When To Visit Mongolia

When is the best time to visit Mongolia?

Decided on travelling to Mongolia and searching for when is the best time to travel? When to travel Mongolia will depend entirely on your personal interests: be it more at discovering unique nomadic life, attending cultural events and festivals as Naadam festival or Golden Eagle Festival, hiking, riding adventure of camel and horse or even yak and reindeer, a healthy dose of sunshine or a glimmer of autumnal gold, feeling taste of freedom on endless steppe and exploring winter life of herders.

Weather in Mongolia and an Overview

Mongolia is known as the "Land of Blue Sky": there are about 250 sunny days throughout the year. The weather in Mongolia can be characterized as dry, cold, and sunny. Because the country is so far from the regulating influence of any oceans.

Mongolia Weather by Season

Weather in Mongolia fits into four distinct seasons: spring, summer, autumn, and winter. In general, summers are warm and winters are quite cold throughout Mongolia. Unfortunately, this fact isn’t much help for planning a trip to Mongolia as the climate varies significantly as you travel throughout the country.

While it won’t substitute digging deeper into the climates of each region and checking Mongolia weather forecasts before you head out, below I’ve provided a general overview of weather in Mongolia throughout the year by season.

In the following sections, you’ll find recommendations on where to visit in Mongolia and what to wear to help you plan your Mongolia itinerary whenever—or wherever—you decide to go.

Spring in Mongolia 

Mongolian spring is windy, sometimes stormy, particularly in the Gobi desert. The average day temperature of spring is – 3 to + 12 Celsius degrees during day time and -10 to +2 Celsius degrees at night.

When is spring: From mid Feb- mid May

What to except in spring: Spring in Mongolia is a delightful season when birds are in breeding plumage, song fills the air and migrants are still passing through on their way north to Siberia. Mongolia has more species of birds than any other. Mongolian nomadic herders have busy time for welcoming newborn baby animals in mass numbers in spring between Feb to April.

An important part of the Mongolian calendar to local people, the festivals and holidays in spring which are a wonderful opportunity for visitors to see in action, how the natural world – the landscape and the wildlife – lies at the center of Mongolian culture and traditions in spring of Mongolia. We are always excited to take our guests along to enjoy the fun even in time of spring.

Do not miss out- Mongolian Traditional White Moon –Tsagaan Sar / end of January or mid of Feb/, Ice Festival on Khovgsol Lake/ the first weekend of March/, Spring Eagle Festival near Ulaanbaatar, Thousand Camel festival.

Recommended Tours- Mongolia Winter Festival 2020 Tours

                                       - Lunar New Year Tsagaan Sar 2020

Summer in Mongolia 

The hottest month of Mongolia is July. The average temperature during this period most of the territory, +20 degrees, in the South to 25 degrees. The maximum temperature in the Gobi desert during this period can reach +58 degrees.

When is Summer: From mid -May- late July

What to except in summer:

If you like the culture and the beauty of nature, the ideal season to travel in Mongolia starts from May and hits its highest peak in July, during the Naadam holiday- highlight festival of Mongolia in July.

Recommended Tours- Naadam Festival 2020 tours 

                                    - Mongolia Highlights Tour with Naadam Festival 

Autumn in Mongolia 

If you like colorful things or dislike crowd we suggest taking photos in autumn, from early September to end of October. Especially in the northern part you will enjoy more to hear birdsong, trees, leaves and grasses are shining in the sun light with yellow, red, green and brown colors, majesty of wild animals during the rut.

When is Autumn: From Aug-Oct

What to except in autumn:

Don’t worry you get miss Naadam Festival in July, we have also Danshig Naadam festival in August, which is great chance to attend 2 events in one huge arena including Tsam Religious Dance and Three Manly Games in Khui Doloon Khudag only 35 km from capital city of Mongolia.

Also in the beginning of the October, you can have opportunity to photograph Golden Eagle Hunting Festival. This festival has became one of the main photo attractions in the world and promotes rural Kazakh eagle hunting heritages to the next generations.

Winter in Mongolia 

Finally, we come to the cold but curiously COLD season that is winter, falling between November and Feb. In Mongolia in winter the temperature is generally from -40°C (-40°F) to -10°C (14°F). but during the festival months, Mid February to mid March, the temperature is milder, it is from -20°C (-4°F) to -5°C (23°F). So if you are planning to visit Mongolia for the winter festivals, you should not afraid of the coldness. 

When is winter: November-Feb

What to except in winter:

Why you don’t courage to travel to photograph and travel to deep into the nomads and country? Imagine that you are standing and capturing in the snowy steppe in the middle of nowhere. Isn’t it adventurous and interesting that you capture Mongolian famed cold winter life not captured yet? Extreme Winter Photo tour to Northern Mongolia and Winter horse festival are available at the beginning of November.

Recommended Tours- Extreme winter Experience Photo Tour in Northern Mongolia 

                                    - Photo Tour to Winter Horse Festival 

Of course, we’ll help you make the right decision to explore this incredibly exotic destination in the world which will leave you much more than just adventure.