Kyrgyzstan · Travel guide
Bishkek tours and travel guide
A green Soviet grid with mountains at the end of every street
Bishkek is where a Kyrgyzstan trip starts and ends — a low, green, walkable capital with the mountains an hour away.
Tours
Bishkek tours
Every trip we run through Bishkek, the ones that spend the most nights here first.
Bishkek is not why you come to Kyrgyzstan, and it does not pretend otherwise. It is a planned Soviet city of wide avenues and irrigation channels, unusually green, with the Tian Shan filling the view south. What it does well is the ordinary business of a capital: a genuinely good bazaar, cafés worth an afternoon, and the last reliable ATM before the mountains.
One night at each end of a mountain trip is the usual shape. Osh Bazaar in the morning, Ala-Archa gorge in the afternoon if you have a spare day — the national park starts forty minutes from the city.
Highlights
Worth your time
01
Osh Bazaar
The city's working market: dried fruit, felt goods, spices, and the kalpak hats you will see men wearing everywhere outside it.
Not arranged for visitors, which is exactly why it is worth an hour.
02
Ala-Archa National Park
A glacial gorge forty minutes from the centre, with walks from an hour to a full day. The easiest way to see real mountains without leaving the capital.
Alpine scenery inside a half-day round trip from a capital city.
03
Ala-Too Square
The civic centre, with the changing of the guard and the State History Museum on it.
Where the city's two revolutions actually happened.
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