Time and places...

I haven't been to Mongolia yet. But in my mind,it is not an expencive country.
I am not sure.

According to my LP Mongolia, there are some of good guesthouses in Ulaanbaatar. Also cheap but not quite cosy just spend some days. If you want to saty near from the airport(like a hotel in an airport), you have to give up. there is no hotel in that airport. Genghis Khan airport looks like local bus stop(of course better than a bus stop, but don't expect good facilities)

Mongolia is not developed country, you can save your money. Don't worry about your concern.

Good luck!

Thanks for your replies...
I know its a cheap country for hostels but what i really need to know is what places out of the city to visit and how to get there as im told its not safe to travel on local transport and tour are very expencive???
What/where do most backpackers go?

Thanks again

It depends how long are you going to stay in Mongolia and how many days will you want to spend out of Ulaanbaatar.
There are couple of good National parks (Terelj and Hustai) which located close to UB and they are pretty good place for horseback riding and hiking.
Good luck!

It seems to me that you keep asking variations of the same questions and keep getting basically the same answers. What you want someone to tell you is that it is going to be cheap and safe for a solo female travel but people are being honest and telling you that it is not that cheap to travel outside of UB and that it is not safe to take public transit as a solo female traveler.

Check out this thread for some ideas: 7 days in Mongolia

Plus there are a number of possible destinations outside UB. These are probably the most common places to travel:

1. the lake Hovsgul area (This high mountain lake (1,645 m/5400ft above sea level) is surrounded by mountains, meadows and forest, a complete contrast to the rest of Mongolia. It's full of fish and the area is home to sheep, ibex, bear and moose, as well as over 200 species of birds. This is the deepest lake in Central Asia, and the world's 14th largest source of fresh water. You can hike along the shore, take a dip in the icy waters or try your hand at fishing. An amazing 90 rivers flow into the lake, but only a single river flows out - the Egiin Gol, which ultimately reaches Lake Baikal in Siberia. You can visit the Reindeer people who live in the area...) or

2. the Gobi Desert (Second largest desert of the world. Covering the southeastern third of Mongolia, the Gobi Desert stretches about 3,000 mi/4,830 km along both sides of the Chinese border. It isn’t a Saharan-type desert - although there are sand dunes, the Gobi Desert is not a barren wasteland. It has herds of Bactrian camels (with two humps), wild horses and donkeys, as well as leopards, mountain sheep and ibexes. There is a lot of variety within the Gobi Desert, from wildlife parks and mountains to canyons with dramatic rockfaces. Once the site of an ancient inland sea, the area has dried up and then eroded over the eons, providing paleontologists with magnificent specimens of dinosaur fossils...)

3. Karakorum (In 1220 Genghis Khan decided to build the capital city of his vast Mongolian empire at Karakorum. Building was completed by his son, Ogedai Khan, after Genghis' death, but Karakorum served as the capital for 40 years before Kublai Khan moved it to what is now Beijing. Following the move, and the subsequent collapse of the Mongolian empire, Karakorum was abandoned. Whatever was left was used to help build the glorious Erdene Zuu monastery in the 16th century. Erdenezuu (The Hundred Treasures) was the first center of Lamaism in Mongolia...) - this is often combined with the Gobi desert tour.

4. Gorkhi-Terelj National Park, created in 1993, borders the Khan Khentii Strictly Protected Area, and it is one of the most visited protected areas. Terelj, on the Terelj river bank is a spectacular valley with eroded rock formations, pine-covered mountains and grasslands carpeted with perennial wildflowers and edelweiss. - this is considered by some to be very tame and touristy.

These descriptions are from the visitmongolia.com website, but this is not a recommendation to use them.

OTAM = open tour around mongolia. You can buy ticket for 123 USD and travel on a circuit to all the destinations. The length of the road is 2000 km. It takes 5 nights and 6 days to do the entire route of the trip nonstop. The interesting part of it is you can get off and on anywhere you want and stay there as long as you want. The ticket is valued until you finish the circuit. Check out their website: www.otamecotours.com. It seems like an interesting concept, which might be exactly what you want.

Another community group is GertoGer.org - Nomad Centered Community Tourism Project
Office Tel/Fax: (976-11) 313336
Email: info@GertoGer.org
Website: www.GertoGer.org

For horseback riding in Mongolia, check out Stepperiders

If you use any of these, I would love to hear back and it would probably be useful to add something to the guidebook updates section as both of these seem to be relatively new operations.

Ruth

Thanks for getting back to me....
Im not looking for people to tell me its safe or cheap im just looking an answer i have no way of getting a Mongolian LP and have no no clue about the country and the web sites i have been on are no help but Ruth thanks for your reply that has helped...

I budgeted maybe thirty-five dollars a day last July, although that would have been a lot less if I hadn't drunk quite so much beer. Hostel accommodation was five dollars a night.

From the UB Guest House I booked an eleven-night tour through north-central Mongolia by jeep, with four other people. The jeep (with driver) cost about sixteen US dollars a night, each; a guide cost three more dollars each a night. Visited Karkhorin, Tserkhiin Tsagaan Nuur (beautiful lake with nearby extinct volcano to climb), Khovsgol (see above), and a monastery called Amarbyasgalaant Khiid. Accommodation in gers (traditional felt tents) or camping (equipment provided by the guest house).

There are cheaper countries out there but it's a sight cheaper to travel in Mongolia than in Russia, certainly

Can you tell me which Guesthouse this is that you use for the 16 dollars a night Jeep tour?

What does this include? The Jeep, Gas, Driver, 3 meal, and Gar stay all for 16 dollars a night?

UB Guest House, like I say. Jeep, 'gas' and driver included, and also rental of camping equipment (tent, mattresses, sleeping bags, camping stove and cooking gear etc). Food and lodgings extra - ger stays tended to cost about four dollars a night.

It was sixteen dollars each for each day spent travelling, plus forty dollars a day between the five of us for any extra days we spent anywhere.