About MongoliaHandbook
A free, independent guide in English for anyone planning a trip to Mongolia or curious about its history, culture and food.
What this site is
MongoliaHandbook brings together practical travel information (roads, distances, seasons, visas, money, connectivity) with background on Mongolia's history, nomadic culture, food and festivals. It covers more than 25 places across the Gobi, the Khangai, the Altai and the eastern steppe, around 80 in-depth guides and a 2,200-year illustrated history.
The site does not sell tours, take bookings or accept payments, and no business has paid to be mentioned. Where we name a camp, museum or service, it is because it is useful to travellers.
How the guides are made
- Research first. Each page starts from published sources: Wikipedia and its references, UNESCO and Ramsar listings, national park and government sites, the National Statistics Office of Mongolia and reputable travel publishers.
- Drafting with AI assistance. Drafts are written with the help of AI writing tools and then edited. We say this openly because we think readers should know.
- Fact-checking. Concrete claims (dates, heights, distances, rules, festival dates, visa conditions) are checked against sources, and anything we cannot confirm is removed or clearly marked as approximate.
- Data, not guesses. Road distances are calculated on real roads from OpenStreetMap data, and monthly weather comes from NASA POWER 25-year climate averages.
- Updates. Pages show when they were last updated, and time-sensitive facts such as visa rules are reviewed regularly.
Photos
Photos come from Wikimedia Commons (under Creative Commons or public-domain licences) and from Unsplash and Pixabay (under their own free licences). Every photo is credited on the page where it appears, with the author, the licence and a link to the original, and all credits are listed on the image sources page.
Advertising
To cover hosting and research costs the site may show advertising served by Google. Ads are clearly separated from the content and never influence what we write. See the privacy policy for how advertising cookies work and how to control them.
Found a mistake?
Mongolia changes quickly: roads are paved, rules change, camps open and close. If something is wrong or out of date, please tell us through the contact page. Corrections are made as soon as they are confirmed.