Kyrgyzstan Overland Travel Guide – Travel Information for Your Road Trip

|

“The beauty of Kyrgyzstan for visitors is that it has a bit of everything: nomadic traditions, central Asian mystique, Soviet-era trappings, a few spectacular prehistoric and Silk Road sites and, above all else, a culture that can be best described as a palimpsest, and over the centuries has absorbed the influence of shamanism, Zoroastrianism, Sufism and communism to become something entirely unique.”

From: Bradt Travel Guides

This overland travel guide will be useful for any overlander who is planning to travel to Kyrgyzstan, as well as for travelers who fly in and want to do a road trip starting from Bishkek. Info on road conditions, road maps, guidebooks, gas stations, SIM & Wifi stuff – you will find it all here.

Check it out: the Landcruising Adventure Classic T-shirt Collection

Index for our Kyrgyzstan Overland Travel Guide

Our Overland Travel Information Pages for Kyrgyzstan consists of two parts: The Kyrgyzstan Travel Budget Report, and this is the Kyrgyzstan Overland Travel Guide.

In this blog post we will discuss the following topics:

Toktogul Lake, Kyrgyzstan (©Coen Wubbels)
Mountains of Kyrgyzstan

1 – Kyrgyzstan Travel – Why / When / How

1a – Kyrgyzstan travel – Why

What we loved:

  • Amazing, vast landscapes. Lot of them on altitude – nice and cool in summer.
  • Hiking destination.
  • Relaxed atmosphere, in cities and in the countryside.

On the downside:

  • Not evident to get car problems fixed, including welding of the bodywork. Until we met Nicolai, that was.
  • Summer season is short and passes will close due to snow (and won’t be cleared until spring).
Overland travel Kyrgyzstan (©Coen Wubbels)
Sary Chelek Natural Reserve

1b – Kyrgyzstan travel – When

Kyrgyzstan in winter was fun for a short while, just to see the snow and go skiing for an afternoon. But all the interesting (unpaved) small roads are closed due to snow and when only being able to drive on the main asphalt roads, the country quickly loses its magic.

So, if you like to properly explore Kyrgyzstan in all its remote corners, travel in summer (May-September).

winter in Kyrgyzstan (©Coen Wubbels)

1c – Kyrgyzstan travel – How

There is plenty of public transport, so no vehicle required. But… overlanding brings you to the most beautiful spot, especially the remoteness and the possibility to camp anywhere is what Kyrgyzstan makes so appealing (to us).

Do you not travel with your own vehicle but would you like to visit Kyrgyzstan? There are a number of options, such as:

  • Arguably the best known place to rent a car is Iron Horse Nomad. They also do tours.
  • Nomad’s Land also organizes tours and ask for info if you’re interested in renting a UAZ for a self drive.

2 – Our Road Trip in Kyrgyzstan

Kyrgyzstan Country Stats

  • Kyrgyzstan is a landlocked country in Central Asia. It is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west, Tajikistan to the southwest, and China to the (south)east.
  • Size/area: 198,500 square kms (about the same as the UK minus Northern Ireland, or Nebraska in the US).
  • Climate: dry continental to polar (Tien Shan); subtropical in the southwest (Fergana Valley); temperate in northern foothill zone.
  • Population: approx 5,8 million (2014 estimate): 72,6% Kyrgyz, 14,4% Uzbeks, 6,4% Russians, 6,6% other.

From: Kyrgyzstan Bradt Travel Guide

Our start in Kyrgyzstan, or the Kyrgyz Republic as the country is officially called, has been unusual. We arrived in the heart of winter (winter ’18) with a mere two weeks to prepare a long-distance hike in Turkey and an overhaul planned for the following summer.

On our return, in June (2019), we stayed in an airbnb for two months with our attention focused on getting the Land Cruiser back on the road. Fortunately, we had a few weeks left (after a visa run to Kazakhstan) to start exploring this gorgeous country, ninety percent of which is mountains.

Our Land Cruiser quickly learned again what crawling was!

Hiking in Kyrgyzstan (©Coen Wubbels)
7-day hike south of Karakol
Hot Spring Ak Su, Kyrgyzstan (©Coen Wubbels)
Hot spring of Ak-Suu

Our third return was when the world seemed to be returning to normal, after covid (summer ’21). Ala, this wasn’t entirely the case and after a few weeks in Uzbekistan we could only travel in Kyrgyzstan as other land borders were still closed.

We visited the southern part, just north of the border with Tajikistan, exploring the region around Lenin Peak and doing a fantastic 6-day hike in the Alay Valley. Back to Osh, up to Arslanbob, a loop in the northeast and we settled for at least 6 weeks along the shore of Toktogul Lake (did a quick visa run to Uzbekistan). We just loved Toktogul Lake, the weather was perfect and we took up the opportunity to write our second book: Omwegen – Naar het einde van de Wereld.

Summer ’22 we were back, with a focus on Issyk Kul Lake, Karakol and a 7-day hike in the surroundings.

Travel Stats for Kyrgyzstan

  • Time spent in Kyrgyzstan: 292 days.
  • Total kilometers driven: 5809 kilometers
  • Average kms/day: 20

Read More: Ready to Explore Kyrgyzstan – A Little Bit, for Now

Cemetery in Kyrgyzstan
Cemetery in Kyrgyzstan

3 – Language

Kyrgyzstan is a bilingual nation, with national languages being Kyrgyz and Russian. Both use the Cyrillic Script. It took quite some time to figure out why my Google Translate didn’t work from Russian to English. Well, the texts turned out to be in Kyrgyz and not in Russian!

We don’t speak Kyrgyz but did pick up a few of the commonly used words such as rahmat (‘thank you’) and salam (‘hello’). As Russian is spoken by many throughout Central Asia, we find it very useful to speak a handful of Russian (no matter how limited that still is), which we learned during our overland trip through Russia’s Far East and Siberia.

Russian uses the Cyrillic script which isn’t hard to learn for those who are used to the Latin script. Only a few characters differ. When reading text out loud, you sometimes recognize words, e.g. видео may look complicated but when you read the characters, you realize this is exactly as ‘our’ word for video.

Google Translate

Google Translate is super useful to have. There are a couple of ways to use it:

  • Google Translate on the web – online only
  • Google Translate app – instant voice translation in a two-way setup – online only
  • Google Translate app – camera translation – offline*
  • Google Translate app – text typing translation – offline*

*Offline = you need to download the Russian language package.

Tip: It is wise to install a Russian keyboard so that the other party can type a text in Russian into the Google Translate app.

You can do the same for the Kyrgyz language, however, the translation English from/to Russian is much more accurate than Kyrgyz.

A young Kyrgyz visitor checking out the inside of the Land Cruiser
Toktogul Lake, Kyrgyzstan (©Coen Wubbels)
Toktogul Lake

Insight Guides Phrasebook

We have an Insight Guides Phrasebook, which comes with an app for on your smartphone.

Russian Courses

What else we tried to learn Russian:

  • We practiced online using e.g. Russian for Free, or on apps such as Duolingo and Memrise.
  • We tried a one-week course on arrival in Russia, Vladivostok but that didn’t help much.

Michel Thomas’ Method to Learn Russian

We are smitten with the Michel Thomas’ method! We used it in South America to learn Spanish and it worked great and it turns out that his method is available in a number of languages, among which Russian.

It was perfect to listen to and learn while driving those endless roads. We only wish we had known about this earlier. It is a super intuitive way of learning a language.

Find them here: Start Russian / Perfect Russian / Total Russian.

Read More: Sightseeing in Vladivostok

House with solar panels in Kyrgyzstan
Coffee on the bazaar in Kyrgyzstan
Coffee on the bazaar in Kyrgyzstan

4 – Roads, Traffic Rules & Police

4a- Roads in Kyrgyzstan

In Kyrgyzstan people drive on the right side of the road.

Paved Roads

From the Kazakh border Korday into Bishkek, the road is paved.
From Bishkek to and around Issyk Kul is paved, as is the main road (M41) to Osh and the other main thoroughfares such as the road from Bishkek south to Naryn.
The loop west is partly paved / partly unpaved / partly under construction (summer ’21)

Paved or not?

Don’t rely on the color codes on your map. E.g. on our Reise KnowHow Map of Central Asia, for example, the road A367, north of Song Kol Lake going west via Kojomkul to the M41 is red, indicating a main road. However, it was an unpaved road in quite a bad condition.

It did lead through gorgeous countryside and good camping along the way, so we didn’t mind one bit, but it’s good to know a paved road on a map doesn’t necessarily mean it is paved in reality.

The southern route along Issyk Kul is being widened and so possibly slow to drive for as long as the construction lasts (summer ’22).

disassemble water filter in Kyrgyzstan (©Coen Wubbels)
Disassemble the water filter because of winter
Dust screen in the rear of the Land Cruiser
Dust screen is a must for our Land Cruiser on the dusty roads.

Unpaved Roads

With so many mountains, fantastic, winding, unpaved roads abound. Most, such as main itineraries, are perfectly drivable in 2WD. Others require 4WD and/or high clearance (or at least when the weather is bad), such as the Tosor Pass.

Tips on stuff to bring for unpaved, possibly dusty or muddy roads:

Read More: Recovery Gear – What do we Bring and How do we Use it

Paved road in Kyrgyzstan, highway
Tosor Pass, Kyrgyzstan (©Coen Wubbels)

4b- Traffic Rules & Traffic Police in Kyrgyzstan

A local told us people get mostly fined for:

  • Not stopping for a zebra crossing when people are crossing, or about to cross.
  • In front of a traffic light lining up to go straight ahead but on green, turning left.

Apparently, police officers lie in wait for offenders. And they most likely do for other traffic offenses as well. They stand along the side with speed control apparatus and often it’s not clear what maximum speed is, so stick to the slow-driving mode.

Tip 1: Watch your fellow road users. If they slow down for no apparent reason, be sure to follow suit as there is likely to be a speed trap coming up. Outside urban areas, oncoming traffic often flash their lights when there is a police check or speed trap coming up.

Tip 2: In the cities, get the 2Gis app and learn to use it, it will give you maximum speed limits, fixed speed control cameras and live traffic density when connected.

In and around Bishkek the traffic police are everywhere. We have been stopped twice and were asked the usual. As we were sticking to the rules, nothing but the curious and social talks happened. Some overlanders have stories of trumped-up charges or outrageous fines when they did break the rules (mainly speeding). Whether they paid on the spot or not depended on the situation.

We wrote a general blog post on how to deal with police officers based on tricks and experience during 16 years of overlanding.

Herd of cows on the road in Kyrgyzstan
Unpaved mountain road in Kyrgyzstan

5a- Roadmaps

Our paper map is, as usual, Reise KnowHow. Hardly ever perfect as roads change all the time and we don’t mind. The Reise KnowHow maps give a perfect overview of the whole country, which is great for planning a general itinerary and getting a feel for how to get where and what the distances are.

Reise KnowHow doesn’t have a dedicated road map for Kyrgyzstan, but does have two good, general ones that include Kyrgyzstan:

Reise knowhow maps NEA (©Coen Wubbels)

5b- Navigation Systems (Electronic Road Maps)

Our choice for offline navigating:

  • 2Gis
  • Guru Maps (formerly: Galileo)
  • Organic Maps (successor of MapsMe, which we used until recently)

2Gis

This is a Russian application, which has detailed, offline maps of many cities in Russia, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia as well as a few big cities abroad (e.g. where Russians likely to go vacationing).

Although the app is in English, the addresses and names of things to look for are all in Russian. You will understand what the idea is and icons go a long way. A benefit is that if local people want to help you out, they can search and address or location in Russian in this app (note, it is handy to have Russian Keyboard on your smartphone installed).

What we like is the super handy, actual-traffic density option that shows traffic jams and slower-moving traffic by coloring the streets and indicating the overall traffic congestion with a large number in the upper right-hand corner (note, you have to be online for the traffic feature). MapsMe is trying something similar, but probably because not many people are using it here, this isn’t working at all in Russia.

It has a great option for seeing major bus routes as well as the smaller popular marshrutkas (public buses).

Maximum speeds are not at all signed properly in Kyrgyzstan, so this app will help you to remember the current maximum speed and will warn you when you go over it. It also warns you of any fixed speed cameras ahead of you.

winter in Kyrgyzstan (©Coen Wubbels)
driving in Kyrgyzstan (©Coen Wubbels)

Guru Maps (formerly: Galileo)

Galileo had disappeared from our phone since we first started experimenting and beta testing it in 2012. It appeared on our radar recently when they too offered offline routing. But that is not its greatest feature.

The gem is the fact that you can add your own offline maps. Although it is not easy to accomplish that, it is by no means impossible. E.g. we had Russian Military maps installed and are testing with some contour, hill-shaded sat maps. So far it has not resulted in the optimal solution, which would be vector-based maps with contours and maybe hill-shading. If you know where to access them, please let us know.

Apart from that, the base-installed OSM vector map shows nice detail when zoomed out (this is where it outshines MapsMe) and instead of routing there is the option of showing a bearing line that indicates the general direction to travel instead of turn-by-turn navigation where you lose any sense of control. This way it is more like our first old-school Garmin-eTreks with just a line on a very detailed terrain. You are free to choose which roads or direction you want to travel.

Additionally, it has a very nice tracking feature that just works.

Exploring Kyrgyzstan by car or motorcycle
Meeting fellow overlanders in Kyrgyzstan; Els & Merijn on their motorcycles

6 – Guidebooks & Other Books

6a- Guidebooks for Kyrgyzstan

There are way too few guidebooks out there on the Central Asian countries yet. Not one to be had in Dutch, and very few in English. Here’s what we’ve used:

  • Bradt Travel Guides generally dive deeper into a country than other guidebook we’ve come across. Bradt Travel Guides are about learning about the country, culture and sights, and worries less about the practical side of travel.
  • Lonely Planet Travel Guides are great for a quick impression of a country with the basics generally covered on culture, food, history, etc. Super extensive on the practical side of travel information, much of which is useless for overlanders who camp most of the time.
  • We appreciate Insight Guides for their photo-rich travel guides. They are perfect guidebooks to get a feel for a place and to get inspired. It describes the highlights of places, has good maps, and is limited on practical information.
Book Cover of Kirgihizstan, Tajikistan; Les plus beaux itinéraires en 4x4, moto, camping-car et vélo (©Laurent Dendel, Cécile Miramont)

Additionally, we came across this book: Kirgihizstan, Tajikistan; Les plus beaux itinéraires en 4×4, moto, camping-car et vélo, by Laurent Bendel and Cécile Miramont.

Awesome if your French is good enough.

It’s full of details that exactly we overlanders are looking for!

Not sure where you can get it though.
Update: Check the comment section below where people commented where you can find this book.

December ’21: a dedicated, fabulous overland guidebook on Kyrgyzstan (available in French and in English). Oun Travela is working hard on making a wonderful series of overland guidebooks designed for, yes, overlanders. Check out their website for more overland travel guidebooks! 

Travel Guides for Central Asia

(click on the images to look inside)

Products from Amazon

6b- Other Books on Kyrgyzstan

I am aware of a few books specifically about Kyrgyzstan but I haven’t read them (yet) because they have been published only in paperback:

I wrote a separate blog post listing books about Central Asia. Having said that, two books are ‘mandatory’ reads in my opinion to get a good understanding of the region’s history:

Read More: Books about Mongolia, Central Asia and the Silk Road

Aerial View of Mountain Pass in Kyrgzystan
Toktogul Lake, Kyrgyzstan (©Coen Wubbels)

7 – Water & Food

Whether you hike, bicycle, motorcycle, drive a car or backpack around the country, there is never a need to buy bottled water. There is an amazing selection of small, handy, water filter systems out there, like MSR water filters or Katadyn filter systems. Or carry water purification tablets if weight and space really are a big issue (we do so on our long-distance hikes).

Water Filter Systems

(click on the images to check them out)

Products from Amazon

Taking water from a water pump in Kyrgyzstan
Many towns and villages have a water pump from which locals, and we, took water.
Drinking Kvas in Kyrgyzstan
Drinking Kvas in Kyrgyzstan

7b- Food

Maybe there is a lot to say about food in Kyrgyzstan, I’m not sure. This being a big meat-eating country and we being vegetarians (vegan-diet, mostly), our food choices in restaurants are extremely limited.

Typical places to eat:

  • Stolovaya is the Russian version of a buffet-style restaurant. For little money you have a reasonable meal and generally we can find non-meat options such as salads, grains/potatoes and a vegetable dish.
  • Chaikhana is a typical Kyrgyz Restaurant.
  • Buy food on the bazaar and cook your own meal.

Tip: Take reusable mesh bags to stock up on legumes, grains, nuts and the likes. The vendors want to sell every product in a different plastic bag. Some are amused to see these mesh bags, and one asked if she could have one (of course), loving it and showing it to others. Spread the word through good example 🙂

Roadside vendor selling corn in Kyrgyzstan.
Meat being brought to the Osh Bazaar in Kyrgyzstan

Foods for vegetarians / vegans:

  • Mushrooms, especially oyster mushrooms (overlanding friends prepared this delicious dish with it)
  • Among the legumes: mung beans, red lentils, pinto beans, chickpeas.
  • Among the vegetables: tomatoes, cucumber, onion, potato, white cabbage, carrots, pumpkin, bell pepper, garlic, spring onions, lettuce, spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini, and eggplant. Pretty much a full range albeit somewhat limited on leaf vegetables.
  • Nuts/seeds: You have landed in paradise walnut, pistachio, hazelnuts (different varieties), peanuts, cashew, pumpkin seeds, sunflower (most often with shell)
  • Dried fruits: Another paradise.

This is based on the bazaars in Bishkek. Note that the smaller the town/village, the smaller the selection, especially for vegetables.

No worries for plant-based foods in Bishkek, though. In Kyrgyzstan’s capital you can find Korean, Japanese, Indian food, etc. All have enough options for vegetarians. Good places to eat:

  • Indian restaurant The Host
    • Yusup Abdrahmanov Street, 104 / Bishkek
    • GPS Waypoint: 42.880063, 74.611434
  • Korean restaurant Seoul
    • Yunusaliev Street, 137 / Bishkek
    • GPS Waypoint: 42.843884, 74.622321
  • On and around the Ortoi Bazar you can find places that sell sushi
    • Yunusaliev Street (about 1 or 2 kms south of Tunduk Hostel)
    • GPS Waypoint: around 42.834353 74.621388
  • Sierra Cafe has vegetarian options on the menu
    • Manas Avenue 57/1 / Bishkek
    • GPS Waypoint: 42.874584 74.588565

Read More: Bishkek – A Place to Rest & Relax

Reusable, mesh bags to buy legumes on the bazaar
Reusable, mesh bags to buy legumes on the bazaar
Osh Bazaar in Biskek, Kyrgyzstan
On bazaars you’ll find enough for vegetarians: bread, legumes, nuts, dried fruits
Pumpkins for sale, Kyrgyzstan (©Coen Wubbels)

8 – WiFi & Local SIM Card & Apps

8a- Wifi & Local Sim Card

Sim cards are cheap and readily available in Kyrgyzstan. On every entry point, being it the airport or land borders, there are people who will give you a sim card for free.

For the best service head over to one of the major brand offices in the nearest town and register with your passport. We have used Oi, Vodafone and Beeline. They will have affordable monthly or weekly plans with sufficient data to still your internet hunger.

For the most up to date information about a countries cell service it is wise to ask other travelers who have been in the region or find it on this website.

8b- Apps

WhatsApp is super popular. Install it if you don’t have it. It’s free, fast, and easy to use.

Roads in Kyrgyzstan (©Coen Wubbels)

9- Additional Overland Travel Information Sources

  • The forum on Horizons Unlimited has been a longstanding source of information especially for motorcycle tourers but has a growing wealth for four-wheeled travelers as well.
  • WikiOverland, help expand the special Wiki Overland pages.
  • iOverlander is the place where overlanders share GPS waypoints on many things, among which camping spots.
  • 4ever2wherever is another site where overlanders contribute with practical information
  • Overlanding Facebook groups among which Overland to Asia & Kyrgyzstan Overland.
  • Caravanistan is an excellent, up to date online resource for Central Asia.

Tips, Suggestions, Feedback?

We hope you find this Kyrgyzstan Travel Guide useful. Do you have questions or your own experiences to add? Feel free to do so in the comment section below. Thanks!

The Kyrgyzstan Travel Budget Report details our travel expenditures and focuses on paperwork, workshops, sightseeing, and our Wild Camping in Kyrgyzstan, sharing the favorite camping spots of fellow overlanders.

First published 2019 / updated Oct ’22

Kyrgyzstan (©Coen Wubbels)
Kyrgyzstan (©Coen Wubbels)

Check it Out: the Landcruising Adventure Baseball Cap Collection

lca-shop-baseballcaps

Stay up to Date

Would you like to stay in the loop on all things Landcruising Adventure?

Sign up for our newsletter to get the latest news.

No spam – just updates that are infrequent enough not to annoy you, and it’s easy to unsubscribe!

Inspired? Pin it to your Pinterest Travel Boards

(click on the image to pin it)

More on Central Asia:

6 thoughts on “Kyrgyzstan Overland Travel Guide – Travel Information for Your Road Trip”

  1. Hi Karin-Marijke,
    very nice write-up, kudos!
    Me and my lovely wife are the writers and editors of the French-language guidebook you write about. It’s available on our website (as mentioned above) and on amazon.fr (it seems your anti-spam filter forbids URLs ?)
    We’re currently working on the English translation for the Mongolia book (“Mongolie: les plus beaux itinéraires”) which will be available next spring, so we don’t have a date yet on when we’ll have an English version of the Kyrgyzstan/Tajikistan book..

    I second your advice on GuruMaps, although in my experience the tracking feature is very unreliable (iOS). Otherwise in many ways better than maps.me, for a reasonable price.

    The problem with these smartphone navigation apps is the level of detail. It’s tuned for european countries where the road network is very extensive, so they need to thin it out a lot. But in Kyrgyzstan e.g., it become pretty empty and you need to zoom in too much to find out where the smaller tracks lay (MapsMe and Guru). There’s definitely a need for a better nav app tuned to our specific needs. It’ll come….. 😉

    Cheers

    Reply
    • Good to hear from you. Let us know when the English book is available, I’ll happily add it to the list. (URLs shouldn’t be a problem, looking at the previous comment – feel free to spell the Amazon link out if you want).

      Reply
  2. Was interesting to read this Blog. I am looking for some details on interesting sites and passing to Wakhan Corridor in English

    Reply

Leave a Comment