A Mongolian without a horse is like a bird without wings.

Mongolian proverb

Mongolia was unlike anything else we'd experienced before.

It was challenging and starkly beautiful. It was rugged and real. 

Life in Mongolia outside of Ulaanbataar harks back to a simpler way. Roads are optional. Food is simple. Horses are free and wild and everywhere.

We spent two months in Mongolia. From the frozen lakeside of Khövsgöl we stayed and worked in Khatgal. We rode horses out into the countryside to stay with a nomadic yak herder named Ut, who will forever be etched into my memory as one of the most unforgettable people I've met on any of my travels. We took a 16 hour bus ride through open fields to arrive in Dalanzadgad of the Gobi Desert and got ourselves stranded in the middle of the night. We explored the ice caverns of Yoliin Am, the red canyons of Bayanzag, and rode camels in the singing sand dunes of Khongoriin Els.

There is no place quite like Mongolia.