Sheli Msall is an American ex-pat, now living in the Middle East. An avid traveller and writer, Sheli recently visited Almaty, Kazakhstan, where she shares with us why this remote destination is begging to be explored.
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How would you rate your experience?
5-stars
The one thing not to be missed is?
You cannot miss the Big Almaty Lake. You’ll need to rent a car to get to the mountains but it is so worth it. You can park near the base and take a short hike to the lake, or drive all the way up.
When we arrived early in the morning, the lake was completely covered in clouds. We spent the next hour or so grabbing coffee from the mobile coffee truck parked at the top and exploring a few of the mountains higher up until the clouds cleared so we could see the lake. It was definitely worth the wait!
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If I had more time, I would have …
If we’d had more time we definitely would have spent more time hiking. We missed visiting Almaty Central Park, which is said to have beautiful views of the city as well as good restaurants. The Central State Museum of Kazakhstan was on our rain day to-do list, but happened to be closed that day.
My hot travel tip is …
Don’t forget to try the bar cheese! Also, horse meat is a traditional Kazakhstan entree if you’re not opposed to trying it.
How do you rank this trip?
This trip is my number one, non-beach holiday! We had perfect early autumn weather and all the hiking kept us active.
I never travel without …
Downloading offline Google maps of the city I’m traveling to with the hotel and places to see starred.
Some final thoughts
Almaty is a great city with so much to offer. There’s plenty to see in the city but the mountains are absolutely stunning. Most speak Russian, so Google translate and Uber were definitely helpful. We would love to return to Almaty in the winter for skiing!
