The first thing I noticed about western Mongolia was the scale of it all.

The mountains were bigger. The skies wider. The silence deeper.

Landscapes stretch so endlessly that they almost stop feeling real. Snowcapped peaks rise above rolling green valleys while herds of horses and livestock move slowly across the steppe. White gers dot the landscape in the distance, smoke curling from their chimneys, often with no roads leading to them at all.

Moving With the Seasons

It felt less like visiting another country and more like stepping into another era.

High in the Altai Mountains, life still moves with the rhythm of the land.

Nomadic Kazakh families pack up their homes and move several times a year in search of fresh pasture for their animals. Horses, yaks, sheep, goats — they aren’t just livestock here. They are transportation, food, warmth, livelihood, and survival.

During our visit, we were lucky enough to help our hosts, Asker and Akul’s family, relocate from their summer home in the mountains to their autumn home in the valley. Watching an entire household dismantled, loaded up, and transported across the landscape was incredible. This wasn’t a cultural performance for tourists. This was simply life.

The move happens four to six times a year depending on weather, grazing conditions, and the health of the animals. And somehow, despite the immense amount of labor involved, there was still laughter everywhere.

We stayed with two different nomadic families during our time in Mongolia, and what struck me most wasn’t the ruggedness of their lives — it was the warmth.

We helped milk yaks (badly), learned how cheese is made, sat cross-legged inside gers drinking hot milk tea, and joined eagle hunters while they trained their birds. Everywhere we went, people welcomed us with generosity, humor, and patience.

Spending days with people so resilient, playful, and deeply connected to one another and the land felt like a gift.

The Roads Are Mostly a Suggestion

Transportation in western Mongolia deserves its own chapter.

The heroes of the steppe are boxy Russian vans called UAZs — affectionately nicknamed “bukhanka,” or “loaf of bread.”

And honestly? Perfect name.

For weeks we bounced across Mongolia in these gloriously rugged machines. Sometimes there were dirt roads. Often there weren’t. Flat tires, breakdowns, getting stuck in mud — all part of the experience. Thankfully, our drivers could seemingly repair anything with a wrench, rope, and sheer determination.

One of our drivers, Khasaa — nicknamed “Captain Sunshine” — turned his van into a rolling karaoke dance party. Somewhere between the endless bumping across the steppe, spontaneous singing, and laughing until we cried, the drives themselves became one of my favorite parts of the trip.

At times it genuinely felt like we had driven straight into a scene from Mad Max.

Mongolia Runs on Weather, Animals, and Possibility

One of the hardest things for me to adjust to in Mongolia was the complete absence of certainty.

Months before the trip, we had received a beautifully organized itinerary from Women Who Explore outlining exactly what we’d be doing each day over the two plus weeks. Then little by little, the updates started arriving.

Plans changed.
Um, plans changed…again.
Flights moved.
Routes shifted.
Activities rearranged themselves entirely.

Originally, we were supposed to spend days trekking and camping in tents on the steppe. But winter arrived early in the Altai, and suddenly that plan no longer made sense.

By the time we actually landed in Mongolia, the itinerary had essentially become:

“You’ll spend a couple weeks in western Mongolia. You’ll stay with nomadic families. You’ll see horses and eagle hunters. You might even get to ride a horse. Exactly where, with whom and in what order…we’ll see.”

At first, this completely scrambled my very schedule-loving brain.

I wanted to know:
Where are we going tomorrow?
How long is the drive?
What time are we leaving?
What’s the plan?

But eventually I realized none of the locals seemed concerned about those questions.

Because in western Mongolia, life itself doesn’t really work that way.

Even hiking times were treated as unknowable. Before trekking to our host family’s summer home, we asked how long it would take to get there.

Our hosts shrugged and smiled. “Who knows what might happen along the way?”

At first, that answer drove me slightly insane.

By the end of the trip, I loved it.

Because what I slowly realized was that this flexibility wasn’t disorganization — it was adaptation. A way of living deeply connected to the environment rather than trying to control it.

There’s no point fighting weather on the steppe.
No point forcing a schedule onto animals, mountains, or snowstorms.
You respond to what the day gives you.

And strangely, that openness created some of the most extraordinary moments of the trip.

• An unplanned eagle hunting demonstration that turned into a real fox hunt.
• A roadside meal during a snowstorm while a tire was being repaired.
• Stopping for fermented mares milk tea in a ger of a family we never expected to visit.
• Walking for hours and hours through the rugged landscapes with no trail to follow and no clear destination in mind.
• Watching an entire mountain valley glow golden in the moonlight because we just happened to arrive the night of a snowstorm.
• Floating a river in an inflatable unicorn, with a cold Mongolian beer in hand.
• Dancing around a bonfire under a full moon.

None of those experiences could have been planned.

Mongolia reminded me how exhausting it can be to constantly grip for control — to schedule every hour, optimize every moment, and expect life to unfold according to plan.

Out on the steppe, nature always wins.

And maybe there’s freedom in that.

The Land of the Horse

Horses are everywhere in Mongolia.

They graze beside highways, race across valleys, and gather in massive herds that move almost like schools of fish across the grasslands.

For centuries these small but powerful horses carried nomads across the steppe and gave Chinggis Khaan the speed and endurance that helped build the largest contiguous empire in history.

The horses are small, muscular, tough, and wildly independent. I got the chance to ride one under the close supervision of local herdsmen — because as I quickly learned, if one horse decides to run, the whole herd runs. Even experienced riders get humbled out here.

And horses aren’t just transportation in Mongolia. They’re woven into daily life and culture in ways that surprised me — from fermented mare’s milk to winter horse meat traditions.

We tried fermented horse milk (see photo of Jordan below), which we collectively decided tasted vaguely like watery kefir…if you used your imagination generously enough.

Also: I did not expect “watching a horse get milked” to make my 2025 bingo card, but here we are. So cool!

Eagle Hunters of the Altai

One of the most unforgettable parts of the journey was spending time with Kazakh eagle hunters.

For centuries, families in western Mongolia have passed down the tradition of training golden eagles to hunt foxes and other small animals across the steppe. Historically, eagle hunting was practiced almost exclusively by men, but today some young women are beginning to carry the tradition forward too.

Asker and his daughter invited us to join them for a training session, and later we witnessed something incredibly special: his daughter receiving delivery of her very first eagle. The eagle will be an honored part of her family for several years, and will then be released back into the wild to have babies and live out its long life.

To celebrate, candy was thrown as part of the welcoming tradition, and for a moment everyone — adults included — scrambled across the floor laughing and collecting sweets. (You can see some of the candy still on the floor in the photo below)

A few days later we visited Bashukhan, one of Mongolia’s most decorated eagle hunters. During a demonstration up in the mountains near his home, his eagle unexpectedly caught a fox right in front of us.

It was one of those moments that instantly silences a group — partly because your brain can barely process what you’re seeing, and partly because it stirred such conflicting emotions. For many of us, it was difficult to watch. But at the same time, there was an undeniable sense of awe in witnessing a tradition that has existed on the steppe for centuries, not as performance, but as survival and cultural heritage still very much alive today.

Afterward, Bashukhan smiled and told us our visit meant an auspicious beginning to the winter hunting season, since his eagle had made a successful catch.

A genuine once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Food on the Steppe

If I’m honest, the thing I was most nervous about before this trip was the food.

I’m not naturally an adventurous eater, and I knew that while staying with nomadic families, meals would primarily depend on what could be herded, hunted, preserved, or made by hand.

Life on the steppe doesn’t leave much room for picky eating.

I tried warm salty yak milk tea, fermented horse milk, and more forms of yak cheese than I knew existed.

Our collective favorite became sugary fried yak-milk cheese sprinkles served over thick yak cream on little pillows of fried dough — usually accompanied by tea whenever we entered someone’s home.

Thankfully our guide Aidaa worked absolute miracles on a camp stove in the back of a van or tiny wood-fired stoves in gers, somehow producing delicious hot meals three times a day no matter where we were.

Some of my favorite meals weren’t memorable because of the food itself, but because of where we ate them:

• A steaming dumpling soup after a freezing day hiking in the mountains.
• A packed lunch beside a remote alpine lake after a long uphill hike.
• Lunch while huddled between the vans that blocked the wind during a snowstorm.

Every meal became a gathering point. Tiny stools crowded around card tables. Backpacks repurposed as chairs. Shared snacks from the Mongolian equivalent of Costco passed around from hand to hand — sometimes with slightly mischievous intent.

(Pro tip: if someone offers you Mongolian “blueberry yogurt” candy, check the label first. There’s a decent chance it’s made from yak milk, which has a flavor best described as…memorable.)

We spent an evening attempting — with wildly varying levels of success — to elegantly pinch together traditional fried dumplings while our hosts watched with patient amusement. Meanwhile, our silly little group developed a habit of breaking into song and spontaneous dance parties before meals, something that seemed to endlessly confuse and entertain the nomadic families and guides hosting us.

By the end of the trip, the meals themselves had become about far more than food. They were where stories were shared, inside jokes were born, and strangers started to feel like a family.

The food fed us, but the community around it is what I’ll remember most.

The People Make the Journey

I’ve been lucky enough to have adventures all over the world, but every trip ultimately comes down to the people you share it with.

And this group of women? Absolute magic.

For weeks we navigated freezing weather, unfamiliar foods, exposed pit toilets, endless bumpy van rides, communal living in gers, and enough unpredictability to test anyone’s patience. And yet somehow, maybe because of those challenges, there was constant laughter.

There were dance parties in the vans and around bonfires under a full moon. Deep conversations late into the night. Bundling up in layers, only to strip down minutes later while trying to survive the dramatic temperature swings of a yak-dung fire inside a ger. Cold plunges in glacial rivers. Milking yaks. Holding golden eagles. Making cheese. Filming TikTok dances with our host family’s daughter. Footraces with our drivers. And more belly laughs than I can count.

Alongside all of that was the extraordinary warmth of the Mongolian people themselves — our guides, drivers, and host families who welcomed us so openly into their homes and daily lives. I found people in western Mongolia to be incredibly affectionate, playful, and mischievous in the best possible way, constantly teasing one another and pulling us into the jokes too.

Second only to the food, one of the things I felt most nervous about before this trip was how to show up in these remote nomadic communities in a way that felt respectful and genuine. I didn’t want the experience to feel overly curated or like we were simply passing through collecting photos and stories.

One of the things I appreciated most was the way the trip was designed. The adventure was through Women Who Explore (which I truly can’t recommend enough), and they partnered with the local guide company Eternal Landscapes to create an experience that felt rooted in real connection rather than performance. An added bonus: all of their guides are women!

We stayed with families in ways that felt natural and welcoming — sharing meals, helping with chores, drinking tea around the fire, learning through participation rather than observation. Sometimes plans shifted entirely based on weather, livestock, or whatever was happening in a family’s life that day. Sometimes it meant putting cameras away and simply being present.

And honestly, I think that’s what made the experience feel so meaningful.

I left Mongolia with a deeper appreciation not just for the landscapes and traditions, but for the reminder that travel feels richest when you approach it with curiosity, flexibility, gratitude, and a willingness to step into someone else’s rhythm for a little while.

By the end of the trip, Mongolia had stretched me in ways I didn’t expect.

The landscapes were wild. The weather was unpredictable. The culture challenged me in the best possible ways.

I learned that I’m probably never going to crave mutton.

But sugary fried yak cheese sprinkles? Absolutely yes.

And more than anything, I left with deep gratitude — for the people who shared their world with us, and for the incredible women who shared the journey alongside me.

Some trips entertain you.

Others change the way you see the world.

This one did both.

Many of these photos were taken by my fellow travelers – a big thanks to them! Check out my Instagram for lots of videos of our Mongolian adventures! My favorite is the one about the van travel.