Visit the Gobi desert

“As soon as we traveled 35 minutes outside of Ulaanbaatar, the pavement disappeared, and there was nothing but dirt for the next 12 days. I was honestly surprised and a bit scared when I realized this was it – the end of infrastructure. The little bubble of infrastructure around Ulanbatar was so small; what in the world was I in for now? The bus now traveled at high speeds along the Mongolian dirt ‘super hi-way’ – a bunch of tracks branching off, going every which way like a maze. I was never really sure which one the driver would follow and why, but I had a fun time trying to figure out the logic in a presumably illogical path.”

“As I took off into the vast Gobi Desert, waving goodbye to our last hosts, I looked at what was ahead of me – absolutely nothing. Just me, my travel partners, and our Mongolian host trotting through miles and miles of nothing. The only shade we had was provided by the large clouds that would periodically pass overhead. Riding in extreme nothingness conditions felt surreal; was I really here, or was I dreaming this? Once again, it was a moment where I had to pinch myself.”

“For ten days we spent our nights in tents under the stars, our days playing word games that would only appeal to travelers (A country… Azerbaijan, B country… Bolivia, …, Z country… Zimbabwe), and the times in between exploring more of that big beautiful natural bounty that seems to abundantly Mongolian. Ten days of riding camels through the desert, climbing sand dunes for sunset and trying valiantly to slide back down, looking for dinosaur fossils like some new-school Roy Chapman Andrews, and sampling all manner of camel and goat dairy products.”