Adventurous travelers often dream of living a vagabond’s life, wandering unchartered landscapes and discovering ancient cultures. To experience this, there is no other place quite like Mongolia, the land of Ghengis Khan and his famous nomads. An ancient way of life, nomads still live off the land here, tending to their own livestock and sheltering themselves in colorful yurts, despite the rapid urbanization of the capital city of Ulaanbaatar. Since the country’s transition from Communism into a free market economy, Mongolia is growing fast as a tourist destination, but it maintains a rough charm, where you might ride for hours before coming upon a yurt. Once you do though, a knock on the door easily grants you a drink of fermented mare’s milk and a place to sleep. From the city of Ulaanbaatar, through endless green pastures and unpaved steppes, to the undulating sands of the Gobi Desert, Mongolia is the Land of the Eternal Blue Sky.
Photography by: Ted Wood