day or two in its own right, its also a fabulous location for exploring some of Kazakhstan’s spectacular natural sites. There are canyons, alpine lakes, a national park on the doorstep. Doorstep, in the world’s ninth largest country, doing a lot of work there of course. Whether you’ve got one day to spare or a week to work with, there’s a trip on this list that fits, and most of them are far more achievable than they look on the map. Charyn Canyon and Kolsai & Kaindy Lakes are the two we’d prioritise if you’re tight on time; Big Almaty Lake is the easiest add-on; and Ile-Alatau and Altyn Emel are both worth building a full extra day around if you have one.

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