When to go

2027 11-13 July 2027 for the festival itself; public holidays 11-15 July 2027 (Sunday to Thursday). Horse racing heats begin in the days before the 11th.

Ulaanbaatar. Opening ceremony, wrestling and the closing at the National Sports Stadium; archery and knuckle-bone shooting at the adjacent archery and shagai grounds; horse racing out of town at Khui Doloon Khudag on the steppe west of the city.

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Book ahead Treat Naadam as a book-early event. International flights and Ulaanbaatar hotels for the 11-13 July window should be secured several months ahead; operators were already publishing and selling fixed July 2027 Naadam departures in September 2026, priced from about USD 1,850 per person for a seven-day trip and about USD 2,690 for a ten-day Gobi-plus-Naadam trip, with tickets and arrangements included.

2027 June to August 2027. Provincial (aimag) naadams usually cluster in the days around 11 July or in the weeks either side; district (soum) naadams are scattered through the summer.

Across all 21 aimags and their soums. Common examples marketed to visitors include Kharkhorin in Övörkhangai and various Töv aimag soums within a day of Ulaanbaatar.

The same three games as the national event - wrestling, archery, horse racing - at village scale, on a bare field with a truck for a stage, everyone from the district present. Smaller fields, closer access to the horses and the wrestlers, no ticketing, and a far more domestic atmosphere than the stadium in Ulaanbaatar.

Book ahead Book the trip, not the festival. Flexibility is the requirement: operators build itineraries that pick up whichever local naadam is running that week.

2027 Expected late June 2027, most likely the last weekend of June. Treat as unconfirmed.

Khui Doloon Khudag, the horse-racing steppe west of Ulaanbaatar (the same ground used for Naadam horse racing).

A combined religious and sporting festival honouring Zanabazar, Mongolia's first Buddhist spiritual leader (1635-1723). Its centrepiece is the Khuree Tsam, a masked ritual dance performed by monks in heavy costume and carved masks, staged as a contest of wisdom over destructive forces. Around it run the three naadam games, music, exhibitions and a market. The modern festival was revived in 2015 and is linked to the commemoration of independence from the Qing and to State Flag Day.

Book ahead A day trip from Ulaanbaatar, so no long lead is needed for the event itself. Operators sell it bundled into Gobi itineraries departing a day or two ahead.

2027 Expected 2-3 October 2027, being the first weekend of October.

Bayan-Ölgii Province, western Mongolia. The 2026 edition is listed at Bugat village near Ölgii; events have also historically run in central Ölgii and on the steppe about 4 km outside the town.

Kazakh eagle hunters compete with their golden eagles: how well an eagle hunts a lure, how reliably it returns to the hunter's arm when called from a distance, and the quality of traditional dress and equipment. Around the eagle events run Kazakh horse games including kökpar (a tug-of-war over a goat carcass on horseback), tiyn teru (picking a coin from the ground at a gallop) and kyz kuu (the chase between a man and a woman on horseback), plus archery, camel racing, an opening procession, music and a craft market. Typical field is 50 to 80 hunters; roughly 70 take part in the October edition, and Bayan-Ölgii is home to a large majority of the world's practising eagle hunters.

Book ahead Book as early as possible. The constraint is not the festival ground but the Ulaanbaatar-Ölgii flight and the limited beds in a small town; operators specifically advise booking domestic flights and accommodation early. Six to nine months ahead is realistic for the October peak.

2027 Expected 17-18 September 2027 (Friday-Saturday).

Near Sagsai soum, about an hour from Ölgii in Bayan-Ölgii Province. One source also places a related September edition at Uujim.

The smaller, earlier and less crowded of the two western eagle festivals, with a field of roughly 40 hunters in some years. Same core competitions as the October event - calling the eagle down from a hillside, hunting a dragged lure, costume and equipment judging - plus Kazakh horse games, archery and camel racing. Its distinctive extra is a staged nomadic migration procession with loaded camels, riders and a ger being moved.

Book ahead Slightly easier than October but the same bottleneck applies: the Ölgii flight and local beds. Four to six months ahead is sensible.

2027 Expected early March 2027. Unconfirmed.

Chinggis Khaanii Khüree tourist complex on the steppe outside Ulaanbaatar.

A winter-season eagle event staged within reach of the capital rather than in the far west: Kazakh eagle hunters travel in to demonstrate falconry, alongside Mongolian falconers performing mounted warrior skills. Useful for a traveller who cannot get to Bayan-Ölgii, but it is a brought-to-you event rather than a community festival in its home region, and should be described that way.

Book ahead Short. It is a half-day trip from Ulaanbaatar and is normally added to a winter itinerary.

2027 Expected around 1-3 March 2027. Unconfirmed.

On the frozen surface of Lake Khuvsgul at the southern end, at or near Khatgal. One operator locates the festival ground at Khar-Us, north of Khatgal. Nearest airport is Mörön, then roughly 100 km by road.

Games staged on the ice: wrestling on the ice, horse-drawn sledge racing, skating and speed races, tug-of-war between local teams, and a Russian jeep race across the lake. Around them run shaman ceremonies, music and sports demonstrations, plus ice sculpture. It is a genuine local winter gathering that has become a visitor draw, not a purpose-built tourist show.

Book ahead Three to six months. The binding constraints are the Mörön flight, heated accommodation at Khatgal (tourist ger camps are shut, so it is family gers, homestays and provincial hotels), and cold-weather transport. Operators discount winter by around 15 percent, so the trip is cheaper than summer but harder to arrange late.

2027 Unconfirmed and genuinely contested. One operator sells a 2027 festival tour departing 29 January 2027 (four days, so a festival around 31 January to 1 February); another operator's generic annual calendar places it on 6-8 March. Do not publish a single 2027 date.

Ömnögovi (South Gobi) Province. The 2026 edition is listed at Dalanzadgad, the provincial capital; the festival is also historically associated with Bulgan soum in the same province.

A working celebration of the Bactrian camel: a mass camel parade to open, camel races, camel polo, loading and packing contests, lassoing and nose-peg demonstrations, a camel beauty and harness contest judging saddles and rigging, and stalls of camel-wool and dairy goods. Held in deep cold, so it is a short, sharp, heavily wrapped-up day rather than a long festival.

Book ahead Three to four months, driven by the Dalanzadgad flight and heated winter accommodation rather than by the festival itself.

2027 Bituun 6 February 2027 (Saturday); first day of Tsagaan Sar 7 February 2027 (Sunday); public holidays 7-9 February 2027.

Nationwide, and above all inside homes. There is no public spectacle to attend; the holiday is a sequence of family visits.

Three days of visiting, beginning on Bituun, the eve, when the old year's business is settled and the household eats together. On the first morning the zolgokh greeting is performed, younger people supporting the elbows of their elders while holding a blue silk khadag. Households lay out a tower of stacked cakes, dairy foods, rice with curds, mutton and buuz dumplings by the hundred, and every visit means eating. Gifts are exchanged at every stop.

Book ahead Two to four months if you want a homestay invitation and domestic travel over the holiday. Note that the whole country stops for three to four days and that the Foreign Office flags increased pickpocketing in crowds around Tsagaan Sar and Naadam.

2027 Expected 21-22 March 2027.

Bayan-Ölgii Province, the country's only Kazakh-majority and Muslim-majority aimag, where Kazakhs are about 93 percent of the population. Centred on Ölgii town and the surrounding soums.

The Kazakh spring new year, marking the equinox: the communal nauryz kozhe dish, household visiting, music, wrestling and horse games, and public gatherings in town. It is the one major event in the western calendar that is not built around eagles, and it is a community occasion rather than a visitor attraction.

Book ahead The event needs no lead, but March travel to Ölgii does: flights are less frequent, it is still deep cold at 1,710 m, and there is almost no tourist infrastructure running. Allow two to three months and use an operator.

2027 Expected early July 2027, in the week before Naadam. Unconfirmed.

Gachuurt, a valley village in the hills roughly half an hour east of Ulaanbaatar. A camping festival, not a city venue.

Mongolia's main outdoor rock and popular-music festival, several stages over a long weekend with camping on site. It is the one event on this calendar aimed squarely at young Mongolians rather than at visitors, and it is the obvious add-on for a traveller arriving a few days before Naadam.

Book ahead Short for the festival itself, but it collides with the Naadam flight and hotel crunch, so treat travel as if booking for Naadam.

2027 Expected late July 2027. Unconfirmed.

Bat-Ölzii soum in Övörkhangai Province, in the upper Orkhon valley area, reachable as an extension from Kharkhorin. Note that another operator's generic calendar also lists a Yak Festival on 23 July without naming the location.

A single-day herders' festival built around the yak, the animal the high valleys actually run on: yak races and yak riding, yak-cart events, herding demonstrations and local dairy produce. Small, local and unpolished, and useful in an itinerary precisely because it sits a week or two after Naadam when the central valleys are otherwise quiet.

Book ahead None for the event. It is added to a central-Mongolia itinerary, so the lead is whatever the trip needs.

2027 Expected third week of November 2027, Khentii. Unconfirmed.

Khentii Province, eastern Mongolia, roughly a long day's drive from Ulaanbaatar.

A cold-season gathering of horse herders on the open steppe: horses driven and shown in their winter coats, herding and lassoing with the urga pole, and racing on frozen ground. The appeal is visual and documentary - thousands of horses steaming in hard light - rather than programmatic.

Book ahead Two to three months, and only with an operator: there is no tourist accommodation in the area in November and temperatures at that point are already well below freezing day and night.