Terelj Hot Spring

Terelj Hot Spring lies within Gorkhi-Terelj National Park, the vast protected wilderness just 43 kilometers northeast of Ulaanbaatar that provides the capital's residents with their closest access to the archetypal Mongolian landscape of rolling steppe, forested ridges, and granite outcroppings weathered into extraordinary shapes. The park's most celebrated formation — Turtle Rock, a massive granite boulder whose silhouette against the sky resembles a giant tortoise — stands above the valley floor near the Aryabal Buddhist Meditation Temple, where monks maintain a place of spiritual practice open to visitors willing to climb the 108 steps to its entrance. Ger camps throughout the park offer immersive nomadic accommodation, and the hot spring provides geothermal mineral bathing that connects this supremely Mongolian landscape to the ancient traditions of therapeutic spring water used by the nomadic peoples of the steppe.