Organising tours once in Mongolia

i would definitely wait til you arrived. if you need to save money, then you would need to go with a group (5-6 people). this would be easier to do once you are in country. or, you can try to find fellow travelers on line so you waste no time on arrival. i would for sure recommend khongor guesthouse also. have done three trips with them and i am very very satisfied. they answer emails quickly, will meet your plane/train and are just fab people. have a great time. mongolia rocks.

I really want to see Mongolia, but the only opportunity that I'll have in the near future will be in December. I've always heard how bitterly cold Mongolia gets in the winter. Would it really be worth it?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you. Brian

Sorry, I accidentally posted my previous message to the wrong thread. My apologies. Please disregard

is there a more convenient place than UB accesable on the line from Beijing to organise South Gobi tours from? Would be great to have a starting place that is 1 hour in a jeep vs 8 hours that you can get to by train.......

i did a tour with golden gobi which was approx USD$40/day including english speaking guide, all food, accom and driver - that was for 3 people. it was a lot cheaper than i thought. you could even pay less if you don't have an english speaking guide and were willing to cook for yourself but i definitely wouldn't recommend it.

loumoo - There is no place directly on the train line between UB and Beijing from which to easily get to the Gobi unless it is prearranged in advance. Look for a post from summer 2007 by manulike in which I believe he discusses this possibility. Basically you would need to get from some town on the train line to Dalanzadgad. From there you could go to the Gobi assuming that you find an English speaking guide with the proper equipment which generally means arranging everything in advance.

Ruth

Thanks all.

I think what we're thinking about now is getting the train to UB and organising a trip that loops back to UB and takes 4 weeks. I've been in contact with a couple of guys based in UB on email about trips and they seem to be willing to build something up around what we want to do for roughly $40 pppd which doesn't seem too bad and much less than the previous quote we had. I think what I need to do now is get my head into the guidebook to figure out exactly what I want to see in a bit more detail than it is currently!

If anyone has any recommendations about tour guides based in UB that they've used recently I'd be all ears....

Thanks again

Louise