Trip to Mongolia from U.S. - would like advice
 

Hi,

My husband and I will be traveling to Ulanbator, Mongolia next June to visit his family. We will be flying out of Chicago or Detroit and possibly stopping in Amsterdam (or some other European city) to break up the long flight. I'm wondering:

- Which airline would you recommend from the US (or Europe if we go that route)?

- Should we fly into Bejing or Incheon? (These seem to be the only two places that offer connections to Ulanbator) Wondering which airport is less complicated.

- Any thoughts on places to stay in Ulanbator?

Thank you for your help!

Hopefully someone with expertise will come in ( I am not ). However, if you are flying from Chicago or DTW would not going westbound via Seoul / Beijing be easier?
I think transit thru Seoul would be easy but on the other hand if you are going such a distance perhaps a few days in Beijing would be nice? If you are going 'all that way' perhaps taking the time to see Beijing / Great Wall would be worth the stopover, just a thought.

The Incheon airport is nice and new. Could not say the same for the Beijing airport (but it has been almost 5 years since I was there.

When I went to Thailand at the end of December 2004 my original routing was via Beijing. But I learned that, with my USA passport, I would have to have a Chinese visa just to TRANSIT the airport. So if you go that route and go through the trouble of getting a visa then you ought to take the excellent advice of JamesA and stop in Beijing for a couple of days.

It's probably easier and cheaper to fly to Ulan Bator from Beijing. UA flies ORD-PEK non-stop daily.

Thanks for the advice. I was wondering about having to have a visa to leave the airport in either of these cities. Does anyone know how long it takes to get a visa into China from the US? It seems like it might be complicated since my husband is not a US citizen, but a Mongolian citizen with a US green card.

The flight from Chicago to Incheon that I checked on earlier was almost 18 hours. (I'm sure it's not much shorter to Bejing.) I don't know if I can handle being in the air that long - I get a little claustrophobic after about 8 hours or so. That's why we were thinking of flying from here to someplace in Europe and then doing the same on the way home. I've traveled a lot throughout the US, Canada, and Latin/South America but never to Europe so this would give me an excuse to visit there. (I'd rather go there but also would love to finally meet my in-laws!)

Thanks.

itasoftware shows that Korean Air has the best fares (for Sept 2006 or for June 2007) with one stop.

Mongolian airlines fly from Milan, Moscow and Berlin to Ulaanbaatar (which seems to be their prefered way of spelling it), in addition to other Asian gateways. You may want to consider doing that.

Not sure what European airline other than Aeroflot flies there.

China has an consulate in Chicago where you can get a visa in person. More you pay, faster you can get. Make sure you don't get it too early as the visa is usually only good for 3 months from date of issue.

www.chinaconsulatechicago.org/eng/default.htm

BTW, Korean flies ORD-ICN non-stop. 13:50 scheduled time. UA's ORD-PEK is 13:22. Actual flying time is less for both.

ORD-PEK is via the Polar Route without the strong headwind over the northern Pacific. Which is why it doesn't take any longer than ICN.

ICN-ULN in 2.5 hours, but ULN-ICN is 4 hours !?! (with 7h 40m layover enroute to ORD). Free internet at the Star Alliance Gold lounge at ICN.

Looks like if you go via Europe (London or Frankfurt or Helsinki, e.g.) then you would go through Moscow (or ICN or PEK). So, two stops with shorter segments but longer total flying time.

Thanks everyone for the flight info. Does anyone have any recommendation on places to stay in Ulanbator?

BTW, Rkkwan, my husband from Mongolia said the Mongolians spell UB as Ulaanbaatar, but the majority of the world spells it Ulanbator because it's shorter. It's very confusing.

Just happened to be at travel.state.gov and saw this which is relevant to this thread:

"Visas are required to transit China. Persons transiting China on the way to and from Mongolia or North Korea or who plan to re-enter from the Hong Kong or Macau Special Administrative Regions should be sure to obtain visas allowing multiple entries. Permits are required to visit Tibet as well as many remote areas not normally open to foreigners."

So, you'd need a multiple entry visa if you transited PEK both ways. The site also mentioned that flights from PEK are routinely overbooked so be sure to reconfirm.

Officially, you can get visa-free transit at PVG (Shanghai-Pudong) for 48 hours.

www.china-embassy.org/eng/hzqz/zgqz/t84242.htm

However, I cannot find any non-stop flights from PVG or SHA to ULN, so that's out.

The bullet above that seems to say that if you are on an international direct flight, don't leave the airport, then you don't need a transit visa if your stop is less than 24 hours. It says "directly" but I suppose that a connection is/was ok.

That webpage was updated in Sept 2004 after being created in April 2004.
<META NAME="TRSWCM.PubDate" CONTENT="2004-04-13 00:00:00">

When I was planning to fly to BKK at the end of December 2004 the routing (on a USAir DM award) was UA to PEK and TQ to BKK. At that time, the state.gov page said a visa was required. I was able to change the routing to avoid that.