Kazakhstan in May: the places our guide rates at their best this month

Kazakhstan in May suits travelers who want deserts, steppe and Silk Road sites before the summer heat: 15 of the 24 places in this guide get their top season rating in May. The far west and south are at their peak, Almaty is easy and green, and only the big northern and eastern lakes are better left for June to August.

May is peak season for the south, the west and Almaty

May is a good time to visit Kazakhstan if your trip is built around the south, the Caspian west or Almaty. Across this guide, May and September are the two months that most often get the top rating, and May collects 15 top ratings out of 24 places.

The pattern is clear. Desert and steppe sites such as Mangystau, the Aral Sea, Baikonur, Shardara and Ulytau all peak in May and again in September, with weaker ratings in the summer months. Mangystau’s page warns of summer temperatures above +40 °C, so May is the window before that. Lakes in the north and east, by contrast, peak in June to August.

Kazakhstan weather in May: what we can and cannot say

We could not confirm average May temperatures or rainfall for Kazakhstan as a whole, and the country is too large for one figure to mean much. What the place pages do give are signals about where May sits in each region’s year.

• East: Lake Zaysan is frozen from November to late April, so in May the ice has only just gone.
• Southeast: Lake Balkhash is frozen from November to early April and is at its best June to August.
• West: Mangystau goes above +40 °C in summer; May is rated top season, before that heat.
• North: in Astana, Bayterek is rated best June to August, with May one step lower.

Check a forecast for each stop rather than for “Kazakhstan”: a desert plateau, a mountain gorge at 1,800 m and the steppe around Astana will feel very different in the same week.

Places to visit in Kazakhstan in May: comparison

The table lists the places this guide rates at their best in May, with the main practical constraint for each. The “trip” column tells you whether the place fits a day out from a city or needs a longer expedition.

If you have no car, the Almaty rows are the easiest ones. Most of the western and central entries need a driver, a guide or both.

The west and the Aral: May before the desert heat

The Caspian west and the Aral region are the strongest case for a May trip, because they are rated top in May and September, with weaker ratings in summer and winter. Mangystau is built around the white chalk “fangs” of Bozzhyra on the edge of the Ustyurt Plateau, with Sherkala, the stone balls of Torysh and the Karagiye depression, 132 m below sea level, nearby. Only off-road vehicles go there, and there is no mobile signal.

The Beket-Ata underground mosque, cut into a chalk cliff at Oglandy, is on the same plateau edge and rated top season in April, May and September. It is a place of pilgrimage: photography is not allowed inside, and there is a pilgrims’ guesthouse.

Further east, the Aral Sea covered 68,000 km² in the 1950s; most of it is now the Aralkum desert, though the Kokaral dam has brought part of the northern sea back. Trips are by jeep with no road signs. Baikonur, the spaceport that launched Sputnik 1 and Yuri Gagarin, also peaks in May, but it is leased to Russia until 2050 and is not a casual visit.

For birds, the Akzhaiyk Reserve in the Ural delta near Atyrau is rated best in May and September, on a migration route where flamingos, pelicans and swans stop over.

The south: pilgrim routes, hot springs and a border reservoir

Around Shymkent and Turkistan, May is one of the two peak windows, along with September to October. Arystan Bab, the tomb of the man tradition calls Khoja Ahmed Yasawi’s teacher, is about 50 km in a straight line from Turkistan; pilgrims stop here before going on to Yasawi’s mausoleum.

Sairam, on Shymkent’s eastern side, holds the graves of Yasawi’s parents and mausoleums dated from the 9th to the 18th centuries. It is the easiest of the southern sites, about 15 km in a straight line from the city.

Saryagash, on the Uzbek border, is a spa area on hot mineral water (37–50 °C) struck in 1946 by geologists looking for oil. Most sanatoriums are in Kokterek village, 14–16 km from the town. Shardara Reservoir, about 80 km long and also on the Uzbek border, has few confirmed visitor services, and access should be checked first.

Things to do in Almaty in May without a car

Almaty is the simplest base for a May visit, and several top-rated places are reachable by city bus. The Almaty Botanical Garden covers 103.6 ha and is at its best in April and May, when tulips, cherry blossom, magnolias and lilac flower.

• Kok-Tobe: a 1,130 m hill above the city; the 1,620 m cable car from Dostyk Avenue takes about 6 minutes, or take buses 95 and 99.
• Green Bazaar: a covered market trading on the same site since 1868, selling spices, produce and antiques.
• Alma-Arasan: hot springs (20.5–39.7 °C) at about 1,780–1,830 m, 16 km from the city; bus 28 runs to the Olen stop.
• Issyk kurgan: the Saka burial mound at Esik, 50–55 km east, where more than 4,000 gold items were found in 1969–1970; the museum is open daily 9:00–18:00.

Medeu, rated good in May, has 842 steps up to its 150 m mudflow dam, but the rink itself is closed for reconstruction until late 2028.

Central steppe and Astana: Ulytau peaks, the capital warms up

Ulytau, a 200 km granite range with Jochi Khan’s mausoleum and hundreds of recorded monuments, is rated top season in May. It is remote, about 106 km from Zhezkazgan, so transport has to be planned in advance.

Astana itself is rated good rather than best in May. Bayterek, the 105 m tower with its 22 m golden sphere, peaks June to August, and Khan Shatyr is an indoor mall that works in any month. The Ereymentau hills, 127 km from Astana in a straight line, are better from June.

What May is too early for

The lakes of the east and southeast, and the higher mountain valleys, are a few weeks early in May. Plan these for summer instead.

If your trip has a fixed May date and you want water, the reservoir at Shardara in the south is rated best in May, unlike the northern lakes.

What flowers in May is covered on the poppy fields page, and other months in the nature calendar.