From start to finish this was a fantastic tour company. Everything was planned very well so we experienced all areas of Mongolia. Very professional company. Our tour guide Miss Nona spoke perfect English therefore we learnt so much about the local customs and culture. The driver Mr Ganbat was without a doubt the best driver, always stopping to show us extra highlights along our road trip. They made it a trip of a lifetime for us. It was such a special trip. Mongolia is utterly beautiful and we will be returning. Thank you!

Just back from an 8-day trip to Mongolia. Due to the lack of public transportation outside the capital Ulaanbaatar, joining a local tour/ hiring a local guide is necessary. There are many travel agencies and local guides available, and the reason I chose Travel Buddies is their travel designer, Undarmaa responded my inquiries really quick, proposed an itinerary suitable for entry- level traveller, understood my worries and gave useful advices. Enji is my cheerful and caring tour guide. Knowing that I basically have no experience in hiking, she is always very patient, making sure that I am safe. She is also our DJ, introduced a lot of local music to me. Our drivers both in Gobi (Dasha) and UB (Jagaa) are experienced, well prepared and know the region very well. The secret spot to watch the Flaming Cliffs in sunset, is definitely a highlight of the trip. Accommodations and meals are all very well arranged. Enjoyed my first trip to Mongolia very much!

Just finished off a 12-days tour visiting the Eagle Hunters, horseback riding in the Altai, nomadic family stay in the Orkhon Valley, camel ride in the Semi Gobi, looking for wild horses in Hustai National park, Terelj Park, etc. It was amazing and memorable! It’s a good choice that we go with Travel Buddies: First of all, Taco is very responsive, patient and able to address all my needs in customising the itinerary. He has been very helpful in all ways throughout the planning of the trip. Then it is the tour guides and drivers. Special credit needs to be given to the dream team who accompanied us in the West - Nasa, Enji and Amagaa. Our guide Nasa is exceptional! He is very experienced, knowledgeable and amusing! The trip wouldn’t be as smooth, informative and fun without him. Our cook Enji (who is also a guide) surprised us with scrumptious dishes in diff varieties everyday - totally exceeded our expectations on food you would have expected for camping. She is also attentive, a superb guide by all means! Then it’s driver Amagaa, a competent and honest driver whom surprisingly is also fun to be around. The three together made our trip a truly enjoyable and memorable one. The guide Jay whom accompanied us to the rest of the itinerary also tried his best to meet our needs. Overall arrangement is great too. Accommodations, sleeping bag & liners, helmet & leggings, etc. provided, are either clean/new to ensure our comfort. I would highly recommend Travel Buddies to anyone who wants to have a great experience in Mongolia.

We recently enjoyed a 6-day trip to Mongolia, exploring Terelj National Park, Kharkhorin, Orkhon Valley and its waterfall, and Hustai National Park. Our guide, Taco, was exceptionally knowledgeable and witty, with excellent conversational English, making the trip both informative and fun. Our driver, Mugi, was proficient, safe, and always attentive to our needs. We highly recommend Travel Buddies, and especially Taco and Mugi, for an unforgettable and seamless Mongolian adventure.

Excellent communication and planning in the lead up with 'Travel Designer' Zoloo. The Travel Designers are guides themselves so well know the routes and optimal planning for a custom multi day trip. But as always, the most important element is the guide and driver. Here we have Taco and Jagaa. With boundless enthusiasm guide Taco entertained and educated us in the Mongolian way, from the endless variations of knuckle bones to the foods and history of Mongolia. Able to swing from one topic to the next, Taco ensured our needs and comfort were met. There was flexibility as well, we adjusted our schedule according to circumstance. Taco knows the whole country inside out, and with impeccable, sophisticated english, makes it fun and educational for kids to seniors alike. We stayed with a genuine nomad family who move from their winter to summer residence annually. The mother is a delightful hard working host who cooks traditionally for the guests as well as mange the hundreds of animals; goats, sheep, cows, horses and Mongolian Shepherd dogs. It's a hard tough traditional existence which is a privilege to experience as a guest. We stayed in an old genuine yurt, not the many tourist ones. And then there was Jagaa who been with the company from the beginning, and it shows. With endless humour and safe driving, Jagaa knows the National Parks like no one else and also dropped us at the airport at an ungodly hour. Water on the steppe required some great handling to get us through. Thanks Taco and Jagaa.

Travel buddies is very responsive to all my emails and requests. That’s the main reason I chose them to be our travel guide. Tour guide (Enji) and the Driver are fantastic companion. They are flexible and constantly asking if we are fine and anything they can get for us. Both my wife and I enjoyed the whole tour very much. It was indeed a very unique experience for us. I will highly recommend travel buddies as your guide in Mongolia!

I just finished my solo 8 day winter Mongolia tour. My favorite was the Gobi desert. It has a lot of interesting topography ranging from sand dunes, sheer cliff that seems to blaze when the sun hits it, towering mountains, and much more. There were also unexpected wildlife encounters ranging from gazelles, ibex (was very lucky to see a platoon of ibex, and ibex who are mating!) and hare. Since I travelled during winter, interspersed among the sand dunes, plains and rocky cliffs are ice. This creates an otherworldly look. I feel as if I had travelled to Mars! In the morning, you can see the herds of horses, sheeps and two-humped camels (only found in Mongolia, was able to ride the camel) peppered along the vast plains of Gobi. At night, you can see the stars in all its glory as you stand outside your nomad family’s ger. These are just a fraction of what I experienced in Gobi. Outside Gobi, I visited Terelj Park where I was able to experience husky dog sledding and horse back ridding. I also visited Hustai Park where I was able to see the Takhi, the only remaining wild horse in the world. I was also able to experience the world famous throat singing only found in Mongolia. I felt very lucky to have found Travel Buddies because they have made my Mongolia trip a once in a lifetime experience. Undaarma from Travel Buddies answered my queries immediately and crafted an itinerary based on my goal. Nasa and Eegi, my guide and driver, respectively throughout my entire trip were very professional, knowledgeable, friendly, and responsive to the needs of the situation. Both of them truly were my travel buddies.

One of the best decisions made was to go to Mongolia and an even better decision was to engage Travel Buddies for our winter tour. Our guide Tamir and driver Muugii were stellar at their jobs and they made us feel right at home wherever we went. We weren’t seasoned travellers but the care and attention to detail provided by the company was really top-notch and we had such a good time exploring Mongolia!

We just returned from an amazing tour from Mongolia. Zoloo was quick and detailed with her replies to our initial inquiries. She put together an interesting itinerary that covers Gobi Deset and Western Mongolia and visited nomad families. We were lucky to have been assigned Tim and Mugi as our guide and driver. Tim is the dream tour guide for every tourist. He speaks perfect English and has good knowledge of the country, culture and history, has a good sense of humour and takes amazing photos. It felt like we were travelling with an old friend. Mugi is very caring and constantly ensure that we were comfortable throughout the journey. His excellent driving skills have ensured that the long drives on the bumpy dirt road very enjoyable. We stayed in some standard tourist ger and some luxury ger with ensuite bathrooms, all are clean and comfortable. Highly recommend Travel Buddies if you are looking for an agency that provides excellent services.

We had a wonderful time in this fascinating country. Travel Buddies set us up with a guide and driver who were both excellent. They were knowledgeable, flexible, spoke excellent English and allowed us to set our own pace and accommodated our travel desires and dietary needs. We arrived in the middle of a national holiday (International Children's Day) and we adjusted our plans to stay close to Ulaanbataar to enjoy the festivities. All in all, Travel Buddies did a terrific job of setting us up with accommodations and sightseeing that gave us a great first taste of this incredible country. We highly recommend them.

First time in my life coming across a travel agency that does such an impeccable job of making our trip to a foreign land memorable, fuss-free, extremely educational and above all, fun! My wife and I thoroughly enjoyed ourselves in our 7 day bespoke tour with Travel Buddies - from the start, Zoloo walked us through the process of planning our dream vacation and ensured that all our requests were met, and kept us assured that we were in good hands. The trip itself was amazing and full of firsts for us. Our guides Bilguungerel (Billy) and Esmedekh and our driver Brian spoke excellent English, were attentive to our needs, generous in sharing their experiences and knowledge on local culture and norms and spared no effort to make our trip in Mongolia a one-of-a-kind experience. From Lake Khuvsgul in the north to the semi-Gobi, Kharkhorum and experiencing mini-Nadaam festivals, we got to catch a glimpse of life in the various parts of Mongolia (not to mention riding horses, camels and yaks along the way and tasting the likes of reindeer milk cheese and yak milk curd). Accommodations and meals were fantastic - all of the luxury ger camps we stayed in were spacious, clean and comfortable, and had ensuite bathrooms with shower facilities included in the room. My wife and I are already looking forward to visiting Mongolia again in the near future (perhaps this time South to the Gobi Desert), with its unforgettable scenery and the warm hospitality of its people. We would certainly engage Travel Buddies again and would happily recommend the agency to anyone interested in travelling to Mongolia. Thank you once again to Zoloo, Billy, Brian and Esmedekh from the Travel Buddies team!

My wife and I did a 4 day customized tour plan that was great from start to finish. From airport pickup to going directly to the Naadam festival to going around Mongolia to the sights like the Chinggis Khaan Monument and the Terelj National Park and then the Hustai National park where we were able to see wild horses. Our tour guide and driver were both great and friendly and we really enjoyed talking to them. They handled our trip quite well even when an unexpected change of plans happened. An unfortunate reality of traveling is the possibility of picking up an illness and when we started to feel ill we had to forgo staying with a nomadic family for the night opting to stay back at a hotel in the city. However, after some medicine and good night's rest our guide was able to add some new activities for our last day including a couple of museums and a traditional dance and musical performance to make up for the lost time. Their understanding and helpfulness in that situation was excellent and I would highly recommend this service to anyone. The planning and booking of a customized tour package was very easy and the communication during the process is excellent.

This boutique agency is owned and run by local woman named Zoloo. I prefer to work with a local companies when I travel; when there is a problem, the local people know who to call, what to do and just do it. While a company in England or the US is disconnected from the people actually doing the job. What first impressed me was the quick, detail response to my initial inquiry. With her invaluable knowledge of Mongolia, places of interest, road condition, satellite navigation, and contacts throughout the country, she helps me plan a 2 month journey to places less visited by tourists. The detailed information provided and her skills using Google to map my trip, proved crucial to my preparations; this was not available from other sources. An engaging young woman, Zoloo speaks English, is honest, organized and informed about local customs, history, access, food and cultural do's and don'ts. I rode hired and rode camels into Mongo Ells to camp overnight high in the dunes with the local ranger for my guide, learned from a Kazak man about the relationship between man and bird and then held his magnificent Golden Eagle (she was very heavy). I was able to ride up a mountain, through the magical Taiga forest, to camp below the teepee of my Duka host where I ate with appreciation the freshly baked bread his wife offered me. Watching goats being combed for cashmere, camel being sheared for their wool, and wild horses gallop along a ridge with the mountains behind are experiences I will never forget. The country is remote, with unpredictable weather (dust storm to snow storm) and spectacular scenery. All, do not forget to shop for magnificent gifts made of cashmere. Whether you have a week or several this is a reliable agency to work with. May-June 2022

Had a great 10 day tour, taking in parts of UB and surrounds, then a long trip taking in the major sights of the Gobi. Our tour guide Bilguun was excellent. Really well spoken, knowledgable about the history and culture of the places we visited, thoughtful (she even planned a surprise party for one of us - pretty hard to do in the desert!), and great sense of humour. The driver Tumruu was also really good - polite, courteous, and always kept the car in immaculate condition. Travel Buddies seems to have good contacts throughout Mongolia - they arranged a night with a Mongolian herding family, which was really special, and wherever there was a choice of ger camps always picked the more authentic camp. Will definitely use them again on a return visit!

I highly recommend Travel Buddies. We had a 10 Day private tour, which I arranged via email/website in July 2019. My husband and I are 29 and 28 respectively and live in western Canada. For booking, the Travel Buddies team was clear, quick to respond and a pleasure to work with. They took the time to fully customize our tour based on what we wanted to see and do. Our guide was Billy and our driver was Jay. They deserve praise for their awesome job. They were such fun travel companions and made every effort to ensure our trip went smoothly. We traveled from October 14th to October 25th and mostly wanted a cultural and nature visit. Although there was quite a bit of traveling, we were informed of the travel times before booking, and it was quite understandable given the locations we were driving to. We went at the beginning of the off-season, which was great because we were really the only tourists. We are Canadians, so the cold (ranged from +10 to -15 Celcius) was never an issue. We added an additional day at the beginning, where a private driver picked us up and brought us to a few places in the capital, Ulaanbaatar. We were greeted at the airport by the director of the company, who made sure that we were set up for the day and the rest of our trip, which we sincerely appreciated. She helped us exchange our money at the airport. The largest bill is equivalent to $10 Canadian, and at the time the exchange was about 2000 togrog to $1. We visited the black market and were given many warnings for pickpockets. I do seriously warn others to listen to their advice but my husband I never felt unsafe. All the vendors were very kind, and we walked away with many beautiful items like horse/sheep boots, fox fur hat and wool items like socks and gloves. The next day we began our private tour into the country. I will not recount every single thing we did (as that would be extensive) but we were very happy with everything. The guide was great, she spoke English very well and was happy to translate the entire trip (as almost no one speaks English). She was always very courteous, making sure we were happy and always doing her best to make sure we were happy and comfortable. Our driver did a superb job of navigating some complicated terrain. We traveled through rivers, over mountains and rugged land. He was also very helpful with the families, maintained our vehicle and attended to the animals for some of our adventures. Most night we stayed in gers, some times with nomadic families and other times at tourist camps near parks or historic areas. We went during a colder time and the company was prepared with 2 sleeping bags and one bag liner for each person. There are also stoves in the middle, but we didn't normally get up at night to refuel. Two recommendations are: bring a pillow for your trip and a lighter to manage the fire if it burns out at night and you want to relight it. I did not mind the beds and always got a good sleep, but full warning they are very soft. We also stayed in a guesthouse 2 nights, which was a nice change of pace. There is no water very available with the nomadic families, but our guide and driver always made sure we traveled with a substantial amount, so it was not an issue. There were also no washrooms out in the country, so remember to pack plenty of toilet paper. Showers were available at the ger camps and guesthouse. I suggest a lightweight, quick dry towel for your trip. The food mostly consisted of potato, carrots, onion (some wild!), mutton and noddles/rice/dumplings. The meals were made into a noddle stir fry (Mongolian spaghetti), different types of dumplings or soups. I can honestly say I loved the food! I found it quite delicious and never went hungry. At the camps and sometimes for lunch we had more of a typical meal with meat, rice, sauce, and vegetables. By far my favorite was breakfast as we had a yak cream, which was typically very fresh and super delicious. We also had the opportunity to try homemade vodka, which was very smooth and airag (fermented mares milk). Our last night we all had Hot Pot together, and that was a nice way to finish the trip. At least half of the traveling was done off paved roads throughout the country. We had a great Land Cruiser, outfitted for such travel with a snorkel. It was kept very clean and did a great job of getting us anywhere. I can get car sick, but I would just take an anti-nausea before leaving and never had an issue. Our guide and driver were always happy to stop for us if we wanted to take a picture, break or use the 'washroom'. For the activities, we stayed with families, visited temples, explored parks to view animals, rode camels and horses and hiked. The nomadic families were all so different - yet every single family we met, whether we stayed with them or just said hi, were just wonderful. They are all so giving and welcoming and it was such a pleasure to be with such amazing people. It's such a beautiful culture and the people were so appreciative and interesting. We made food with them, played games, helped herd the animals and learned about their lives as nomads. We were exceptionally lucky, as a family nearby had a haircutting ceremony. This is the largest celebration in a child's life and marks the first hair cut. At night there is a huge party in the families ger with meats, drinks, singing, and fun. we also brought gifts to the families including pencils, sharpeners, notebooks, and Canadian items. we mostly brought gifts for the children, which they were very appreciative of, but other items like soap and basic necessities are also nice gifts. The temples ranged from 16th century to only a few decades old, with some ruins from the 10th century. My husband and I have spent quite a lot of time in Asia (and he lived in Indonesia) and we found the Mongolian temples stunning. Definitely worth your time! The monastery (Erdene Zuu) outside of the old capital (Ghengis Khan's Karakorum) was amazing and by far the largest. Don't let that stop you from going to the more remote monasteries as they generally had an amazing landscape view and interesting history. We hiked many of the mountains around us which is great for viewing the wide landscape, catching a sunrise, or viewing the wildlife. On our trip, we saw many different birds including vultures, eagles, and a fox. We also went for a camel ride in the mini-gobi, which was very fun as the camels we quite big. We went on several horseback rides, which all went well. They are not like North American horses as they are smaller, quite fuzzy and still a little wild. Please make sure that you are confident riding horses and calm, as they can be spoked and other animals/noises may frighten them. We did pass two guard dogs that came sprinting towards us and were quite vicious, but we remained calm and in control, and the horses (for the most part) ignored them. But please, be safe and aware and do not ride the horses if you don't feel confident. They are not for petting and are working animals. We went to a few national parks, but by far the most prominent was the Hustai National Park with the Przewalski's horse, the only truly wild horse left in the wild (mustangs are actually feral horses, not wild). This was an awesome adventure and we were fortunate enough to see two groups of horses. We also saw some sheep (like bighorn) and deer, which are quite large. Overall, a once in a lifetime experience, and very well prepared by Travel Buddies. We got exactly what we wanted, and were so happy with our trip. On our last day, we asked to do a few extras in the city and they were happy to oblige and accommodate our needs. I would love to come back and explore more of the Western region with the larger mountains, eagle hunters and the Eagle Hunting Festival. Billy and Jay (guide and driver) were outstanding, and I hope that you get the pleasure to meet them. I can't thank Travel Buddies enough for their tremendous job in organizing and executing our trip.