How to visit Mongolia
How I did it: It's a bit complicated to get there and go around, but worth it. When I was studying abroad in Beijing, I had a week off for a Chinese national holiday called "National Week" in October (a week off!). So my friend Parker and I decided to go to Mongolia, partially on a whim and partially because I was into the history of the Mongol Empire. So a week or so before we bought train tickets; not an easy task, because in Beijing the only place you can buy train tickets to Ulaanbaatar is on the 2nd floor of the International Hotel. That took some trial and error. We got soft sleepers, meaning 4 people to a room.. but there ended up being hardly anyone going, so my friend and I had the room to ourselves. Also, we couldn't buy return tickets - we had to buy those in Mongolia. So we left for an unknown land without a way back, and it was exhilarating. Once we got to Ulaanbaatar (27 hours later), we had to buy a return ticket, and enlisted the help of a nice lady who spoke Russian and English. It's in a weird building near the train station, but not the train station itself. With that out of the way, we were free to explore Mongolia for a week! We hired a driver who spoke no English, who drove us around the countryside for 4 days, including to Karakorum (Genghis Khan's old capital), staying in the gers of his old friends who also spoke no English. Man, that week was such a rush.
Lessons & tips: You can only plan so much in advance when it comes to Mongolia. If you're in Beijing and need help getting a train ticket, feel free to contact me.
Resources: We stayed at Serge's Guesthouse while in Ulaanbaatar, and he's also the one who set us up with the driver. 3 and a half days for $150, which partially included food, and we paid maybe $5 a night as a thank you to the people whose gers we intruded on for sleeping.
