Khuvsgul Lake

Govi

Lake Khรถvsgรถl โ€“ The Blue Pearl of Mongolia

One of Asia’s most stunning and pristine freshwater lakes

Lake Khövsgöl, often called “The Blue Pearl of Mongolia,” is one of the country’s most treasured natural wonders. Located in the far north near the Siberian border, this ancient glacial lake is known for its crystal-clear water, dramatic mountain scenery, and peaceful atmosphere. For travelers seeking untouched nature and an authentic countryside experience, Khövsgöl is an absolute must-see.


๐Ÿž Why Lake Khövsgöl Is So Special

Khövsgöl is Mongolia’s second-largest lake but contains nearly 70% of the country’s fresh water. Its pure water is so clean that locals say you can drink it straight from the lake.

Key features:

  • Over 130 kilometers long and up to 260 meters deep
  • Surrounded by pine forests, mountains, and rich wildlife
  • Home to reindeer herders and unique northern cultures
  • Known for its stunning sunrise and sunset views

The lake remains frozen for almost half the year, creating breathtaking seasonal contrasts.


๐Ÿšฃ Activities Travelers Can Enjoy

Khövsgöl offers a wide range of experiences for adventure lovers and those who simply want to relax in nature.

1. Hiking & Trekking

Explore forest trails, mountain ridges, and lakeside routes with panoramic views.

2. Horseback Riding

Ride along the shoreline or into the surrounding taiga with local guides.

3. Kayaking & Boating

The calm, clear waters are perfect for kayaking or a peaceful boat tour.

4. Fishing

The lake is home to grayling and other cold-water species (regulated seasonally).

5. Camping & Stargazing

Clear skies make Khövsgöl one of the best places for viewing stars in Mongolia.

6. Winter Ice Festival (February–March)

A spectacular event featuring ice sculptures, horse sleigh races, shamanic rituals, and cultural performances.


๐ŸฆŒ Meet the Reindeer Herders (Tsaatan Community)

A trip to Khövsgöl often includes visiting the Tsaatan (Dukha) reindeer herders who live deep in the taiga.

What makes this experience unique:

  • Learn about their ancient shamanic traditions
  • See reindeer up close and learn how they are cared for
  • Experience life in teepee-style dwellings called urts
  • Capture once-in-a-lifetime photographs in the mystical forests

This cultural encounter is one of the most memorable parts of traveling in northern Mongolia.


๐ŸŒฟ Nature & Wildlife Around the Lake

Khövsgöl National Park is home to diverse wildlife such as:

  • Moose
  • Red deer
  • Ibex
  • Brown bears
  • Wolves
  • Hundreds of bird species

The untouched forests and clean air make it one of Mongolia’s purest ecosystems.


๐Ÿ›– Staying Near the Lake

Travelers can choose from:

• Ger camps

Traditional Mongolian stays along the shoreline.

• Log cabins & eco-lodges

Warm, comfortable, and perfect for families.

• Wilderness camping

Great for adventurous travelers seeking peace and solitude.

Each option allows visitors to fully enjoy the lake’s peaceful atmosphere.


๐Ÿ—บ How to Get There

The lake is located about 100 km from Mörön, the capital of Khövsgöl province.

Travel options:

  • Flight: 1.5 hours from Ulaanbaatar → Mörön, then 2–3 hours by car
  • Car/Jeep: 12–14 hours from Ulaanbaatar (recommended with a driver)
  • Tour Package: Many companies offer guided trips with transportation included

Roads are improving but still require caution, especially in spring and autumn.


๐Ÿ“ธ Best Photography Spots

  • Sunrise along the eastern shore
  • Mist rising from the lake on cool mornings
  • Snow-covered mountains reflecting on the water
  • Reindeer in the taiga forests
  • Starry skies over the lakeside camps

Khövsgöl is a dream for landscape and wildlife photographers.


๐ŸŒŸ Why Lake Khövsgöl Belongs on Your Bucket List

Whether you’re seeking adventure, peace, culture, or breathtaking nature, Lake Khövsgöl offers it all:

โœ” Pure, untouched wilderness
โœ” Unique nomadic and reindeer herder culture
โœ” Endless outdoor activities
โœ” Mesmerizing views in every season

It is one of the few places on earth where you can disconnect completely and reconnect with nature.


Testimonial

What Client Say About Us

Maria Doe

Traveller

Exceptional Northern Mongolia Experience with Lunas Tours Our journey through Northern Mongolia was truly unforgettable thanks to 'Lunas Tours'. Traveling through the Khuvsgul region, Darkhad Valley, and remote northern landscapes, we experienced pristine nature, rich nomadic culture, and deep local traditions that few tours can offer. The tour was extremely well-organized, with careful planning for long distances, changing weather, and remote conditions. We especially appreciated the authentic experiencesโ€”staying with local families, learning about reindeer herdersโ€™ lifestyles, and enjoying the peaceful beauty of Mongoliaโ€™s northern taiga. The teamโ€™s strong local knowledge, cultural sensitivity, and respect for nature made the journey both safe and meaningful. This was not just sightseeing, but a true cultural and natural immersion. We highly recommend 'Lunas Tours' to travelers who want to explore Northern Mongolia in a responsible, authentic, and well-guided way.

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Micheal and Debby from Nederland

Traveller

Outstanding service by Guide Luna & Driver Eba โ€“ Lunas Tours Our trip in Mongolia was exceptional thanks to our guide Luna and driver Eba. Luna was incredibly knowledgeable, professional, and caring. She explained Mongoliaโ€™s history, culture, and traditions with passion and clarity, and always made sure everyone felt comfortable and well-informed throughout the journey. Driver Eba was equally impressive. His driving was safe, smooth, and reliable even on challenging roads and long distances. He handled every situation calmly and professionally, making us feel secure at all times. Together, Luna and Eba worked as a perfect team. Their coordination, friendliness, and attention to detail turned our trip into a truly memorable experience. We highly recommend them to anyone traveling in Mongolia with Lunas Tours.

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Sarah

Australian traveler

Amazing experience with Lunas Tours โ€“ Mongolia Our journey with Lunas Tours was truly unforgettable. From the very beginning, everything was well-organized, flexible, and thoughtfully planned. The team showed deep knowledge of Mongoliaโ€™s culture, history, and nature, and they always made sure we felt safe and comfortable. What we appreciated most was Lunas Toursโ€™ personalized approach and support for local communities. Staying with local families, experiencing authentic food, and exploring Mongoliaโ€™s breathtaking landscapes made this trip very special. We highly recommend Lunas Tours to anyone who wants a genuine, meaningful, and well-guided travel experience in Mongolia. ๐ŸŽ

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John

American traveller

โญโญโญโญโญ Lunas Tours gave us an authentic and unforgettable Mongolian experience! Professional guides, great organization, and strong support for local communities. Highly recommended for anyone visiting Mongolia.

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Vaiopoulos Nikos

Greece Traveller

Luna Khaliunaa Mongolian Guide provide for me and my company one of the best travel experience we ever had. Mongolia was awesome thanks to her! Ever consider visit Mongolia Lunas' Tours should be your only choice.

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Garry's family

Canadian family

Perfect family tour with Guide Luna & Driver Eba Our family had a wonderful experience traveling in Mongolia with Lunas Tours in winter - 2025, especially thanks to our guide Luna and driver Eba. Luna was incredibly kind, patient, and attentive to our children. She explained Mongolian culture and history in a way that was easy and interesting for both adults and kids, making the journey educational and fun. Driver Eba made us feel completely safe throughout the trip. His careful driving, calm attitude, and readiness to help at any moment gave us great peace of mind, especially while traveling with children and luggage. Thanks to Luna and Eba, our family felt comfortable, well-cared-for, and truly welcomed. This was not just a tour, but a meaningful family memory. We highly recommend Lunas Tours for families visiting Mongolia.

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Minje & Dunhe

Korean family

ํ•จ๊ป˜ํ•œ ์™„๋ฒฝํ•œ ๊ฐ€์กฑ ์—ฌํ–‰ ์ €ํฌ ๊ฐ€์กฑ์€ ๋ฃจ๋‚˜์Šค ํˆฌ์–ด(Lunas Tours)์™€ ํ•จ๊ป˜ํ•œ ๋ชฝ๊ณจ ์—ฌํ–‰์—์„œ ์ •๋ง ์žŠ์ง€ ๋ชปํ•  ์‹œ๊ฐ„์„ ๋ณด๋ƒˆ์Šต๋‹ˆ๋‹ค. ํŠนํžˆ ๊ฐ€์ด๋“œ ๋ฃจ๋‚˜ ์™€ ๋“œ๋ผ์ด๋ฒ„ ์—๋ฐ” ๋•๋ถ„์— ์•„์ด๋“ค๊ณผ ํ•จ๊ป˜ํ•˜๋Š” ์—ฌํ–‰์ด ๋”์šฑ ํŽธ์•ˆํ•˜๊ณ  ์•ˆ์ „ํ–ˆ์Šต๋‹ˆ๋‹ค. ๊ฐ€์ด๋“œ ๋ฃจ๋‚˜๋Š” ์•„์ด๋“ค์—๊ฒŒ๋„ ์ดํ•ดํ•˜๊ธฐ ์‰ฌ์šด ๋ฐฉ์‹์œผ๋กœ ๋ชฝ๊ณจ์˜ ์—ญ์‚ฌ์™€ ๋ฌธํ™”๋ฅผ ์„ค๋ช…ํ•ด ์ฃผ์—ˆ๊ณ , ํ•ญ์ƒ ์นœ์ ˆํ•˜๊ณ  ์„ธ์‹ฌํ•˜๊ฒŒ ๊ฐ€์กฑ์„ ๋ฐฐ๋ คํ•ด ์ฃผ์—ˆ์Šต๋‹ˆ๋‹ค. ์—ฌํ–‰ ๋‚ด๋‚ด ์•„์ด๋“ค์˜ ์ƒํƒœ๋ฅผ ์‚ดํŽด์ฃผ๋ฉฐ ๋ถ€๋ชจ ์ž…์žฅ์—์„œ ํฐ ์•ˆ์‹ฌ์ด ๋˜์—ˆ์Šต๋‹ˆ๋‹ค. ๋“œ๋ผ์ด๋ฒ„ ์—๋ฐ”๋Š” ์žฅ๊ฑฐ๋ฆฌ ์ด๋™๊ณผ ํ—˜ํ•œ ๋„๋กœ์—์„œ๋„ ํ•ญ์ƒ ์•ˆ์ „ํ•˜๊ณ  ์ฐจ๋ถ„ํ•˜๊ฒŒ ์šด์ „ํ•ด ์ฃผ์—ˆ์œผ๋ฉฐ, ๊ฐ€์กฑ ์—ฌํ–‰๊ฐ์—๊ฒŒ ๊ผญ ํ•„์š”ํ•œ ์•ˆ์ •๊ฐ์„ ์ฃผ์—ˆ์Šต๋‹ˆ๋‹ค. ๋ฃจ๋‚˜์™€ ์—๋ฐ”์˜ ์™„๋ฒฝํ•œ ํŒ€์›Œํฌ ๋•๋ถ„์— ์ด๋ฒˆ ์—ฌํ–‰์€ ๋‹จ์ˆœํ•œ ๊ด€๊ด‘์ด ์•„๋‹ˆ๋ผ ๊ฐ€์กฑ ๋ชจ๋‘์—๊ฒŒ ์†Œ์ค‘ํ•œ ์ถ”์–ต์ด ๋˜์—ˆ์Šต๋‹ˆ๋‹ค. ๋ชฝ๊ณจ๋กœ ๊ฐ€์กฑ ์—ฌํ–‰์„ ๊ณ„ํšํ•˜์‹ ๋‹ค๋ฉด ๋ฃจ๋‚˜์Šค ํˆฌ์–ด๋ฅผ ์ง„์‹ฌ์œผ๋กœ ์ถ”์ฒœํ•ฉ๋‹ˆ๋‹ค.

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Adrian Lee

Singaporeans

Our trip to Mongolia with Lunas Tours was an absolutely unforgettable experience. Traveling through the heart of Central Mongolia โ€” from the breathtaking Orkhon Valley to the remote beauty of the Eight Lakes (Naiman Nuur) โ€” gave us a true glimpse into the soul of this vast and peaceful land. Special thanks to our amazing guide Luna, whose deep knowledge, kindness, and professionalism made the journey smooth and meaningful, and to our skilled driver Eba, who safely navigated the mountain passes and rugged trails with calm confidence. The Orkhon Valley, with its wide open grasslands, wild horses, and traditional herder families, was a highlight โ€” we felt connected to Mongolian history and nomadic culture. The horseback trip to the Eight Lakes was truly magical, surrounded by pine forests, sparkling lakes, and the peaceful sound of nature. Visiting Erdene Zuu Monastery, the first Buddhist monastery in Mongolia, was another memorable experience. The blend of ancient architecture and the serene spiritual atmosphere made it a powerful reminder of Mongoliaโ€™s rich history and culture. Finally, the hike up to Tuvkhun Monastery, perched high in the Khangai mountains, was both peaceful and inspiring. The view from the top was breathtaking, and it gave us a sense of tranquility that words cannot describe. We are deeply grateful to Luna and Eba for taking such good care of us throughout the journey โ€” from comfortable accommodations to delicious meals and flexible travel arrangements. Their warm hospitality made us feel like family. Thank you, Lunas Tours, for organizing such a perfect balance of adventure, culture, and nature. We will definitely recommend your company to friends and family in Singapore who are seeking an authentic Mongolian experience. โ€“ On behalf of travelers from Singapore

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