Is Mongolia safe for tourists?

Very comfortable with a good driver, and lost without one — the roads are tracks across a desert the size of a country. Across 4 guides Mongolia averages 4.6 out of 5; Gobi Desert, Lake Khövsgöl, Terelj are rated safe or very safe. Every guide names the comfortable areas and the ones that want care, with the reason.

Which parts of Mongolia need the most care?

None of the 4 guides in Mongolia is rated below 3: the usual big-city attention — bags in front on transit, phones away at the kerb — is the whole of it.

Mongolia travel tips

Is Mongolia safe?

4 guides, each rated 1 to 5 with the reason — and two lists per place, where you are comfortable and where to pay attention. Nowhere is called dangerous; the specific thing is what helps.

4.6 average across 4 guides · Safe

Gobi Desert Very safe

Very comfortable with a good driver, and lost without one — the roads are tracks across a desert the size of a country. Distances, breakdowns and the heat are the hazards; dust storms in spring. A tour with a spare tyre and a satellite phone is the whole of the safety briefing.

Comfortable: the ger camps · Dalanzadgad

the tracks between the sights — a desert the size of a country; a driver who knows it, a spare and water
the dunes at noon — the sand burns; climb at dawn

Lake Khövsgöl Very safe

Very comfortable at the camps. The lake is cold enough to kill in minutes; the taiga trip is real wilderness with river crossings, wolves that avoid you and weather that does not, and needs a guide and a permit. Ticks in early summer.

Comfortable: Khatgal · the shore camps

the lake — cold enough to kill in minutes
the taiga — river crossings and weather; a guide and a permit

Terelj Very safe

Very comfortable and an easy first night on the steppe. The horses are half-wild and the saddles are wooden; helmets are not offered, so ask. Dogs at the gers bite if you walk in unannounced — call out first. The nights are cold even in July.

Comfortable: the ger camps · Turtle Rock

the horses — half-wild, wooden saddles, no helmets unless you ask
walking up to a ger — the dogs; call out first

Ulaanbaatar Reasonably safe

Comfortable in daylight; pickpocketing on the buses and around the Narantuul market is the complaint, and drunkenness at night in the ger districts. The traffic is the hazard — cross with the crowd. Winter air quality is among the worst in the world.

Comfortable: Sukhbaatar square · Peace avenue · the embassy district

the buses and Narantuul market — pickpockets
the ger districts after dark — unlit and a drinking problem; not a destination
the roads on foot — cross with the crowd

The ratings are this site's own, from the guides' authors and the corrections readers send in; they are not an index. Read the general advice in travel safety tips.

The guides in Mongolia

The Khongor sand dunes of the Gobi under a clear sky

Gobi DesertMongoliaSand dunes that sing, flaming red cliffs full of dinosaur eggs, an ice canyon in the desert, and a week in a 4x4 between them

Gers on the hillside above Ulaanbaatar, the city in the haze below

UlaanbaatarMongoliaThe coldest capital on earth, half of it gers on the hillsides, a monastery that survived the purges, and the only city in a country of horses

Lake Khövsgöl from above, larch forest along the shore and the water blue-green

Lake KhövsgölMongoliaA lake with two per cent of the world’s fresh water, larch forest to the shore, reindeer herders in the taiga behind, and no road round it

Gers on the meadow by the river in Terelj National Park

TereljMongoliaThe steppe an hour from the capital: granite tors, a turtle rock, a monastery up a hillside, and a ger to sleep in with horses outside