This fall, I finally gave in to the destination that had been haunting my Reels feed for over a year. Thirty hours and two layovers later, I landed in Almaty, Kazakhstan—a place that rarely tops anyone’s list, though it should. I stayed in a tiny Airbnb inside a fading Soviet block and spent my first days wandering a city full of contrasts: Soviet boulevards backed by the Trans-Ili Alatau mountains, modern cafés tucked beside traditional Kazakh shops. One night, after multiple recommendations from the locals, I ate at Ayul, a mountain restaurant serving traditional Kazakh cuisine. I ended up with an incredible plate of beshbarmak—tender meat, hand-rolled noodles, comforting in a way I didn’t expect.
After a few days in Almaty, I headed to the railway station to catch a marshrutka, one of those old Soviet minibuses that somehow still run everything, and squeezed in with a group of traders making their way toward the Kyrgyzstan border. A few hours (and a reminder that I should’ve practiced more Russian) later, I crossed into Kyrgyzstan on foot and began piecing together buses, kind strangers, and a short hitchhike to reach Kyzart, a quiet village at the start of one of the country’s major treks.
There, we “bought” horses from local villagers—yes, literally, a small transaction that felt part practical, part surreal—and with almost no riding experience set off toward Song-Kul Lake. At the end of the trek, we sold the horses back to the village, completing the cycle. By sunset in Song-Kul, we reached a yurt camp with hot stew, endless bread, a football game with local kids, and a night sky so clear it didn’t feel real. It was the kind of trip that lingers. — Ali Farooqui, manager, creative development
Champagne Region, France
Photo: Getty Images
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