In May 2026, I did a fairly common roadtrip itinerary doing a loop around southeast Kazakhstan, starting from Almaty and going to Charyn Canyon, Kolsai Lakes and Altyn Emel National Park. I have camping equipment so camped where I could.
For anyone interested, I'm putting some information together here as I found quite a lot of missing information online and a lot of outdated information which did not help my anxiety. This isn't meant to explain everything but to fill the gaps of what's missing or out of date online.
Overall, I strongly recommend you consider exploring these areas by car. I was tempted to do a tour instead to save the hassle of driving in a foreign country. However tours were either very expensive (basically hiring a driver/guide for a week) or it was a cheap bus tour that would be 10-14+ hours where you spent most of the time in a bus and little time at the places you wanted to be.
My 6 day itinerary was:
- Almaty -> Charyn Canyon (stay 1 night camping)
- Charyn Canyon -> Saty (stay 2 nights: Saty guesthouse, Kolsai Lake 2 camping)
- Saty -> Zharkent (stay 1 night at hotel)
- Zharkent -> Altyn Emel National Park (stay 2 nights camping)
- Altyn Emel National Park -> Almaty
GENERAL TIPS
- With car rentals, check that you are allowed to leave the city (and if so, if there are any additional costs to do so). I also recommend you find out how your deposit will be sent back to you. I used Almakar car rental and there were issues getting the deposit back as I don't have a Kazakhstan bank. Luckily I was able to collect the cash later - not sure what would have happened if I wasn't in Kazakhstan. Therefore I'd highly recommend you do your research on the car rental company to use and talk to a few of them on WhatsApp before committing.
- I hired a Hyundai Tucson because we wanted a higher clearance vehicle with AWD. Many blogs recommended a 4WD vehicle or hesitated on recommending driving to some sites. I personally found the roads a lot better than described and would have been fine driving a smaller vehicle which would have had a cheaper rental cost and better fuel economy. Disclaimer: I'm from New Zealand and frequently drive unsealed roads in a VW golf for hiking. We had nice spring weather so I imagine going in heavy rain or wintertime is different.
- I heard some concerning posts on the state of the roads in Kazakhstan. I can confirm that all main roads I used were absolutely fine from a Western perspective. There were a few potholes to dodge in some small towns on the way to Saty. Roads in Altyn Emel, and roads to Kaindy lake are unsealed and I will provide more details in the individual sections below.
- Keep your wits when driving. There are no fences so cows, goats and horses can be on the road. It is common for a vehicle to be stationary in your lane, including highways. Some left or right turns have no dedicated lane so there'll be someone ahead of you stopped waiting to turn. If there is no carparks on the side of the road some people just stop in the lane and put hazards on and leave their car. Some roads have no space to pull into if things go wrong so many broken down vehicles are just on the road with their hazard lights going. Some roadworks have no signs and suddenly the lane is shut. Be extra careful entering the fast left lane as some Kazakhstanis are very speedy!
- I recommend using a combination of Yandex maps and google maps. 2GIS was recommended to me but I found it struggled to load completely on my android phone.
- Tolls! There is no information about how tolls work online, which was a bit scary for me (never used a toll before and now I am in a foreign country!). Here's what you need to know. Many highways are now tolled. Google maps doesn't show them. Yandex maps does. I tried to find a route that avoided tolls but both apps didn't do this correctly and if you look at the route, it's pretty tricky to avoid them. Payment appears to be only when you enter a main city. For me: I left Almaty (paid no toll), did the loop, them came back. I paid for all the tolls on the return drive which ended up being a few hundred Tenge (not much), paid in cash with a machine. On the approach to the toll booth, keep right, but not too far right as those lanes are for trucks. You will see the vehicle symbols on the signs above the toll booth. Left lanes are for e-payments.
- Speed Cameras are everywhere. Yandex maps warns you as you approach them as well as speed humps which are annoyingly everywhere too.
- Fuel is very cheap in Kazakhstan. Research where you can fill up as you will be driving in empty swathes of land. Some gas stations in small towns might be empty. We wanted to do a "just in case" top up in Saty and they were out of fuel. In Kazakhstan, an attendant fills up for you.
- Research how much money to bring, some accommodation restaurants, National Park tickets only take cash. There's no ATM in Altyn emel, Saty. There are ATMs in Zharkent.
- Campsites all have a toilet (ranging from hole between two wooden planks to eco-toilets) but they largely do not have running water unless we mention it below. Bring toilet paper and hand sanitiser.
SPECIFIC TIPS
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Charyn Canyon
- It is about 3 hours to Charyn Canyon from Almaty.
- The road to the visitor centre is sealed but narrow especially with the tour buses. There is a Kassa/cashier to pay before the entrance. No additional fee for parking.
- The visitor centre has free toilets and has a few places for food: cafe/ice cream/restaurant. It had more than I thought from my research! I did not need the camp ramyeon this night!
- The visitor centre has a map that shows the trails. Only two are currently open: along the ridge and Valley of the Castles, which goes down the canyon. However, I did an unofficial tour down another part of the canyon with the staff. If interested, inquire about the closed trails to the staff and you may get an offer to do this.
- I spent an night here camping. Seeing the sunset was amazing and I highly recommend it. There are fancy looking A frame huts or yurts to stay at as an alternative, within sight of the visitor centre. The official campsite is near the river but the staff at the visitor centre said we could camp up top near the shelter of viewpoint 1 which has a basic toilet. It seemed pretty relaxed where we could tent.
- In terms of layout, after the visitor centre you can walk straight along the ridge of the canyon or turn right and go down the canyon to the river. There is a shuttle service to and from the river if you can't be bothered walking. However, the best views are along the way rather than by the river. The walk takes 50mins to 1 hour each way. Bus tours from Almaty come in waves, so if you see that lots of people have arrived it's worth delaying your walk to avoid crowds. As I said before, they don't stay long.
Overall, I recommend you spend one night here. Arrive, pitch tent, explore the top, enjoy the sunset, next day explore the canyon in the morning before the tour buses arrive and then drive off to saty. You can stop at black canyon and moon canyon on the way but these are pitstops to stop take a photo and move on. The infrastructure is developing here and there will be more to do in the future.
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Saty
- The drive to Saty from Charyn is 1 hour 30 minutes.
- Saty is a small town with a number of guesthouses. It's common to base yourself here to explore the lakes. Some people base here to go to Charyn Canyon. Some guest houses only take cash payments. There are no ATMs here.
- There are a few mini markets here. Cash only. Few restaurants. One gas station but no fuel when I inquired.
- The entrance fee for the national park allows you into both Kolsai and Kaindy lakes for one day, keep the receipt if you plan to visit both in one day
Kaindy Lake
- The road to Kaindy Lake has been upgraded and is now easy to drive. Ignore the many blog posts that say getting there is only possible by hiring an experienced driver and 4WD. I paid a driver and ended up being driven on an easy unsealed road to the carpark. I wasted my money here - don't do the same.
- I personally created a 'Lake Kaindy Carpark' pin on Google. This is where you drive to.
- Shortly after turning off the main road in Saty there is a building where you pay for admission.
- The road to the carpark is unsealed but in good condition. There are potholes to dodge but nothing too bad - just go slow.
- At the carpark you have 3 options to get to the lake, by horseback (which goes uphill on the left side of the valley), by being driven (which goes up the right side of the valley), or by walking (flat walk, gentle incline, on metal boardwalks following the river). The walking track is really short and easy, it is also free. I recommend this unless you really want to experience a horse ride or 4WD or have mobility issues.
- There is not too much to see with Kaindy Lake. There are a few platforms for the photos, and a short walk that takes you to the other side of the lake. Overall, this is maximum a half day thing. More likely 2 hours. Therefore I recommend you tack it to the day you come from Charyn Canyon or first thing on the day you also visit Kolsai Lakes.
Kolsai Lakes
- The road to Kolsai Lakes are sealed and in good condition. I believe tour buses get here. There is another building for admission a fair distance from the carpark. I showed my Kaindy lake receipt and got free admission as it was the same day.
- The carpark area has many cafes and restaurants. There are toilets here but you have to pay
- From the carpark, there is a viewpoint of Kolsai Lake 1. You can walk down to the shore for different views of the lake. To the east/left you can walk to hire boats. To the west/right is a walking trail. We went this way and hiked to Kolsai Lake 2; it took us 3 hours (with some short breaks) with a backpack and overnight camping gear. Reviews and blog posts tend to say 4-5 hours. It was a nice hike, the last part is reasonably steep, and it looks like it would be very muddy if there were recent rains.
- There are campsites at the other end of Kolsai Lake 1 as well as Lake 2. There was only one other person camping when we arrived. We had a ramyeon party.
I highly recommend camping at Kolsai 2, but you could also do the walk there and back as a day trip.
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Zharkent
The way between Saty and Altyn Emel is 4 hours and Altyn Emel itself involves a lot of driving. I decided to break things up by spending a day in Zharkent (3 hours from Saty) and tackle Altyn Emel the next day. I highly recommend you do this. Zharkent was an interesting town right on the border with China. The old mosque (now converted to a museum) has a mixed Islamic Chinese architecture. There were beautiful roses everywhere. The orthodox church was lime green! It was a worthy place to explore for half a day.
I have to give a mention to an amazing restaurant called Kafe Alif. They serve Chinese food as well as Kazakh food. After being in Central Asia for 2 months, smelling the wok hei brought me to tears. Their lagman and shashlik is amazing. I went there twice!
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Altyn Emel National Park
- Drive to Basshiy AKA Kalinino to buy tickets from Altyn Emel National Park visitor centre. It takes about 1 hour 30 minutes from Zharkent. Make sure you have a full tank when you leave Zharkent and enough food/money.
- You can either stay in Basshiy and do day trips or camp in the park. We camped 2 nights along route 1 and 3. (route 2 is Besshatyr Mounds which we did not do as it needed too much time). You can find the route maps here:
- https://altynemel.kz/index.php/en/things-to-do/routes
- When you buy tickets, they ask you how many days you're staying. We had to make a 10km detour back to buy another ticket as we asked for 2 nights. but it was interpreted as 2 days. We should have specified 3 days 2 nights.
- There is a free toilet at the national park visitor centre. There is one mini market in Basshiy. All campsites have free toilets as well as at singing dune, Aktau and Katatu carparks.
Route 3 Aktau Katatu Mountains
- The road starts off as sealed but then becomes unsealed and is bad to drive on. Blogs did not explain why and I was worried that there would be huge potholes and I may get my car stuck. The road is okay. However the road surface is continuously treaded with shallow troughs from whatever construction vehicle left behind. The result is the road vibrates the hell out of your car and literally every part of your vehicle will rattle as you drive. You will drive twice as slow on this road so ignore what google or yandex gives as an ETA. The road sometimes narrows and you may need to manoeuvre off if another car is coming the other way.
- On the way there is a offshoot to visit a large old tree. This is a campsite but I did not use it. There is a nice toilet there with running water. We filled up some bottles here. Don't drink without boiling or filtering.
- There is one checkpoint further along in your journey where you have to show someone your admission ticket.
- the campsite at 'Base of Aktau mountains' is just before the carpark to Aktau. There are platforms to pitch your tents. In the end I slept in the car because it was incredibly windy.
- Next day, I visited Aktau and it was great! There is no path but there are signs every now and then down the valley so it is very much a self exploration. I spent half the day here.
- I went via Katatu on my way back from Aktau. The roads to katatu were described as much worse on various blogs. I found it no different to what we have been driving on so far. The Katatu site is much smaller and you would need a maximum of 1 hour to explore it. I recommend it unless you are pressed for time.
Route 1 Singing Dune
- The road is unsealed and is in better condition and wider than route 3. There are two check points to check you have paid. These are both areas where you can camp. I ended up sleeping in my car because it was ridiculously windy yet again.
- There are a few sites to see on the way (I was in a hurry and didn't stop 😢) but it looked like they were all short pitstops
- The Singing Dune was great! Probably spent about 2 hours here. You can walk up the dune - it's a slog in the sand. Expect sand everywhere. Best to take your shoes and socks off here.
- The 'Singing' nature of the dune is also described poorly in blogs and google reviews. After reading I thought it had to do with the wind. When I was up on the dune, I was invited to join a tour group and discovered that the dune 'hums' when there is a large sand avalanche as a group of people in unison walk down the side of the dune. Get some strangers to do it with you and you will hear the noise!
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Drive back to Almaty took about 3.5 to 4 hours. I was pressed for time but had the thought to visit Tamgaly Tas. In the end I did not.
I hope this helps someone :)