Destinations

At km 240 of the Bishkek-Osh road the highway drops into fifty kilometres of spruce gorge. Honey, trout, and the best stop…

A 500m gallery cut into a mountain near Kochkor, with hospital beds in it, treating asthma since 1980. What Chon-Tuz is and…

A village at 3,170m where the roads from Osh, Tajikistan and China meet, with the Trans-Alay wall across the valley. Best seen…

Kyrgyzstan holds 27 wild tulip species, a third of the world's total, and two are ancestors of the garden tulip. When they…

Every apple descends from wild trees still growing in southern Kyrgyzstan. What the walnut-fruit forests hold, and how much of them is…

Issyk-Ata, 77 km from Bishkek, pairs thermal pools and a carved Buddha with a gloriously faded Soviet sanatorium. Day trip logistics inside.

Remote, roadless and wild — an honest look at Kyrgyzstan’s Chatkal Valley: how to get in over the passes, the river, and…

Besh-Tash National Park pairs a 3,000 m alpine lake with Manas Ordo and almost zero foreign visitors. How to reach Talas, trek,…

Alamedin Gorge is the Bishkek valley locals pick: no entry fee, a waterfall hike, hot springs, and a fraction of Ala-Archa’s crowds.

Twenty-three uranium tailings dumps sit in a landslide-prone valley above a river feeding the Fergana valley. The biggest environmental fact in the…

A 3,586-meter pass and a 2.5km tunnel carry the entire Bishkek-Osh highway over the Kyrgyz Range. Here’s why it matters even if…

Sarychat-Ertash is Kyrgyzstan’s toughest reserve to reach and its best shot at snow leopard country. Here’s what a visit actually involves.