Things to Do in Kazakhstan: The Definitive List

Kazakhstan is the ninth largest country on earth and most of what people come for sits within 300 km of one city. This list is ordered by whether the thing earns the day it takes, which is the only ranking that matters on a week-long trip.

1. Charyn Canyon and the Valley of Castles

The single best day out of Almaty. The canyon runs 154 kilometres along the Charyn river with drops of up to 300 metres, cut into sedimentary rock around 12 million years old.

You walk the Valley of Castles, a two-kilometre gorge where erosion has left freestanding towers that genuinely look built. Start on the rim where the whole thing opens below you, walk down to the river, then climb back. Late afternoon is when the low sun throws colours onto the walls that they do not have at midday.

There is also a relict ash grove in the canyon that survived the last glaciation. The only other one like it is in North America.

Eleven hours door to door, about six of them driving. Worth it.

2. Kaindy Lake, the drowned forest

The photograph you have probably already seen. A landslide after the 1911 earthquake dammed the gorge and flooded a spruce forest. The water sits around 6 degrees year round, cold enough that the submerged trunks never rotted, so the dead forest is still standing. Bare white trunks above the waterline, needles still on the branches below it.

Honest warning: it is the hardest thing on this list to reach. Fourteen hours, a border-zone checkpoint before Saty village where original passports are required and photocopies refused, and a final 4x4 leg over a track no road vehicle can drive.

3. Medeu and Shymbulak

Two things on one road, and the easiest big day you will have.

Medeu is the world's highest large skating rink, at 1,691 metres, built in 1972 with 10,500 square metres of ice and more than a hundred world speed-skating records set on it.

Shymbulak above it is Central Asia's biggest ski resort, at about 2,230 metres, with the gondola running to 3,163 metres. The season runs mid to late November until close to May, and a 2025/26 adult day pass was 9,000 tenge on weekdays and 12,000 at weekends. In summer the lifts still run and the slopes become alpine meadow.

4. Kolsai Lakes

Three alpine lakes strung up a valley between 1,800 and 2,850 metres in dense Tien Shan spruce, near the Kyrgyz border. They are called the Pearls of the Northern Tien Shan, and Kolsai means "lake in the valley".

Only the lowest is reachable by road. There is an easy shoreline walk, boats hired on the spot, and horses running up toward the second lake for anyone who wants the harder version. Same border-zone passport rule as Kaindy.

5. Big Almaty Lake

A turquoise reservoir at 2,510 metres, roughly 1,700 metres above the city and under an hour's drive. The colour shifts from deep blue-green in spring to hard turquoise in high summer, and it freezes in winter.

You cannot swim, it is Almaty's drinking water and the rule is enforced. The road above the lake enters a border-control zone, so carry your passport.

6. The Sunkar falcon show

Seven kilometres from Almaty in the Big Almaty gorge, on the same road as the lake. The Sunkar centre was founded in 1989 and is the only facility in Kazakhstan breeding rare birds of prey. It has raised over 1,060 birds and released 360 saker falcons back to the wild.

The demonstration is falconry as practised: falcons, eagles and owls flown in the open by a falconer, close enough to hear the wings. Kazakh falconry is on the UNESCO intangible cultural heritage list. Thirty minutes, fixed schedule, and it pairs perfectly with the lake.

7. Kok Tobe and the Almaty cableway

The 1,100-metre hill on the city's southern edge, reached by cable car from the centre. At the top is one of the world's tallest free-standing TV towers, an observation terrace over the entire city grid, a small amusement park, and the bronze Beatles statue that is Almaty's most photographed object.

Go at sunset. Expect a queue for the cable car at exactly that hour.

8. Almaty's city centre on foot

Underrated by people who treat Almaty as a trailhead. Zenkov Cathedral in Panfilov Park is one of the tallest wooden buildings in the world, raised without nails, and it survived the earthquakes that destroyed the old town. Republic Square, the Independence Monument and the Memorial of Glory fill an afternoon.

The Green Bazaar is the one to make time for. Horse meat and dried curd downstairs, mountains of dried fruit and nuts upstairs, and sellers who hand you things to taste whether or not you asked.

9. The Huns ethno village

A reconstructed nomadic settlement outside the city, originally built as a film set and kept on as an open-air museum. Yurts you can sit in, a wooden fort, craft workshops, archery and horsemanship, and kumis pressed on you as a matter of course.

It is a reconstruction and does not pretend otherwise. With children it is usually the thing they remember.

10. Lake Issyk and the Golden Man kurgans

The quiet alternative, about 70 km east. Lake Issyk sat at 1,750 metres until 7 July 1963, when a mudflow broke the natural dam and emptied it in hours. What you see re-formed behind an engineered dam built afterwards.

The drive passes the Issyk burial mounds, where the Golden Man was excavated in 1969: a Saka warrior buried in a suit of more than four thousand gold pieces, now Kazakhstan's national symbol.

What these cost

Most of this list is cheap by Indian standards once you are there. At roughly Rs 0.21 to the tenge as of 14 September 2026:

Charyn, Kolsai, Kaindy, Ayusai and Issyk each charge a national park entrance fee per person at the gate, normally in cash and separate from any tour price. Ask for the per-person figure before you go and carry tenge.

The real cost on this list is transport. Everything from number 1 to number 5 needs a private vehicle for the day, priced per vehicle rather than per person, which is why a group of four pays roughly half per head what a couple does.

Why this list suits Indian travellers

Two structural reasons, beyond the scenery.

Access is easy. Delhi to Almaty is a 3 hour 25 minute non-stop with 7 flights a week, and Indian passport holders enter visa-free for 14 days. There is no appointment, no fee and no long-haul recovery day.

The comparison set is expensive. The nearest equivalent to numbers 3 and 5 on this list, a lift-served 3,000-metre mountain and glacial alpine lakes, is Switzerland, at several times the cost and with a visa process attached. That is the whole argument for Kazakhstan and it holds up on the ground.

What I would skip on a first trip

• Astana. Twelve to thirteen hours by fast train. A good city, a bad use of a seven-day week.
• Mangystau and the far west. Genuinely extraordinary, genuinely a separate trip with its own domestic flights.
• Adding Kyrgyzstan or Uzbekistan. The land borders work, the combined itineraries exist, and on seven days you will see mostly road.

A note on sequencing

Almaty's summer highs average 30.5C in July, and the canyon floor is hotter than that with no shade. Put Charyn early in the day or late in the trip, put a slow city day between the two long eastern trips, and do not plan four dawn starts in a row.

Indian passport holders get 14 days visa-free, so there is no pressure to compress. The limiting factor is stamina, not paperwork.