Terelj National Park โ€“ Mongoliaโ€™s Gateway to Nature & Adventure

Govi

A perfect blend of dramatic landscapes, culture, and relaxation. Just a short drive from Ulaanbaatar, Terelj National Park is one of Mongoliaโ€™s most accessible and popular natural destinations. Known for its towering rock formations, peaceful river valleys, alpine forests, and cultural sites, Terelj offers the perfect getaway for travelers who want to experience Mongoliaโ€™s nature without venturing too far from the capital.

๐ŸŒŸ Why Terelj Is a Must-Visit Destination

Terelj National Park is part of the 1.2 million-hectare Khan Khentii Protected Area, one of the most scenic and ecologically important regions in Mongolia.

Highlights:

  • Dramatic granite rock formations
  • Horse riding and hiking routes
  • Buddhist temples and cultural sites
  • Nomadic family experiences
  • Beautiful rivers and forested mountains

It is ideal for day trips, weekend escapes, or longer stays.


๐Ÿข 1. Turtle Rock – The Iconic Landmark of Terelj

 

One of the park’s most famous formations, Turtle Rock (Melkhii Khad), resembles a giant turtle carved from stone.

Why travelers love it:

  • Easy to access
  • Great for photography
  • Beautiful views from surrounding hills

Climbing partway up the rock offers nice vantage points.


๐Ÿ•‰ 2. Aryabal Meditation Temple

Located on a hillside with panoramic views, the Aryabal Meditation Temple is a peaceful spiritual destination inspired by Tibetan Buddhism.

What to expect:

  • A scenic walk across a hanging bridge
  • Fresh mountain air
  • A serene atmosphere ideal for meditation
  • Beautiful views overlooking the valley

Visitors often feel calm and refreshed after this short hike.


๐Ÿšฃ 3. Outdoor Adventures in Terelj

Terelj is a playground for nature lovers and adventure seekers.

Activities you can enjoy:

• Horseback Riding
Ride through meadows, forests, and mountain paths with local guides.

• Hiking & Trekking
Plenty of trails suitable for all levels, from easy walks to longer ridge hikes.

• River Activities
Kayaking and rafting are available in certain seasons.

• Rock Climbing
Several granite formations are climbable with proper equipment.

Terelj is perfect for family trips, group adventures, and couples seeking nature.


๐Ÿ›– 4. Visit a Nomadic Family

 

Spending time with a local nomadic family is one of the most authentic experiences in the park.

You can learn:

  • How Mongolian dairy products are made
  • How to milk cows or tend animals
  • Traditional customs inside a ger
  • The daily rhythm of nomadic life

Hospitality is deeply valued, and guests are warmly welcomed with tea and snacks.


๐Ÿ• 5. Accommodation Options

Terelj offers a wide range of stays:

• Luxury Resorts

With spas, restaurants, and modern amenities.

• Standard Ger Camps

Cozy and comfortable traditional-style camps.

• Budget Guesthouses

Perfect for backpackers and solo travelers.

• Wilderness Camping

Great for adventurers who want a quiet night under the stars.

The park is suitable for both premium and budget travelers.


๐Ÿ—บ How to Get There

Terelj is located about 55 km from Ulaanbaatar, making it extremely convenient.

Transportation Options:

  • Private Car/Driver – Fastest and easiest
  • Group Tours – Affordable and includes guide services
  • Public Bus – Budget option, though limited schedule

Travel time is around 1–1.5 hours depending on road and traffic.


๐Ÿ“ธ Best Photography Spots

  • Turtle Rock at sunrise or sunset
  • Aryabal Temple from the viewpoint
  • Horses grazing in the valley
  • Foggy mornings near the river
  • Starry skies over the mountains

Terelj is one of the most photogenic places near Ulaanbaatar.


๐ŸŒฟ Wildlife & Nature

The region is home to:

  • Red deer
  • Moose
  • Wolves (rare)
  • Eagles and various bird species
  • Alpine plants and wildflowers

Spring and autumn are especially beautiful for nature lovers.


๐ŸŒŸ Why Terelj National Park Should Be on Your Mongolia Itinerary

โœ” Close to Ulaanbaatar
โœ” Beautiful and varied landscapes
โœ” Perfect mix of nature + culture + adventure
โœ” Lots of activities for every traveler
โœ” A peaceful retreat from city life

Whether you're exploring rock formations, riding horses across open valleys, or simply enjoying tea with a nomadic family, Terelj National Park captures the essence of Mongolia’s natural beauty and hospitality.

 

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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