--- title: "Kazakhstan travel guide: Almaty, Astana and the steppe | Wimup" description: "Kazakhstan on Wimup: where Almaty, Astana, Turkistan and the Mangystau desert sit, when the steppe and the mountains are at their best, what the visa and the tenge mean in practice, what to eat, and how to get around a country this size." url: https://wimup.com/country/kazakhstan type: Country guide updated: 2026-10-05 publisher: Wimup (https://wimup.com) --- # Kazakhstan, the steppe and the mountains behind it The ninth largest country on earth and by far the largest with no coast, holding about twenty million people. Kazakhstan is the easy entry to Central Asia: two very different cities, a wall of the **Tian Shan** behind one of them, and a lot of open ground in between. ## Quick answer Fly into **Almaty** and give it the first week: **Charyn Canyon**, the **Kolsai lakes** and **Lake Kaindy** are day trips and overnights from there. Add **Turkistan** and **Shymkent** for the Silk Road and the Yasawi mausoleum, the most important building in the country. **Astana** is a short flight north and worth two days with Burabay. The **Mangystau** desert behind Aktau is a separate flight, vehicle and three days. Pick two of the four and fly between them. ## Quick facts - **Best months:** May–Jun and Sep–Oct - **Ideal length:** 10–14 days - **Budget per day:** $40–95 - **Language:** Kazakh is the state language, Russian is used officially on equal terms, English is thin outside Almaty and Astana - **Getting around:** Domestic flights for the long hops, overnight trains between the cities, a hire car or a driver for the canyons and the desert - **20,590,589** People - **2,724,900 km²** Area Kazakhstan is enormous and mostly empty, which is the single fact that shapes a trip here. It runs 2.7 million square kilometres from the Caspian to the Chinese border, holds around twenty million people, and has one of the lowest population densities of any country. Almost everything a first visit wants is in the southeast, within a few hours of Almaty. Almaty itself sits under the Tian Shan with the peaks visible from the street grid, and the Golden Triangle of Charyn Canyon, the Kolsai lakes and Altyn-Emel radiates east and northeast from it on day trips and overnights. The south along the old Silk Road holds Turkistan, where the Mausoleum of Khoja Ahmed Yasawi is the country's most important building, plus Shymkent and Taraz. Astana, an overnight train or an hour and a half by air to the north, is the other city: a capital built almost from nothing since 1997, glass and steel on flat steppe, and the second coldest national capital on earth after Ulaanbaatar. North of it, Burabay is the lake and pine country Kazakhs go to in summer. The west is the outlier and the one most travellers skip: Aktau on the Caspian, and the Mangystau desert behind it, where chalk cliffs and pinnacle fields look like nowhere else in the region. Two practical things decide the itinerary. The distances are real, so the domestic flight network does the long hops and the trains do the overnight ones. And most of the marquee landscapes have no public transport at all, so a hire car, a driver or a tour is the only way to reach Charyn, Kaindy or Bozzhyra. ## Know before you go - **Population:** 20,590,589 - **Area:** 2,724,900 km² - **Density:** 7.6 / km² - **Capital:** Astana - **Major cities:** Almaty, Astana, Shymkent, Aktobe, Karaganda - **Tourism board:** Official site - **Currency:** Kazakhstani tenge (KZT, ₸). Cards work almost everywhere in the two big cities and a lot less reliably at park gates, village guesthouses and desert stops, so carry cash out of town. - **Language:** Kazakh is the state language and Russian is used officially on equal terms in state bodies. Kazakh is midway through a switch from Cyrillic to a Latin alphabet, scheduled to run to 2031, so both scripts are in circulation. - **Visa:** Around fifty nationalities enter visa-free for 30 days, with an e-visa available to most others. Check the Ministry of Foreign Affairs list. - **Calling code:** +7, shared with Russia. Mobile coverage is good along the roads and in the cities, and absent across most of Mangystau and the high Tian Shan. - **Power:** 220V, 50Hz, on European type C and F sockets. A standard EU adaptor is all you need. - **Emergency:** 112 for everything, from any phone. Mountain rescue in the Almaty ranges is reached the same way. - **Time zone:** UTC+5 nationwide. Kazakhstan abolished its second time zone on 1 March 2024, so the whole country now runs on one clock and there is no daylight saving. - **Getting around:** Air Astana and its low-cost arm FlyArystan cover the long domestic hops, and they are the sane way to move between Almaty, Astana and Aktau. Talgo trains handle the overnight runs. Everything scenic needs a car. - **Registration:** Handled electronically at the border, and by your hotel on arrival. A stay of five working days or fewer needs nothing at all. If you are staying privately, your host has to notify the migration authorities. - **Tipping:** Not traditional, and increasingly expected in city restaurants, where around ten per cent is normal and a service charge is sometimes already on the bill. Drivers and guides are tipped; taxi fares are rounded up. - **Alcohol:** Sold in supermarkets and served in restaurants, with retail hours restricted in the evening in some regions. Drink-driving is a zero tolerance offence. ## When to visit - **Jan** (good): Deep winter. Astana runs to minus 30 and below, Almaty is milder and grey, and Shymbulak above the city is at its best. Cheapest month to fly in. - **Feb** (good): The same cold with more daylight, and the strongest snow on the Tian Shan slopes. The steppe and the desert are closed for practical purposes. - **Mar**: Thaw, mud and meltwater, and the mountain roads opening in stages. Nauryz on the 21st and 22nd is the year's biggest holiday and worth arriving for. - **Apr** (best): The steppe turns green and the wild tulips come up, which is the one thing Kazakhstan does that nowhere else does at this scale. Mangystau and the south are at their best. - **May** (best): The strongest all-round month. Warm and clear in the south and west, the canyons comfortable, the lower Tian Shan trails clearing, and everything still green. - **Jun** (best): Summer proper. Kolsai and the high valleys open, the passes clear, and Almaty gets hot enough that people head uphill in the afternoons. - **Jul** (peak): Peak heat. Mangystau, Charyn and the southern cities are punishing in the middle of the day, and the mountains are the only comfortable place to be. - **Aug** (peak): Still hot and still the busiest month domestically, with Burabay and the Almaty lakes at their fullest. Best used for altitude rather than anything low. - **Sep** (best): The other strong month. The heat breaks, the light gets long, the steppe goes gold, and the canyons are walkable again from morning to evening. - **Oct** (best): Autumn colour in the Tian Shan valleys and at Charyn, and the last easy weeks before the cold. Nights turn sharp from the middle of the month. - **Nov**: The shoulder nobody uses. Grey, cold and quiet, with the snow not yet reliable and the low-country season over. - **Dec** (good): Winter settles in and the ski season starts above Almaty. Astana is spectacular under snow and genuinely difficult to walk around. ## Fun fact Every crewed Soyuz launch flies from Baikonur, a steppe enclave in southern Kazakhstan that Russia rents until 2050 for about $115 million a year. From the Space Shuttle's retirement in 2011 to the first crewed Dragon flight in 2020, it was the only route to the International Space Station. ## Stereotypes, sorted out - **Myth:** You know it from Borat. **Reality:** Almost nothing in that film is Kazakhstan. The country banned the 2006 film and ran a counter-campaign, then by 2020 its tourism board had adopted "Very nice" as a slogan, judging name recognition worth more than the joke cost. Assume nothing about the place from it. - **Myth:** It is all flat steppe. **Reality:** The steppe is the middle. The southeast is a wall of the Tian Shan with peaks over 4,000 metres, so close to Almaty that the Shymbulak ski slope is a city bus and a gondola away. The east climbs into the Altai, the west is chalk desert, and the flat part lies between. - **Myth:** It is basically Russia. **Reality:** Independent since 1991, Kazakhstan has put distance into the relationship: the capital moved north in 1997, the country took a single time zone in 2024, and Kazakh is switching from Cyrillic to Latin by 2031. Russian is still official on equal terms, and about 14 per cent are ethnically Russian. - **Myth:** It is a strict Muslim country. **Reality:** The constitution declares a secular state. Most Kazakhs are Hanafi Sunni Muslims, but alcohol is sold in supermarkets, headscarves are a minority choice in the cities, and the Soviet century left an agnostic streak. Turkistan is a pilgrimage town; treat it as one. Almaty on a Friday night is not. - **Myth:** You need a visa, an invitation and a permit. **Reality:** That was the 1990s. Citizens of the EU, the UK, the United States, Canada, Australia and around fifty other countries now enter visa-free for short stays, and hotels handle registration. The permit that remains is for Baikonur, leased Russian territory, arranged weeks ahead through a tour operator. - Bread is treated with respect at the table. Nan and baursak sit in the middle of the spread, they are not turned upside down, and a guest who cannot stay is still expected to break off a piece before leaving. - A guest is an occasion. The dastarkhan, the laid table, is a statement about the household, and refusing food or tea outright reads as a serious slight. Accept something, even a little. - Tea comes half full, in a handleless piala, and it is poured again and again. A full cup is not generosity here, it is a hint that you should drink up and go. - The seat of honour is the one furthest from the door, and it belongs to the eldest or to the guest. Wait to be placed. - Take your shoes off indoors, in a flat as much as in a yurt, and sit cross-legged without pointing the soles of your feet at anyone. - Toasts are made standing, at length, and in turn. If you are the visitor, expect to be asked for one, and make it about the host. - Cash still matters outside the cities. Card payment is near universal in Almaty and Astana, and a long way from it at a canyon gate or a village guesthouse. ## Famous Kazakh faces - **Abai Qunanbaiuly**: Poet, composer and philosopher, 1845 to 1904, founder of written Kazakh literature. - **Mukhtar Auezov**: Author of The Path of Abai, the four-volume novel that won the Lenin Prize in 1959. - **Shoqan Walikhanov**: Officer and the first serious Kazakh ethnographer, who reached Kashgar in disguise. - **Kurmangazy Sagyrbaiuly**: The great dombra composer, 1823 to 1896. The Almaty conservatory bears his name. - **Dimash Qudaibergen**: Aktobe-born singer with an extraordinary range, made famous by China's Singer in 2017. - **Gennady Golovkin**: Unified middleweight champion with a record twenty straight title defences. - **Elena Rybakina**: Moscow-born Wimbledon champion in 2022, Kazakhstan's first Grand Slam singles title. - **Denis Ten**: Sochi 2014 bronze, the first Kazakh Olympic figure skating medal. Killed in Almaty at 25. - **Alexander Vinokourov**: Olympic road race champion in London in 2012, later head of the Astana team. - **Vladimir Smirnov**: Won the 50 kilometre classical at Lillehammer in 1994, still the only Winter gold. - **Timur Bekmambetov**: Atyrau-born director of Night Watch and Wanted, later a pioneer of screenlife films. - **Toktar Aubakirov**: The first Kazakh in space, flown to Mir in October 1991, weeks before the USSR ended. - **Nursultan Nazarbayev**: Led Kazakhstan from 1991 to 2019, moved the capital to Astana and gave up nuclear arms. ## Must-try Kazakh food - **Beshbarmak**: National dish: boiled horse, mutton or beef over wide noodles, from a shared platter. - **Sorpa**: The beshbarmak broth, served alongside in a bowl and drunk at the end. Hosts notice. - **Kazy**: Horsemeat sausage cured from the rib and sliced thin. Often the first thing served. - **Kuyrdak**: Liver, kidney and heart fried with onion and potato. The cheap hot canteen plate. - **Shashlik**: Lamb or beef skewers over charcoal with raw onion and flatbread. Every roadside stop. - **Laghman**: Hand-pulled noodles under beef, peppers and tomato. Uyghur, and at home in the southeast. - **Manti**: Large steamed dumplings of lamb and onion, sometimes pumpkin, with sour cream. - **Plov**: Rice cooked in a cauldron with lamb, carrot and cumin. Uzbek, and at every southern feast. - **Naryn**: Chopped meat tossed through thin noodles and moistened with beshbarmak broth. - **Samsa**: Meat and onion pastries baked against a tandyr wall. Best with the pastry still blistered. - **Baursak**: Deep-fried dough puffs piled mid-table, the first thing a guest is offered. - **Shelpek**: Flat rounds of fried dough, made in odd numbers for remembrance days. - **Kumys**: Fermented mare's milk, sour, fizzy and lightly alcoholic. Sold by the roadside in summer. - **Shubat**: Fermented camel's milk, thicker and saltier than kumys. Mangystau will offer it. - **Kurt**: Hard salted balls of dried curd, sold by the bag. Strange for the first two or three. - **Zhent**: Toasted millet pressed with curd, butter and sugar into a crumbly block, eaten with tea. - **Irimshik**: Hard, faintly sweet cheese boiled down until it caramelises. Served with the sweets. - **Chak-chak**: Fried dough nuggets set in hot honey. Tatar in origin, on every celebration table. ## FAQs ### Do I need a visa for Kazakhstan? Probably not for a short trip. Citizens of the EU and EEA, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia and around fifty other countries enter visa-free for up to 30 days at a time, capped at 90 days in any 180. Citizens of Eurasian Economic Union states get longer. Everyone else can apply for an e-visa. Migration registration is handled electronically at the border and by your hotel, and stays of five working days or fewer need none at all. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs publishes the current list and it is the only version worth reading. ### Is Kazakhstan safe to travel in? Yes, with ordinary caution. No major foreign ministry advises against travel to the country as a whole, and the usual advice is the usual advice: petty theft in city centres, care with unlicensed taxis, and the standard reservations about the border areas. The real hazards here are environmental. Winter temperatures on the steppe reach minus 40, mountain weather changes fast above Almaty, and the desert in Mangystau has no phone signal, no water and no traffic, so nobody drives out there alone. ### Almaty or Astana: which should I fly into? Almaty, almost always. It is the larger city, the more interesting one on foot, and the base for the mountains, the canyons and the lakes that most people are actually coming for. Astana is worth two days for the architecture and for Burabay north of it, and it works best as a second stop or an exit point. If your trip is short, fly in and out of Almaty and skip the capital entirely. ### Do I need Russian, or is English enough? English works in Almaty and Astana hotels, in the better restaurants and among younger people, and thins out fast beyond them. Russian is the practical lingua franca for taxis, trains, markets and small towns, and Kazakh is the state language and increasingly the one on signage. Translation apps handle most of it. Learn the Cyrillic alphabet before you arrive, because the Latin transition runs to 2031 and almost nothing is in it yet. ### How do I reach Charyn Canyon and the Kolsai lakes? Not by public transport. There is no scheduled service to either, and the road to Kaindy needs a high-clearance vehicle for the last stretch. The options are a day tour from Almaty, a shared driver arranged through a guesthouse, or a hire car, and the three sites are far enough apart that doing them properly takes two days with a night at Saty village. Charyn is a long day trip on its own; the lakes really are not. ## Related countries - [Japan](https://wimup.com/country/japan.md) - [India](https://wimup.com/country/india.md) - [All of Asia](https://wimup.com/asia) Part of [Asia](https://wimup.com/asia.md) ## Sources - [Tourism board](https://kazakhstan.travel/en?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - Rankings are Wimup editorial picks. Prices, durations and budgets are editorial estimates, not live quotes; check the official site before you go.