What a visitor's money does in Kyrgyzstan: every guide rated from very cheap to very expensive, cheapest first, then the things that cost travellers money without buying anything — the ATM, the taxi, the SIM.
Kyrgyzstani Som (KGS) · 1 EUR = 100 KGS · 1 USD = 87 KGS
Som. Exchange booths in Bishkek and Osh give a fair rate for dollars and euros with no commission; outside the cities there is nothing, so change in town. Cards work in the capital’s restaurants and hotels and rarely beyond.
Avoid: machines that show a fee on screen; many refuse foreign cards outright
Use: Optima Bank, Demir Bank, KICB
Nothing outside the cities: take the whole trip’s cash from Bishkek or Osh.
A short ride in Bishkek: 150–300 som across town — very cheap
From the airport: From the airport to the centre 500–1,000 som on the app, or the marshrutka for 50
Far cheaper than the airport touts, and the only way to get a fixed price anywhere.
Laghman (hand-pulled noodles), manti, plov and shashlik in the chaikhanas, and horse meat and kumis for the brave. Osh Bazaar for dried fruit, nuts and the bread. A full meal is 400 som; the cafés on Chuy avenue are where the city drinks its coffee.
Dungan food — ashlan-fu, the cold noodle soup, is the town’s dish — and the Sunday animal market for the spectacle. The cafés on Toktogul street feed the trekkers; the guesthouses do dinner. Lake fish is smoked and sold on the road.
What the family cooks: bread, kumis, lamb, cream and jam, potatoes. The yurt camps include meals. There is no shop; bring anything else, and a headtorch.
Uzbek-style: the plov here is the best in Kyrgyzstan and the samsa from the tandoors in the bazaar are the breakfast. Shashlik along the river in the evening, and melons from the Fergana valley from June. A meal is 300 som.
The cost rating is this site's own, for a visitor, from the guides' authors and the corrections readers send in. The general rules — the conversion prompt, shoulder season, the airport taxi — are in budget travel tips.
BishkekKyrgyzstanThe greenest Soviet capital, a grid of poplars under 4,000-metre peaks, and the base for the most beautiful mountains in Central Asia
KarakolKyrgyzstanA frontier town at the far end of Issyk-Kul, a wooden mosque built by Dungans, a Russian church, and every trek in the Tien Shan starting from it
Song-KölKyrgyzstanA lake at 3,000 metres on a plateau of grass, yurts and horses and nothing else, where the herders spend the summer and you can too
OshKyrgyzstanThe oldest city in Central Asia, a sacred mountain in the middle of it, a bazaar that has run for two thousand years, and the door to the Pamir Highway