Kazakhstan Travel Guide

Kazakhstan, the ninth biggest country in the world, is one of the last great travel unknowns. Though the outside world is gradually becoming aware of Kazakhstan, thanks to Sacha Baron Cowen's Borat movie, few have really explored this country of vastly varied attractions.

By far the most economically advanced of the ‘stans’, post-Soviet Kazakhstan is reinventing itself as a unique, properous and modern Euro-Asian country. The commercial and social hub, Almaty, now stripped of its capital status in favour of Astana, has an almost European feel with its quality hotels, slick boutiques, chic cafés and streets with BMWs and Mercedes aplenty. Astana, in the north, is being transformed at speed into a state-of-the-art capital with a unique mix of Islamic, Western, Soviet and wacky futuristic architecture.

Around the outskirts of the great steppes where the once nomadic Kazakh people – famously known for their horse skills and unique equestrian sports – used to roam, Kazakhstan provides a variety of surprising adventures. You can trek on foot or horse in the spectacular Tian Shan or Altay Mountains, watch flamingos on steppe lakes or discover strange and mysterious underground mosques close the Caspian Sea. Community ecotourism projects in some of the most beautiful areas enable travellers to stay with village families at affordable cost.

With travellers still a novelty to this nation, a foreign guest is usually treated not as just another tourist but with real hospitality, and locals will do their best to help you.

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