Budget/Backpacker Travel Guide: Mongolia
Experience authentic local culture on a shoestring budget with hostels, street food, and public transport
Daily Budget: ₮44,000-137,000 ($13-40) per day
Complete breakdown of costs for budget/backpacker travel in Mongolia
Accommodation
₮20,000-55,000 ($6-16) per night
Dorm beds in Ulaanbaatar hostels and budget guesthouses, where the smell of suutei tsai drifting from communal kitchens signals morning. In the countryside, budget travelers typically camp beneath an enormous Mongolian sky or arrange simple ger homestays with nomadic families. Wake early. Pack layers. Expect cold nights.
Browse budget/backpacker accommodation →Food & Dining
₮12,000-35,000 ($3.50-10) per day
Local canteen-style eateries known as guanz, where filling bowls of tsuivan noodles and steamed buuz dumplings are the staple. Ulaanbaatar's indoor markets offer affordable produce for self-catering, and countryside family stays often include smoky, flame-cooked meals as part of the arrangement. Eat with your hands. Share tea.
Transportation
₮5,000-22,000 ($1.50-6.50) per day
City buses within Ulaanbaatar and shared minivans between districts cover most urban needs affordably. For countryside travel, budget travelers join shared jeep tours or arrange rides between aimag centers, lasting long hours of corrugated gravel roads and dust-hazed windows. Bring dust masks. Earplugs help.
Activities
₮7,000-25,000 ($2-7) per day
Free wandering around Sukhbaatar Square and the surrounding neighborhoods, modest entry fees to monasteries and the national history museum, and simply absorbing Mongolia's sweeping grassland scenery from roadside viewpoints without paying a thing. Walk slowly. Look up.
Currency: ₮ Mongolian Tugrik (MNT)
Money-Saving Tips
Eating at local guanz canteens rather than tourist-facing restaurants typically saves 50-70% on food costs, and the mutton-heavy, smoky menu at a neighborhood guanz is a more honest window into daily Mongolian life than anything on a laminated tourist menu. Point and eat. No English needed.
Joining a group jeep tour for countryside travel rather than chartering a private vehicle can reduce per-person transport costs by 70-80%, as the driver and fuel expenses split across several travelers instead of falling on one. Book early. Seats fill fast.
Traveling in the shoulder seasons of late May, June, or September tends to bring noticeably lower ger camp rates, as operators compete harder for bookings outside the compressed July-August peak window. Pack layers. Weather shifts fast.
Buying food at Ulaanbaatar's covered indoor markets rather than tourist-area supermarkets cuts grocery and snack costs by 30-50% while giving a more accurate picture of what things cost for the people who live there. Bargain politely. Smile first.
Booking multi-day countryside packages rather than stringing together single-day trips typically works out cheaper per day, since guide and driver fees are the dominant cost and they spread more favorably across longer itineraries. Negotiate politely. Cash talks.
Skipping travel during Naadam festival week in mid-July, unless the festival itself is the reason for the trip, avoids the accommodation and flight spikes that regularly run 40-60% above standard rates during that narrow window. Book early. Prices jump fast.
Arriving with enough local currency for the first few days of countryside travel, sourced from Ulaanbaatar ATMs before departure, avoids the unfavorable exchange rates and limited cash access that catch travelers off guard once they leave the capital. Withdraw big. Fees are flat.
Common Budget Mistakes to Avoid
Underestimating how transportation-driven Mongolia is. The country is enormous and infrastructure is minimal. Travelers who budget only for city-level daily costs and then discover that a Gobi Desert round-trip requires a multi-day private jeep hire can exhaust a week of spending in a single booking. Plan ahead. Count kilometers.
Hiring a private guide and vehicle when a small-group tour would cover the same ground and itinerary. Private hire across the Mongolian steppe can run three to four times more per person than a well-organized group tour without delivering a meaningfully different experience. Ask questions. Compare prices.
Arriving without sufficient cash and assuming card payments will fill the gap outside Ulaanbaatar. ATMs become rare and unreliable the moment you leave the capital, and local guesthouses, markets, and nomadic family stays all operate on cash. Running short in a remote aimag center leaves very few options. Bring extra. Hide it well.